More on Faith

This interview with Dr. Francis Collins, one of the leaders of the human genome project, in Christianity Today Magazine is well worth reading. Excerpt:

I think of God as the greatest scientist. We human scientists have an opportunity to understand the elegance and wisdom of God's creation in a way that is truly exhilarating. When a scientist discovers something that no human knew before, but God did—that is both an occasion for scientific excitement and, for a believer, also an occasion for worship. It makes me sad that we have slipped into a polarized stance between science and religion that implies that a thinking human being could not believe in the value of both. There is no rational basis for that polarization. I find it completely comfortable to be both a rigorous scientist, who demands to see the data before accepting anybody's conclusions about the natural world, and also a believer whose life is profoundly influenced by the relationship I have with God. Science is our most powerful tool for studying the natural world, but science doesn't necessarily help us so much in trying to understand God; that's where faith comes in.

(via Emily) I have been contemplating a post on faith again, stimulated by this Mystic Knight post. This interview seems a great intro to that post. I suggest you read the entire interview and then come back and read my meager offerings. As an aside, I find the entire concept of the proseletyzing atheist to be a bit amusing. I have always been amazed by the power of Faith to change individuals and alter society. Admittedly, some of the actions of people motivated by faith have not been good. There have been bloody religious wars, inquisitions, and of course, modern international terrorism has a powerful faith component as well. It is plain though, that Faith has an immense amount of power. Like all sources of power it can be used for good or ill. That alone though hardly seems to be a reason to discount it or try and do away with it altogether. Scientific advancement shares this characteristic with Faith, but I don't know of any atheists who would advocate that society eschew science because it presents dangers. What exactly is faith, and why does it exist is a fundamental question. It seems that humans have a deep desire to form a mystical connection to the unknowable. Many atheists claim that this is merely the result of thousands of years of societal programming and hidebound traditions. That seems to me to be an insufficient explanation. It also ignores the profound personal effects that faith can have on a person. A good portion of my outlook on the world is utilitarianism. Things that work deserve a certain amount of respect, even if we don't understand exactly why and can't explain it fully. In my personal observations, those people with a great deal of religious faith (and I don't mean they loudly proclaim it, instead they tend to devoutly live it) are happier, and better, people than those who do not share this trait. This seems to be a characteristic of people of deep faith regardless of the actual religion they practice. Pope John Paul II and the Dali Lama are well known examples of the type of person I am talking about. There a countless others, most of whom you wouldn't realize had this deep well spring of faith unless you knew them well. I am not one of those people. I am too honest with myself, at least in this circumstance, to rationalize that I am not one of these people because I am smarter than them, or I have freed myself of their silly superstitions. I lack deep faith because of pride. I am unwilling to submit. Some would claim this is a strength, a positive character trait. I am not so sure about that. It is I think relevant to examine how and why faith can go bad. I think that faith goes wrong in the same way that science can go wrong. When you have discovered a great truth, their is a tendancy to assume that because you know this truth their is now nothing that is unknown. One answer becomes all answers and the search for further knowledge, further truth, is abandoned. This leads to dogmatism and intolerance. The solution is of course obvious, and espoused by both science and religion, although infrequently followed: humility. I have mentioned in several comments on various sites, an analogy made by Kim Stanley Robinson in his book The Years of Rice and Salt. To paraphrase Robinson, Gods words fall to man like rain upon dry earth. The result is mud, which although lacking the purity of the rain, is nonetheless good for life. I think that all the many forms of mud, the worlds religions, derive from the same pure rain. All contain elements of base earth (humanity) and none are the pure substance. As such, religious people should be willing, even eager, to learn from one another and to try and discover knowledge that they currently lack and gain greater enlightenment. This doesn't mean taking a relativist view, or abandoning one's principles, or even the trust in one's particular faith. It does however mean being willing to explore, with an open mind, other systems and other beliefs. It also doesn't mean that all faiths are necessarily equal, and that we cannot, as individuals, choose from among them. Just because all religions are mud, doesn't mean that some mud doesn't have more pure water than others. You can trust in the mud that you have without closing your mind to the possibility that their is better mud out there somewhere.