A la Node

If you follow your own mind down the rabbit hole far enough, you run out of logic. At some point, one step fails to follow the next in an orderly and obvious pattern - you come to a gap, and there is no right or wrong answer, just a belief you can’t justify or corroborate via deduction or synthesis. Do you believe path A is right, or path B? No right, no wrong, despite your urge to believe the path you desire is inherently correct and the other quite horrible. Just a place where you have to believe one or the other, because everything you do ever after will be determined by which path you take.

To an atheist and a rationalist, this may be a disturbing cusp, but consider (rationally) Faith, and the uses to which Faith may be put.

If you want motivation, look no further than faith. Unshakable devotion to a particular goal? The grit to see it through? Faith wins over logic every time. Passion springs from faith, I think, not thoughts - rationality may convince you of the correctness of an action, but the faith in your reason, your reasoning, the faith in your own self to see the reasons clearly, this is where passion comes in. Passion is a thing of belief, of perception and emotion, it is clearly the bailiwick of faith, not reason. It is not, however, mindless.

Faith can be chosen, nurtured, intentionally realized. Pare away from it all articles but the central core that adresses the central unknowable, that one choice of A over B which logic cannot make for you, strip it down to that essesnce, and you have something pure and powerful. What you have is a key to your own passion, and further, what you have is no longer a crutch, no longer an excuse, not a fuzzy half-reason for what you do not understand - denuded of material matters, the core of faith becomes a Premise. Rationality can determine a how, a when, a who and a what, Faith can provide a why. Seen clearly, chosen individually, understood for what it is and should be, it need not lead to bible-thumping idiocy and fundamentalist psychopathy. Nor mere superstition, nor dogma, nor mass manipulation… the religions of the world have given Faith a bad name. No, faith is a foundation on which to stand, and creates the passion you need to stand there through the storms.
Consider the power of Faith. Consider a room full of people, united in purpose, impassioned by belief, bolstered by communal support. What can they not accomplish? Be they scientists or catholics, it is the passion arising from faith, and the unity of that faith, that gives them power - makes possible cathedrals and genetics and art.

(Do I mean to say science is a faith? I don’t, and it isn’t. Science is a method - but consider: what drives someone to study and learn the difficult subtlties of scientific discipline, then spend their lives searching after knowlege using the tools they have learned? Sure, you could build a rational argument that our quest for knowlege is ultimately good for the species, or justified by its economics, or that it just makes for a more interesting hobby than stamp collecting, but do you really think those arguments drive anyone to attempt an understanding of the world? Do you think the good of the species is what gets a physicist out of bed in the morning? Passion drives them as it does us all, and buried beneath that passion is a faith that learning is both essential and glorious, that understanding is good and proper - and that is a choice between two paths, a choice made by faith, not dictated by logic.)

It took me a while to find my faith. It took years of digging down to find the question beyond the reach of logic, but whose answer I could feel in my bones. The question that would inform my choices and stoke my passions. It was a simple thing really, and I realised as I chose (or did I only acknowledge a choice already deeply ingrained?), that I had faith in that answer. The choice it embodied was clear and simple to me, something I could be comfortable believing in, a path I could believe was right while not denying the fact that I had chosen it from among several equally rational. Maybe you could call this rational faith. Chosen faith, conscious faith. Maybe it is something new and powerful, or maybe it is just what every philosopher always does anyway, as they find some principle to hang their minds on. Maybe you would not call it faith at all.

A last thought: I believe faith, real faith, is only meaningful if applied to that which cannot be rationally known. Believing that the the universe is infinite in temporal extent may seem like an act of pure faith, but it is not - the extent of the universe is knowable, there is a definite answer, whether we can figure it out or not. Believing that the human race should colonise and fill the universe is a fit subject for faith - it is a “should”, not a knowable, measurable, confirmable or deniable fact. It is a choice. Here I think religion has done its worst libel against the concept of faith, turning it into a belief in a set of “facts” rather than a platform from which moral choices can be made.

It is late, and I find myself rambling - there is so much more to say, so much finer a point to be put on this, so much that should be made more clear… but I suppose my audience of 2 might forgive me for leaving it here for now. More soon.