Why Faith Is a Bad Way of Knowing
Faith is taking the place of fact in providing the basis for religion. The number of religions claiming full factual support for their beliefs is declining, and fully-literal interpretations of religious texts are becoming less popular. There’s good reason for these trends: given current historical and scientific evidence, it’s hard to see how facts alone justify most religious belief. Something more is now necessary.
That’s where faith comes in. Faith is often described as a “way of knowing” that doesn’t require factual evidence. It’s a deep and sincere feeling that something is true. Many religious believers feel a close emotional connection to their God. To them, this feeling is itself proof of their beliefs; no further evidence is necessary.
Certainly it’s the case that some religious beliefs could be true. The universe is a mysterious place, and our understanding of it is not, and never will be, complete. There may be things that are true but that can’t be proven true with factual evidence. Some of them could be current articles of religious faith. But does faith help us arrive at this truth? What type of certainty does it provide?
The Certainty of Faith
We all know from personal experience that we’re sometimes wrong. Our beliefs aren’t always true. It’s possible to know something to be true only later to find out that it isn’t. When you’re depressed, you may feel helpless and worthless. Your feelings are real — you may feel them so strongly, in fact, that you’re certain they’re true. You may know you’re helpless and worthless even though you aren’t. These feelings are so strong they can cause people to kill themselves.
Knowing is a state of mind. When we know something is true, we feel with great certainty that it’s true. But the act of knowing does not itself make anything true: our mental states represent the world, they don’t control it. A belief that is strongly felt–or even known–can be false. Our feelings themselves are real, but the reality they point to may not be. Faith doesn’t provide any great level of certainty.
So our beliefs and feelings are unreliable. But aren’t they still some indicator of truth? Otherwise anything and everything is equally likely to be true, and that seems absurd. Indeed, it is absurd — our knowledge of the world is imperfect, but we still manage to use it day-to-day. Our senses–emotional or otherwise–are flawed, but that doesn’t mean they’re useless.
Now if all knowledge is imperfect, why single out faith? Why is knowledge obtained through faith worse than any other knowledge? The answer is that, while all ways of knowing are flawed, some are better than others. What makes some ways better? The fact that they can be corrected through thought and experience.
A belief that cannot change can’t be moved closer to truth. Faith-based beliefs could be true, of course, but they could also be false. A strong feeling that something is true doesn’t make it true. You’re not actually helpless and worthless when you’re depressed, even though you may know you are. People who kill themselves due to depression have great faith in their depressed thoughts. Faith-based beliefs are what they are — they can’t be corrected through thought and experience.
Other Problems
There are other reasons to question faith. We tend to believe things we want be be true. Psychology research indicates that people tend to interpret ambiguous information in a way that benefits their interests. Most people think their abilities are above average when compared to their peers. They can’t all be right. We can test our abilities, but we can’t test beliefs we hold on faith. We may hold such beliefs partly because we want to hold them, and in such cases we should be all-the-more-ready to question them.
Our beliefs are strongly influenced by when and where we grow up. I believe the earth is round now, but I’d likely have believed it was flat had I grown up a few thousand years ago. Had I grown up in 10th century Norway, I’d likely have believed in the existence of Thor, the great pagan god of thunder. Faith-based beliefs are, like all beliefs, influenced by upbringing. While we might like to think they’re the product of a transcendent understanding of the universe, the truth is more mundane: we’re likely to possess ones that reflect the time and place we grew up.
That makes it even worse that they can’t be changed. How do I know my present faith-based beliefs are better than ones I might have had had I been born someplace else or at another time? There’s no good way to choose between them. Any belief may be wrong, of course, but only non-faith-based beliefs can be changed through thought and experience. Thought and experience may not allow us to arrive at all truth, but they’re the best tools we’ve got — faith doesn’t bring anything to the table.
A Bad Way of Knowing
Faith is a bad way of knowing. Like all beliefs, faith-based beliefs can be mistaken, and we may hold them only because we like them or because we grew up in a particular time and place. But only faith-based beliefs can’t be corrected through thought and experience. They’re not necessarily wrong–they could even be right–but that doesn’t change the fact that faith is a bad reason for believing them.
Is faith all bad? Not necessarily. Faith-based beliefs can certainly be useful. As many will attest, they can increase happiness. If I want something to be true and I believe through faith that it is true, I may be a happier person. Faith has contributed to the happiness of many people. But is it the only path to happiness? I don’t think so. We can appreciate the wonder and mystery of the universe without having unjustified faith that it is or is not a certain way. We can live with purpose without having faith that this purpose was ordained for us.
Choosing not to live according to faith may, in fact, be a moral choice. If we accept that our beliefs can be wrong and change them when necessary, we stand a greater chance of understanding each other. Without faith we have the tools necessary to bridge differences. The possibility of a peaceful coexistence improves. Faith is not all bad, yes — but it may do more harm than good.
I’m not sure if you are referring specifically to Faith in God or not, but having brain chemistry that allows for, and gives high precedence to the ability to believe in something in the absence of facts to support it, is a survival advantage. If we operate without faith and we operate on empirical evidence alone we would surely not be a very successful species. When enough people do something (like have faith) its important to look at the population in aggregate and not on an individual basis. Morality only comes into it if faith is couple with the God concept. However, how about faith that it will not rain forever, faith that the air will keep being breathable, faith that I will live long enough to make eating my food supply in one day not a great plan, faith that the seeds planted now will bear fruit in the summer, faith the fish will spawn in rivers etc. In a world of very complex cycles and patterns the human brain needs to be able to make some leaps of faith in order to function, I would argue. Over time, more and more of these cycles are studied and migrate from the faith realm to one of a well understood science. However, I would assert the ability to hold believes in the absence of evidence (which is the definition of faith) is a fundamental and critical component of survival. Faith in God is an extension of this, for some having faith that the crops will produce food is enough, for others it is necessary to have faith in a God that will ensure the crops produce food. The latter has the significant advantage of having some input in the process. By prayer and worship it is believed, by the faithful, that they are influencing the outcome of events for which no scientific has yet to be developed.
As for understanding each other and peaceful co-existence, I think those are qualities that only someone with faith can hold dear. Scientific evidence suggests that aggressive, cohesive human sub populations are actually the most likely to survive, so where as, within a sub group it is necessary to have harmony, it’s definitely not so between subgroups. Believe otherwise is faith in an ideal, that science does not support.
Daren
2 Mar 09 at 11:10 am
Hey Daren, thanks for your response.
First, no, I am not talking about any specific kind of faith, in God or otherwise. Second, yes, I agree that faith can, in some cases, be a survival advantage for groups of humans. But that doesn’t mean that it therefore is a good thing. To give a ridiculous example, think of atomic bombs. Yes, having them is a “survival advantage” for some groups of humans, but does mean they’re a good thing? No, it doesn’t.
I disagree that morality cannot exist without faith. I am a moral person. I behave in a moral way, and I encourage others to do so as well, and no faith is involved — I don’t have faith that my principles of morality reflect some deep reality of the universe. They *could*, of course, but I don’t have faith that they do.
Your examples of faith (like “having faith that the crops will produce food”) don’t seem particularly objectionable to me (I’m fine if someone wants to have such faith). But such faith isn’t necessary, useful, or even beneficial for living. Sure, I think the crops will probably produce food (given that they have usually in the past), but I don’t have faith that they WILL produce food. After all, they might not — there could be a drought. And it would be good to plan for such an event rather than just having faith that it won’t happen.
As for your last point (about understanding and peaceful coexistence), I couldn’t disagree more strongly. I want humans to understand each other and coexist peaceful, and I’ll do what I can to make that happen. I don’t claim that science supports me in this view, and in fact, I never mentioned science at all in my article. Where’s the faith in my viewpoint?
miketuritzin
2 Mar 09 at 3:49 pm
You’re a closet hippie
I most certainly would like people to co-exist peaceably too, but I just don’t think that would last very long because sooner or later someone with a big stick comes along.
I didn’t (or didn’t intend to) say “morality cannot exist without faith”, that I fully agree with you. In fact arguably it might be better off without the notion of faith coming into it.
The survival advantage case though I think is a little more complex, arguably, having nuclear bombs is a good thing.
Planning for unfortunate eventualities is the pragmatic side of faith, I think that a fundamental faith that the systems that make the world ‘work’ (water cycles, wind, weather, nitrogen and oxygen cycles etc …) will most likely produce bountiful crops if I plant, hoe, tend, water etc, but storing a reserve of food just-in-case certainly makes a lot of sense. Its no great surprise that churches are both a place to pray and store food. Although some of that comes from the he-who-controls-the-food-gets-to-call-the-shots school of thought.
I bought up science because I think faith is a trait of humanity, its the ability to make leaps of understanding without fully comprehending all the pieces in the middle. Its very important I think for critical thinking. I you can sketch an idea in your head without being overly worried about the pieces all hanging together and then over time go back and complete your understanding then you have science at work, and faith holding it all together.
faith that things will continue to be much as they are is a fundamental requirement of my day. If I had to get up and prove over and over that the floor will hold my weight, that the kettle will boil water if all I do is switch on the gas, then I’d be unable to do anything. We have to have faith (didn’t George Michael say this way long ago?) in order to get things done.
Or possibly we’re both using a different definition. To me, its the assumption of what I think I know, being as I think I know it to be, and continuing, mostly, to be.
I also consider myself a moral person (with minor discretions) and like you, faith has no part in that. At least not at any conscious level.
Daren
2 Mar 09 at 4:41 pm
Well, whether my moral views are realistic or not is beside the point. I’m just claiming that they’re not based on faith. Let’s stay on topic
(And glad to see you agree with them!)
You can argue that nuclear bombs are a good thing, and that’s fine if you think that. (I’m skeptical!) My point was only that the fact that something bestows a survival advantage on a group does not by itself make it a good thing. Some “us-vs-them” versions of morality may bestow advantages on groups, but that doesn’t make them good.
I think that we may indeed be talking about different things when use the word “faith.” I don’t think that “assuming” things that are true now will “mostly” continue to be true is faith, as you seem to be saying. That’s a pretty weak definition of faith
Faith, at least in a religious sense, is based on a strong feeling that something IS true, not that it’s “mostly” or “probably” true. It asserts, without doubt or need for evidence, the absolute reality of something. I’m fine with what you call “faith,” but I wouldn’t use that word to describe it. In any case, arguing over definitions of words is pointless.
miketuritzin
2 Mar 09 at 4:59 pm
Faith to me is intuitive. I have no reason to question it because I feel it. I base a lot of my decisions on intuition. Of course, I take logic into account but the deciding factor is usually based on how I feel or how my decision will eventually make me feel. I have faith in myself, in life, and everything in between. The end.
Yekaterina
2 Mar 09 at 5:48 pm
agree about semantics is pointless.
Let’s take your definition and work from that.
Faith=’a strong feeling that something IS true’;
my point was that, over time, we morph those feels into either out scientific realm (as in that the sun will come up tomorrow) or if more ‘mystical’ in nature, they stay in the religious world. Its a continuum but one that’s important to how people operate. That’s how I got into the evolution thing and survival advantages. So rather that faith being either a good or bad thing, I assert that its a necessary thing. Its a part of who we are.
We are in danger of a cyclical debate, survival advantage is always good, by definition, otherwise its moot. Anything that’s not a survival advantage leads to less of us around to ask the question, and eventually none of us. That might be a good thing I suppose. I’m sure there are a lot of dolphins that would go along with that.
Daren
2 Mar 09 at 5:55 pm
Daren, I think now we are working with different definitions of “good”
I disagree that survival advantage for a particular group is “good,” in the sense that I see nothing inherently good about it. I do see the survival of HUMANS as good, just not any particular group of them at the expense of another. But again, we don’t need to argue about word definitions.
I disagree that faith is “necessary.” Religious faith, for example, is far less common now than it was 1000 years ago, and I expect that trend will continue. If you mean that it’s necessary to make some assumptions about about the world will behave, then I agree with you there, but I wouldn’t call that “faith.” I may assume that things will continue be a certain way, but that doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind if contrary evidence arises.
miketuritzin
2 Mar 09 at 6:58 pm
Yekaterina, thanks for reading and commenting as well.
I agree that feelings and intuition are a crucial part of decision making, and I hope that I didn’t give a different impression from what I wrote. Without feelings and emotion, there is no reason for action. I use them all the time to guide what I do!
But I see “faith” as being different from simply acting based on feelings. Faith imposes a certain reality on the world that is beyond the subjective experience of feelings and emotions. I don’t think that imposition is justified, as I argued above.
Let me repeat, though, that feelings are crucial to everything we do. I’m not saying they should be ignored or discredited.
miketuritzin
2 Mar 09 at 7:11 pm