Faith Itself

Allow me to preface my article with this: I am among the least qualified to talk about belief. That being said, I, along with everyone else, must take a stand on one position. We are all shown evidence, much of it conflicting, and we are forced to make a choice about reality. This is entirely personal, and I will even argue subjective at its very definition.

We all have to fight with time. The sand in the hour glass is fleeting, and death’s icy grip is ever tightening. How then, shall we live? Even more importantly than that, what should we believe (as our beliefs directly influence our actions)? The problem, we soon realize as a child whose boundless optimism fades into bitterness, is that the world is a very strange place… and it is cruel. The years burn, as the Smashing Pumpkins aptly said.

In this Hell, we must choose our beliefs. Yet there's nothing that can be completely proven. Believing in the external world itself is an act of faith. We are relying on our senses, which are limited and weak from an evolutionary standpoint. Biologically, we’re built solely for survival, equipped with “selfish genes.” The very existence of the universe is something that should be impossible. After all, as Shakespeare once wrote in King Lear, “nothing will come of nothing.” Atheism and Theism are both equally nonsensical when it comes to answering our origins. Either nothing sparked something, or God, which came from nothing, sparked something. Life is inherently absurd.

The only thing that can actually be proven is that the self exists, “I think therefore I am.” Yet this is hardly a coherent worldview. Every belief in your mind is a leap of faith. If you believe that the universe has just always existed, that’s faith. If you believe that God has always existed, that’s faith.

I believe in God because I know that in atheism, the universe will burn out. It will take billions of years, but the stars will die, and to the dark we will return. Therefore, there can be no true value in secular humanism, as there is no legacy. On the other hand, I see that belief in God, and Christianity in particular, is a rebellion against the absurd. Love is a rebellion against the death and sadness of our natural state, and no one demonstrated that love more clearly than Jesus.