Enhancing faith

Merv wrote:

>But have any of you, because of your
> evolutionary beliefs, found your faith enhanced -- built up?

Reading this and all the various responses caused a few perennially repressed musings to surface from my sub-conscious vault of worries. I've never articulated it but here's a try:

That which enhances faith isn't necessarily true,
That which is true doesn't necessarily enhance faith.
That which destroys faith isn't necessarily false,
That which is false doesn't necessarily destroy faith.

Substitute "faith" with "comfort" for those who are grieving. "joy" for those who aren't. "democracy" for the politicos. or "peace", "assurance of God's will", "conviction", etc.

The net is that we can't determine the truth of a claim or a philosophy or an ideology or a factoid based on the effect it has on people or to the ideas to which it might lead someone. But neither can we ignore the impact that truth may have on ourselves or on others.

This leads to some problems in dealing with people. Take a simple and oft-used example: consider someone who is extremely emotionally distraught about the death of a pet and who is greatly comforted by the thought that they will see their pet in heaven some day. What comforts them is believing it to be true, not whether it is in fact true or false or simply unknown. Do we affirm their belief? or seek to ensure they only believe the "truth?"

Getting honest with myself, how many of my own beliefs are that way? Held dear because of how they affect me rather than any objective reality? Do I really want to apply the objective reality test to all my beliefs? I wonder how many I would have left--or if I would ever have time to figure it out.

Regarding the topics we've been discussing, I'm sure we can cite examples on all sides. YEC and evolutionsim have undoubtedly both destroyed many people's faith. And both have probably enabled it for many others. Atrocities as well as acts of outstanding mercy have been committed in the name of Christianity. Atheism does not strip a person of altruism.

In the end, our knowledge and wisdom are finite and we must always seek truth in love, being sensitive to the implications of our view of truth as well.

Randy
Received on Mon Jun 5 22:16:43 2006