Having Faith

As I approach age 65, I realize that I do not understand faith. Who devised this game of existential Russian Roulette? The rules, laws, and boundaries of THIS life cannot inform some mythical and imaginary Universe beyond the grave. No one requests entrance here. How then do we have some choice as to our exit? How then are we culpable?

Since the beginning of recorded history, human beings from every culture, society, and faith have believed in a Spirit World beyond death. We seem to feel instinctively that we and those before us somehow travel to someplace else after we die. But we have no idea why this is. I think it is because we are aware from childhood of the reality of death. Other animals are self-aware, use language and tools, experience emotion, feel pleasure and pain, nurture and educate their young, and avoid danger. The main thing which seems to separate us from them is our awareness of an end to life.

To my distress, we live in a time of great cynicism. Politicians, used car salesmen, real estate agents, and church clergy all lie to us almost as often as they take a breath. The Internet has brought fraud, scams, spam, hackers, and dishonesty into every person's living room. The Bible states that "without Faith it is impossible to please God". Jesus himself said that if "Anyone has faith the size of a mustard seed, and he says to a mountain -- "move over there" -- it will happen". In the world of seeds, the mustard is very tiny. I have known all my life that I do not have that kind of belief or faith. But should not at least ONE person in the past 2,000 years of recorded human history have possessed this kind of faith? Apparently no one -- not one.

As I read the Bible, this seems to be the foundational message of Jesus Christ. Not "you need a savior", but rather "you need to believe in something unknowable". HE said that. HE made that important. THAT comes first, and everything else follows from that.

The dirty little secret of all religion is that everyone has big doubts. Some will admit it, but most do not do so publicly. Faith requires belief in the unknown, which in turn leads to Certainty, and only THEN do you get "saved". For the rest of us -- we who admit we just cannot ever know about life after death, we are left with either a mystery or a Lie (Pascal's Wager).

I do not know how to believe something which is not real. It is not encouraging, neither does it give one "hope" -- it's depressing. As far as I am aware, this life is all we will ever have, and that without any initiation or choice on our part. I did not ask to be born, nor did I have any participation in some Original Sin. And this some folks label "justice"? It's rather cruel. Human beings do not have existential free will. We can chose which breakfast cereal to eat, and with whom to mate, but we have no choice or control over life and death. The best we can accomplish here is damage control.

You (God..., someone) demands that a "choice" be made, even if I must "fake it" (the Wager). It is illogical, and it is irrational. Whether I use my heart or my mind, all I can do -- all any of us can do -- is to stare into the darkness. That's what I know.