The Illusion of Faith

                Faith, though it is a religious concept that I can at least understand fully, is perhaps the most devious invention in the theistic arsenal. The basic premise of faith is that one should believe what they are told about god, despite there being no affirmative evidence, and mountains of doubt. On its own, this is an entirely stupid notion, and if it remained this way then every intelligent being on this planet, so about half of all human beings and a few dolphins, would be non-religious. But this is where it gets devious. Building off the idea I said earlier, what is then added is the notion that faith is a good thing, a virtue. (and the very word “faith” sounds better than “gullibility.”) So now the premise becomes: "Believe what I say about god, because god says that it’s a good thing." This quickly turns into a case of circular reasoning, as you can surely see. The two different points prop each other up. If you look closely at what the argument is saying, it comes down to “You should believe in my point because according to my point, you should believe in it.” It’s like if I were to tell you that you’re standing on top of an invisible unicorn. You have no reason to believe you are, except that I tell you, but what if I told you that if you don’t believe in it, the unicorn will rear and knock you on your ass? It’s still not very believable, but this at least makes it easier to see that in order for my second point to be true, my first must also be.

                So what is it that makes faith such a convincing trap?  I mean, billions of human beings dive head first into this logical fallacy, even I was stuck in the loop for a little while. The answer to this is a rather malicious one, as well as a multi-faceted one. The first aspect that makes faith believable is psychology, which also breaks down into a few separate points. First off, when someone tells you that you’re standing on an invisible unicorn, you immediately question whether this is true, and are inclined to doubt that it can be proven. But when the same person starts telling you all about what this unicorn can do (like, apparently, phase changing to meld in with the floor you’re standing on!) then you begin to doubt yourself. Psychologically this is simply because the person talking to you did something that defies the principles of logic. Basically, he made points based off of another point he made, without proving the first point! One has to prove something before going off of it to be rightly able to assume it is true, but theists skip straight to the second point. So you, having been first told that there’s a freaking unicorn beneath you, are then you are told that he’ll rear if you don’t behave. The reason that it becomes more tempting to believe after the second point is made is that on a subconscious level, one kind of assumes that the first point has been proven if someone is already making points based on it. Our minds naturally bend towards logic, but the problem is that we assume that it’s there when it isn’t, and as soon as we do this we allow ourselves to believe things that have no logical backing. The second way in which faith is psychologically forced on us is simpler, it’s the bandwagon effect. 90% of the earth’s population believes that there is a god of some sort, and usually 100% of the people one grows up with believe the same things about god. Again, we subconsciously use logic, and seeing that so many other people believe something tends to yield the conclusion that it must be true. It’s sort of akin to the way that if a friend tells you the answer to a math problem, you’ll often assume that it’s right rather than do the math, if it’s long and complicated.  So when we are told by an overwhelming amount of people that something, anything really, is true, then we are inclined to have more doubt in our own ability to deduce fact than in that of the majority. And so, at any point in life, a belief in god can be programmed into our minds without us even thinking about it once.
         Sure, there are plenty of people who are logical thinkers, who are unafraid to disagree with the majority, but who still believe in god. This would naturally make one assume that they came up with a logical explanation for the matter of god’s existence, however even they have prejudices towards the majority. Since they have likely been raised on the idea that god exists, then it is, like with all of us, programmed into their brains. They may have different ideas of god due to their independence, perhaps of a god that makes more logical sense than the traditional gods. But still, their versions of this god are still subject to the prejudiced idea that there is a god in the first place. This is the most basic level on which these prejudices are drilled into our heads, which is likely the reason a critical minded person may skip over it when logically evaluating the topic of god. I’m not saying that this basic prejudice is never shattered by logical thought, that’s how atheists and agnostics come about, but my point is that these different levels of prejudice that have been psychologically burned into our heads, are how people can be perfectly logical and still believe in god. It’s simply a matter of where it occurs to them to apply logic, and where they are or aren’t willing to change their beliefs.

     So, a long story short, faith is a bull shit word. It is a vice, disguised as a virtue; it's idiocy disguised as intuition. It is the single most popular way in which religion maintains control over it's victims, a true psychological angler fish, if you will. By playing off faith as such a wonderful thing, and when we live in a society where the very word faith is generally looked on as somehow sacred, people are discouraged from denying it. Before a person even has doubts about their religion, they are told again and again that having doubts makes them a bad Christian, (I can only assume it applies to other religions as well) and so discouraged are they from having doubts, they are too terrified to leave their faith! Mind you, it's nice to believe in god, I wish that such a myth were true myself. (to some extent) But the thing is that it isn't true, the Christian god doesn't exist, and simple introspection and innate wisdom can tell anyone this. Faith, to describe it in one sentence, is religion's ill-contrived, deceptive lie that is used as a defense mechanism from its followers' common sense. This, my friends, is what we are up against.

Sincerely,

The Ellipsis