Faith and Scepticism

I have generally taken a strong pro-religious, pro-spiritual stand in earlier posts. But, reading Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion' has modified my views. I will avoid a direct confrontation between religion and science , however unavoidable it may be.

Let's start of with what we mean by the terms . Faith means utmost, unquestionable belief in any ideology or concept. Remember, faith asks of you not to question or reason. Deep rooted faith comes instinctively or through a process of repetitive exposure to those ideas [ I'll abstain from using the blunt term brainwashing, since I believe it is not a correct term to use]. Faith is particularly useful to the common man, since it helps him give a stop-gap theory for what happens around him. It enforces a kind of boundary on his brain, preventing it from thinking outside that boundary and allowing him to concentrate on his day to day affairs. e.g. A village community believes that the rains happen due to a rain god. This conveniently allows them to skip the pertinent question " What causes rain ? " , something they will struggle to find an answer to, without education, scientific evaluation or inquiry. Similarly, for all of us, faith helps in giving a stop-gap theory to the things beyond our control or beyond our comprehension; whether that theory be right or wrong is a different matter altogether.

Faith exists because it is inherently part of the evolutionary process. Most animals live their lives on the basis of instinct . Instinct is the best form of faith which comes from within oneself. Other forms of faith, like faith on the deeds or actions of another person stems from an instinctive faith in the person .

Scepticism involves questioning each and every aspect of a theory and verifying its truthfulness before accepting it as correct. Scepticism is the foundation for scientific enquiry, and is the prime reason behind the development of modern civilization. Sceptical thought cannot be undertaken instinctively , rather, it is achieved only by prolonged analysis and scrutiny of the concept. This of course, rules out the use of scepticism in many common-place scenarios. Let us say it is a day before the final exam and you haven't studied much. You cannot learn anything unless you have faith in the content of your textbooks and copies.[ Many a times, this faith is betrayed too, especially with copies :) ] However Scepticism and the spirit of enquiry is the reason for the development of the human race.

Scepticism exists because the human brain is complex enough to understand many of the things happening around us. True scepticism is still not common. Even for most of us, who supposedly study, science or engineering or rational thought, we accept most of the concepts without questioning, thus making us students of faith only.

Daily life is a mix of faith and scepticism. Too much faith makes us prone to exploitation by other people who may have malafide intentions. This is one of the biggest drawbacks we see in religion, which bases itself on faith. Too much scepticism , and life becomes really hard to live, and drives one to the edge of sanity. [ The example that comes to my mind is Phaedrus, from Zen and the Art of motorcycle Maintenance , who loses his mental balance after philosophically pursuing the effasive thing called quality ]. A right balance is required. The day we can solve all problems of the world, faith shall not be needed, but I have a feeling that will never happen.