A statement on faith and religion

This was originally addressed to friends of mine on www.facebook.com. I'd now like to post it here for the general public to see. Spanish version to come soon.

---------------------

This note concerns itself with the concept of faith as its entered my life. As some, but not all of you, now know, I have decided to let religion become a part of who I am. While this may be puzzling to some, it seems rational for me to explain myself. The reason I tagged all of you is because in ways large and small, every single one of you has had a meaningful impact in my life. You are all important to me, and I can't emphasize that enough. Some of you I've lost touch with, but as I've come to realize, that doesn't really matter: your true friends are not true because you talk to them all the time, but because in a time of need, they will be there for you, and you for them.

First, I would like to discuss the way in which I came to accept these ideas into my life. My parents, good people that they are, raised me as an atheist after they had escaped from the evils of Franco's Catholic dictatorship in Spain. I don't blame them at all, and in fact I would go so far as to say that had I been in their position, I would have done the same. Through my youth, I was told of the repressive actions on the part of so-called Christians that forced a perverted form of this beautiful faith down the throats of an entire generation of Spaniards. In that environment, it is not difficult to see why people would turn against the Church, as it no longer represented a viable path for a bright, sustainable future.

The kind of zealotry practiced by these Spanish "Catholics", I believe, goes completely against what Jesus Christ preached. Throughout the Gospels, though my knowledge of them is admittedly limited, we see in him a figure who preached brotherhood and love above all else. Those who ignore those tenets forsake, in my opinion, the right to be called Christians.

I, on the other hand, was presented with no such repression. I grew up enjoying the freedoms and liberties upon which this great nation was founded. I remember accepting my parents' beliefs as a child, gradually changing over time. While the atheist claims to approach the world with a scientific method, he fails to realize that his ultimate conclusions, while perhaps more methodological, are as much a leap of faith as an absolute faith that God DOES exist.

The essential question here is, of course, how one can be religious without being completely certain in the existence of God. The answer is perhaps more simple than meets the eye: faith. It is universal to all humans, religious or not. The easy, conventional assumption is to brand faith as something tied inseparably to religion. It's not the case. For those of you in a relationship, think of the love you and your partner have for one another. You see its manifestations, but you do not see the love itself. It is an abstract concept, and our belief in it is what keeps it strong. The economy is another example. From a material point of view, it is non-existent. And yet it is everywhere in our lives, affecting everything we do, as this latest crisis is showing us. My point is, as the Reverend at my church said yesterday, that every human, religious or not, has faith in a better state of affairs. We all have a vision of our lives as they should be, rather than as they are.

That said, faith in God is not so different. We don't see God, and yet His impact in every society around the world is impossible to deny. The most fascinating aspect about this notion about God is that whether or not He in fact exists, He continues to influence and, in many cases, shape the world in which we live, for better and for worse.

The prevalence of religion throughout the world is another fascinating topic, and it deals with the basic human inability to explain not only the natural world, but our ultimate origins. My own belief is that such questions are beyond the scope of the human mind, our most powerful tool. After a recent conversation with an atheist friend of mine, he put forth an interesting analogy: early in human history, people were unable to explain why thunder came from the sky. These were people who could never dream that such a mystery could ever be solved in human history. And yet today, here we stand, with a simple textbook definition on how and why lightning and thunder occur. Logically, my friend argued, the same thing will one day happen with explaining the origins of the universe.

Perhaps science will accomplish this goal one day in the very distant future. My own belief, however, is that it is not meant to be. Whereas the quest to discover the causes of thunder and lightning was caused by an observation of an apparently inexplicable phenomenon, the causes of our own origins include no such observations. In short, we have no clue, no hypothesis, and no methods to solve the mystery as to why we are here. We simply are. Any speculation into our origins, whether scientific or religious, is a leap of faith.

That said, my belief is that the goal of religion should be less about explaining the origins of the universe, of the Earth, and of Humanity, but rather to provide an inner strength to each and every human being. I first went to church a few weeks ago not to solve these mysteries, but to realize the truth that God resides within each and every one of us, just as love or the economy might. The Christian faith I've seen in these few weeks is one about individual development, about love for your neighbors, and above all, about finding a path to a better life. In my life I have met people who I have considered to be true Christians, whom I respected deeply even before my own foray into faith. These were people whose faith was solid that it absolutely completed their lives. This is not because they have the answers to the origins of the universe (because they don't), but because emotionally, religion had filled a gap that very few people on this earth, even religious ones, have managed to seal. These are the people who I seek to emulate. It is this completeness that I seek, in my own way, as we all should.

Amen.