Questioning religion requires faith

Tuesday, January 12, 1999

Questioning religion requires faith

BELIEFS: Search for answers in highly advanced society often
unearths new doubts

I recently relived one of my favorite "Simpsons" episodes: In
it, the entire family was brainwashed by a cult, only to later
discover it was all a hoax. Laughing out loud, I watched this
clever spoof of cult life as it played off the ridiculous rituals
of the group and the odd charisma of the leader. "How insane!" I
said, snickering at the dazed, monotone voices of the mumbling
group members and wondering how on G-d’s green earth Homer ever
gave up beer (a cult no-no).

But then, as I heard myself laughing, I began to question just
how ridiculous it really was. I mean, these sects may believe that
little green men are their saviors, but it seems no more
preposterous than organized religion. Is it any more absurd to have
faith in ancient stone statues, a man who died almost 2,000 years
ago or the Biblical story of creation? Maybe what makes these cults
so alluring to those without direction is that they offer what
organized religions cannot: direction toward a present or
forthcoming visual being or icon on which members can focus their
energies and faith.

So, the imperious dilemma is how we can place faith in what we
can’t see, especially now. As products of this predominantly visual
and scientific culture, we as intelligent, curious creatures should
be compelled to question the very existence of G-d and the
genuineness of religion.

Perhaps the doubts come at that "first moment" when something
triggers us to question religion. That moment of doubt may have
been an unsatisfactory answer from our rabbi or finding out that
Santa Claus isn’t real. No matter how die-hard you are for a
religion, I suspect that every one of us has experienced
doubts.

Some may have stopped at that, but for most people, I believe
our doubt of the intangible continued as scientific explanations
began to conflict with religious explanations. For me, it was a
combination of this advanced study and my own hypocrisy that called
into question my true faith. You see, I began to catch myself
"using religion," as many do, just when I needed it.

I was once caught in a blinding fog, alone in the freeway in the
middle of the night. Even though I had not been to temple in more
months than my rabbi cares to remember, I found myself saying,
"G-d, if you will only get me out of this and keep me safe, I’ll be
a good Jew again."

Suffice it to say, as soon as I survived the fog, my religious
report card was not on the upturn. I witness people using G-d on a
regular basis. Come Christmastime, commercial gifts really seem to
turn some Christians into a devout group. I also find otherwise
unreligous types praying for cures to a friend or family member’s
disease.

Not surprisingly, once the gift-giving stops and the cures
arrive, the religiousness wanes. After a little soul-searching, I
think many of us will find that we are using G-d, picking and
choosing what we want out of religion, because we don’t take Him or
religion seriously enough – if not consciously, then perhaps
unconsciously.

It’s not necessarily our fault, either. Thousands of years ago,
Neanderthal man had much less to work with. Darwin had not yet
graced the scientific world, and no one had dug up the remains that
Neanderthal and his closest friends would become. Even in the time
of the impressively astute Greeks, mythological gods and goddesses
were an answer to what could be understood in no other way.

Today, however, modern science and its influence are
inescapable, gracing the covers of Time and even the covers of our
high school textbooks. Combine this with our visually-oriented
culture and you have a recipe for religious disaster. It seems we
are weaned into a society that automatically accepts the concrete
but distrusts the abstract.

We want proof, we want answers, we want to see what we’re
investing our precious time in. Why believe Lot’s wife turned into
a pillar of salt upon looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah, if the
laws of physics suggest this is highly unlikely? Why believe in
Adam and Eve and a talking snake when today’s history books suggest
that the human race evolved from simpler organisms?

In the face of all this evidence and our "pick and choose"
approach to religion (which suggests our own latent uncertainty),
we can’t help but infer that religion may be no more than an
explanation, rather than a pious and real institution. Maybe G-d is
not a He or an It but rather an answer to all the questions that
can’t be answered … something to believe in when nothing else
works, and something to use when we fear the unknown.

It is easy to see, then, how we might have created our age-old
religions to satiate our once-meager conception of the world. They
may have served (and even continue to serve) as no more than
answers to our frustration.

So does one hint of doubt make us Darwinian? I’d like to think
not. When we question the existence of G-d, we are not suddenly
doomed to hell and excommunicated from our faith. Perhaps in His
never-ending desire to keep us guessing, the man behind the curtain
has orchestrated the ultimate test of faith. That is, He not only
expects but also wants us to question His existence.

Even if G-d does not exist, this questioning still stands as a
sign of true human intellect, showing who among us is not so
dogmatic to blindly follow anything without truly dissecting and
contemplating it. After all, they say the true mark of a wise
person is one who asks more questions than he or she answers.

If nothing else, what I hope you will extract from this column
is the following: Whether religion is man-made or not, whether a
god exists or not, one should not forget the importance of either
religion or a set of values. After all, those children who grow up
with religion generally become more law-abiding, successful, happy
and moral people than those who do not. Religion (or personal
variants on it) provide a basis of moral guidance, a feeling of
belonging, and quite simply a reason to live.

All you Seinfeldians out there may remember when George’s
neurotic father engaged in his version of a holiday alternative to
Christmas. "Festivus," as it was called, did encumber some bizarre
rituals, such as family members taking turns at insulting one
another or chopping down and decorating a metal pole instead of a
tree. But, it was an alternative to the mainstream – "Festivus for
the rest of us!" George’s father proclaimed.

What this showed – and believe me there is a method to my
madness – is that no matter what you believe in, at least you
believe in something.

And in a day and age where there’s not much left to believe in,
perhaps a little leap of faith isn’t so bad.

Lisa Silver

Comments, feedback, problems?

© 1998 ASUCLA Communications Board[Home]