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Faith nothing mysterious, just a red herring |
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Written by James Linville
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Thursday, 19 March 2009 |
Frank Knoch (“Faith can’t be argued with human reason”) recommends that I ask God to reveal himself after reading (“without bias”) John’s Gospel. I will, but only if Mr. Knoch reads Norse and Babylonian mythology without bias before praying to Odin and Ishtar.
As many have observed, everyone disbelieves in most gods. Atheists just disbelieve in all deities equally.
I can assure Mr. Knoch that I already have read the Bible and visited “Christian turf.” Professor Craig Evans recently spoke at the Evangelical Free Church. He argued that the Gospels are true because their original wording can be recovered. The faithful were edified but hardly educated by this absurdity, but perhaps that was the point.
Religion’s special status means society often regards someone as an expert in ethics or public affairs simply by virtue of becoming the leader of a congregation. Religious sensibilities are often too fragile to upset. Religious ideas are often taken seriously simply because they are religious, not because they have any intrinsic merit (e.g., creationist pseudo-science).
Mr. Knoch holds that faith is beyond reason, making any rational dialogue with faith “ridiculous.” I admit the futility of playing hockey against a team that boards up its net, but not because that team has any god-given talent.
Faith is not some mysterious, extra-human category of heightened knowledge and certainty. Its objects are merely those ideas that a religious community does not wish to have questioned. Faith is not some giant white whale against which atheist Ahabs will destroy themselves if they try to slay it. It is but a pretentious red herring that merits little regard.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” as they say. Divine roaring too often proves to be mere humans issuing decrees behind a mystifying veil that masks their fallibility. Secularists of all stripes should join together in calling their bluff when their lives are impacted by this. Any idea advertised as too special for public debate is probably a bad idea or outrightly malicious.
Mr. Knoch writes, “let’s give equal time” to the decorating of buses with a biblical passage that calls unbelievers fools. Let’s not “give” him any such thing; it is merely the drawing of another privileged curtain. But let’s protect his right to book advertising space and pay for it himself.
James Linville
Lethbridge
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