The Worth of Belief
How often have you found yourself in a discussion with an fundie of one religion or another, and heard the following phrase, or one like it.
“It’s not about belief, It’s about the truth! This is what God says in His holy word. It is absolute truth and anything else is false.”
It seems the more absolutist a religion is, the more it’s adherents fear those two little words… “I believe”. What is it about the idea of belief that causes them such angst? Do they not understand the difference between what is believed and what can be proven objectively? Well, in reality, its not that they cannot understand the difference, but rather they will not understand it. Allow me to expand on that.
Each theist of us holds our faith to be “the truth”. Each of us has exactly the same amount of objective evidence to show that our faith is true and others are false…none.
Each of us believes we speak to the Divine. Each of us has a personal and intimate relationship with the Divine. Each of us is sure of our final destination.
The phrasing most often used by Fundamentalist Exclusivist religions is one that says “I am right by default. Mine is the only religion any sane person would hold. Your faith is foolish.” It intimates that they are in a position of proven veracity that none of the rest of us can meet. It claims an objectivity and a credibility over other faiths that is unmerited and unsupportable. It is the religious equivalent of “1+1=3, and anyone who believes otherwise is an idiot”.
It is also counterproductive. It isn’t a terribly good tool for witnessing to people of other faiths, or even no faith. At best people in modern times, who have dealt with at least one used car salesman, can easily see when they’ve been fed an unsupported claim of truth, a “sales pitch” if you will. At worst it drives people away from what is supposed to be the goal, to “win souls”. When dealing with other people of faith you have to keep one thing in mind; they hold their faith as dearly as you hold yours. If you try to lead off by telling them how wrong they are you will drive them away from your God. Now if you aim is simply to “preach the gospel” then that isn’t a problem I suppose, but if your aim is to spread the knowledge of your God in order that others might be “saved”, then you are working against your God. You simply cannot insult someone into your religion.
The saddest part is how unnecessary it is. In my considerable time as a Fundamentalist Christian I saw many types of “witnessing”. The most successful witnesses are not those who go around saying “I’m right, your wrong, and if you don’t accept my God it’s your own damn fault for burning in Hell”. The most successful witnesses are those who say “I believe”.
Those two words, “I believe” are some of the most powerful in the English language. They are statements of faith. They are acknowledgments of truth, as we see it. They are affirmations of a stance that cannot be moved. They are pillars of strength of commitment of heart and soul to the Divine.
They are also inviting words. They are inclusive of people without being lukewarm of faith. They are words that bring people to the table instead of driving them away. They are words which say “I am secure enough in my faith, that I can listen to and understand why you have your faith.”
Some people might say that using “I believe” is wishy-washy, that it is denying “the truth”, that people who use it are relativists, or even worse they are *gasp* liberals…
To them I say, “not so”. The person who uses those words is truly strong in his faith. The person who uses those words is one of the few who actually understands what faith is. Faith is not proven fact, it is unproven fact. 1+1=2 is not a matter of faith, but the Love of the Divine is. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The person who uses “I believe” truly understands this, and this is what the Divine desires of us. All faiths have a dictum which generally follows “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
We are not called to prove the unprovable, to verify the unverifiable, to make boasting of our faith, or to work through vain claims that we cannot support. We are not called to boast about how right we are. We are called, each person of faith, to simply believe, and to “and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear”.
That is the real worth and value of why “I believe”.
