Posted by
Josh Kon on Monday, December 01, 2008 12:00:57 PM
Many atheists argue that faith is not only unnecessary but that it is at-odds with reason. Thus, society should completely discard it for the destruction that, they argue, inevitably ensues. But this argument runs into two overt roadblocks: One, these atheists are hoisting up reason, an inherently amoral device, as an independent source for morality; and two, faith leads, at the very least, to moral conclusions just as often as immoral ones. But before moving further, let's flesh out these two ideas so that we can see how, contrary to the argument above, society should not only tolerate faith but cherish it for it is essential to our survival.
To begin with, reason, by itself, is utterly amoral; it will just as likely lead a person to immoral choices as to moral ones. Imagine a man, for instance, who finds a bag with $1,000,000 of unmarked bills, and he knows he could take that money without anyone ever knowing, and he will never get in any trouble for it. What does "reason" tell him to do? (That's a rhetorical question for any socialists out there who seem fine with taking other people's money even if people do know about it.)
Another way to look at reason is that it is only as good as the moral framework in which it is applied. For example, if one's moral framework tells him Aryans have a far greater human value than Jews, then reason "morally" tells him to do with Jews as he pleases. All this shows us is that reason can in no way be an independent source of morality as it is, by definition, amoral.
We now come to faith. Faith is, in a worst-case scenario, also an amoral institution—it leads people to do good just as much as bad. But in truth, faith -- at least the Judeo-Christian variety -- generally leads people to better choices. Sure, extremists exist who take faith and use it to commit evil. We, however, call them "extreme" for a reason: they are -- well -- extreme; they do no represent the majority of the faithful -- or even a significant minority. And no less importantly, a theist's potential for evil is relatively limited, as they must fit their corruption into a pre-existing faith framework -- an exercise in which an evil atheist would never need to engage. He does not answer to any higher authority, only his own demented heart.
Thus, those that just carelessly blame the evil we find in the world on too much faith and too little reason engage in nothing more than a quest blinded by preconceived prejudices towards religion. Surely it was not critical and objective analysis that got them to this confused and dark place.
Indeed, when one correctly confronts an atheist with all the unprecedented death that atheist regimes brought onto humanity in a mere century (more than all the religions of history combined), they argue back saying "those are not atheists who embrace the ideals I am talking about!" They conveniently claim that they must only take responsibility for the handful of atheist people who engage in careful and critical thinking; only the atheists who have abandoned "faith," be it spiritual (like Judaism) or secular (like Communism and Nazism), are their brethren. But this is a sleight of hand. The religious must somehow take responsibility for all people that exercise a God-based/spiritual religious faith and the atheist must not take responsibility for all the people who don't.
Now, of course, we do not want people coming to a situation with faith alone—religious or secular. Reason obviously plays an important role of focusing one's faith to use it for good and not for bad. But to say "faith" is the problem is a misnomer. Faith, by itself, is just as much of the problem as is reason, by itself. You need both. As stated above, you need faith to create the framework in which reason is applied. Even if one does not believe in God, they must concede that a notion like "all people deserve liberty" is a faith-based proposition.
So, it seems the atheists are wrong again. We need both reason and faith. And those that seek to rid our society of either embark on an arrogant, destructive and foolish journey.