These past two weeks the topic of faith has been flung at me from all directions and often from the most unexpected places. Due to this, my thoughts about faith have been buzzing diligently within my skull and hence I shall emancipate them here.
One of the most horrible and yet most fortunate traits of being human is not knowing a very vast majority of things. There exist several questions to which we simply do not have answers, and so we use faith (in many forms, including hypotheses and theories) to fill these unanswered voids.
Faith can be classified into three categories:
These is immediate faith- the faith which is the foundation of all religious institutions but is often also found in other areas. This kind of faith is very cut and dry. It is simply choosing a theory and accepting that theory to be true. Religion is the perfect example here - even though I hesitate to use it. Unfortunately however, it is too good an example to pass up. Religion is a very clear example of immediate faith for it provides the answers immediately and hence labels all other faiths as false. Note in particular how this kind of faith completely cripples all prospects of searching for answers.
Then there is primary mediate faith. This faith is quite specific. It accepts that there are things we don't know and further asserts that research and study will allow us to discover these things. It provides no substitute for what is not yet known. Note how this faith very powerfully encourages the search for knowledge.
Finally there is secondary mediate faith. This is better known as open-minded faith. Whilst accepting certain theories, this faith acknowledges that they are only theories and is open to replacing these theories with facts when these facts become known. It is a well-balanced mix of primary mediate and immediate faith. Whilst it does not encourage the search for knowledge as strongly as primary mediate faith does, it is very useful as it provides some dogma to apply in life until the facts become known.
In reality one may use a mix of two or all of the different kinds of faith, for example having an adamant religious core but being open to some of the religious dogma being changed over time.
On a personal note, my preferred faith is primary mediate, although I use secondary mediate too in some cases as I need it to get by.
Some people may claim to have no faith at all, although this is only true as they are using a different definition of faith. By virtue of the above three definitions the only plausible way of having no faith is by admitting there is knowledge we don't know and not knowing whether further research will provide answers or not. Although such a lack of faith means not only having no dogma to live by but also not searching for any knowledge, hence living life not only knowing no truth, but also with no hope of learning the truth. Ironically, faith is required for one to gain knowledge.
On a side-note I would also like to point that if any atheistic person is asked by a religious fanatic about a topic which (s)he feels (s)he knows the answers too whilst the non-believer does not, remember that they don't "know" either, they only believe and as such everyone on Earth is on the same level when it comes to these questions as no matter how strongly you believe something, believing is not knowing.
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