If you would be a
real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you
doubt, as far as possible, all things. -René
Descartes
Faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen.
- Hebrews 11:1
The words “Faith Hope Love” are painted on the wall next to my TV, and
on the ceramic dish on my stove. “Hope” is written in the image of the bird
above my dog’s bed; “Thank God” in the middle quote of a three-part series, and
there is a painting of Hebrews 6:19 I commissioned my friend Jamie to
illustrate with an anchor: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul.”
I’m not sure I believe in God. I collected these “faith reminders”
over the past four years, roughly around the time my father passed away. Two
years before that I tattooed an anchor on my ribs, an homage to hope being my
anchor. This was nine months after my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, and
one year before I started therapy.
One cool Tuesday afternoon in 2010, I was in the same chair I sat in
for fifty minutes every week while my therapist Stephanie asked the usual: How
has your week been? Have you talked to your dad? What’s going on with your
boyfriend? I explained how I went home to New Jersey the weekend before, and he
wasn’t doing so well. I didn’t feel like giving the gory details of how he
stopped speaking, and I wasn’t even sure he knew I was there. The silence
lasted only a minute between us when she asked, “Do you have a spiritual faith?
I find that most people have an easier time with these things if they have some
kind of faith.”
I told her that I wasn’t sure, but that sounded really nice for those
people.
“How do other people get
through it?” I asked.
“Therapy,” she sighed.
My entire life my mother was a self-proclaimed Atheist. I didn’t make
Communion in the second grade like everyone else, and I didn’t attend CCD every
Wednesday. I was eight-years old when my mother told me we would start
attending church. I was off playing with my Barbie’s, or whatever else kept me
very busy, when she told me, “Cara, we’re going to start going to church on
Sundays,” to which I replied, “Mommy. It’s not that I don’t believe in God or
anything, I just don’t have time for him.” We started going to church when my
sister expressed an interest in making Communion like the rest of her friends
had. My mother entertained the idea, but since she was older now than the
“normal” age, the entire family was subjected to attending mass, and then an
after-service of what I lovingly refer to as the Late-Boat Christians.
I can’t help but wonder: At eight-years old, why did I think I
believed in God even though my parents were atheists and never went to church?
Does it really matter in the way people live, and are influenced in their
lives? Why do some people have a faith in God and others don’t? What’s the biggest influence on someone
believing in the unknown? Today, I realized that I am surrounded by people who
appear to have answered these questions for themselves. So I set out to find out
about their convictions. My hope was to discover common links among people who
thought similarly, and their responses to opposition. What puts people on a
trajectory to believe in God, or to decide that God isn’t real? What overall
effect does this have on their life? This is really about people that came to
their own convictions, and the paths that led them there.
In his book, God is Not One,
by Stephen Prothero, he illustrates the major differences in religions of the
world, and how people’s concept of God, and the motivation for their religion,
is different:
“Jews
believe in one God, Buddhists believe in no God, Hindus believe in many gods.
Christ is regarded as a God among Christians, whereas for Muslims, Muhammad is
very much a man who achieved perfection as a prophet, political leader,
military general and family patriarch. And when it comes to the diversity in
denominations among the world's religions, Christianity is king.
Christians
regard sin as the problem and see salvation as the solution. Muslims define the
problem as pride that can only be conquered by submission. Buddhists seek to
overcome suffering while Christians regard suffering as ennobling, which is why
Christians aren't trying to achieve nirvana. Buddhists, unlike Christians, aren't
looking for salvation since they don't believe in sin. Neither do Confucians.
And while Jews and Muslims speak of sin, they are not all that interested in
salvation from their sins.”
People
believe what they do depending on their faith tradition. What about atheists
and nonbelievers? The believers in this essay are believers or nonbelievers in
Christ, and understanding the pillar of their faith--seeking salvation from
sin--is fundamental to understanding their stories. Lauren, 24, will lead us on
the first path of faith.
Lauren, 24, Manchester
“I grew up attending Catholic Church until my parents switched when I
was eight to a non-denominational church. I attended youth group weekly
throughout middle school, and there was a pastor who listened to our problems
and helped us through what was going on. In high school I got in with the wrong
crowd and began drinking, partying, having sex. Religion was presented
negatively in high school. I wanted to rebel against the rules, and this lasted
until my junior year of college. One night I attended a bible study session and
this brought me back to my roots in God. I had dealt with depression and a
feeling of being broken. I sought out help for how out of control and lost I
felt.”
When asked why she believes in God, Lauren mentioned her previous
youth group, her
reading of the
Bible, and historical/scientific accounts. She was making a decision based on
evidence that she rationalized could be real, and literally took a “leap of
faith.” She had experiences and confirmation soon after that were enough for
her to feel like a true believer. Lauren said that it was really important for
people to have experiences that were confirmations for them of their faith. She
used to “test” it, so to speak, by picking one particular person to pray for
who she thought would be impossible to convert to a believer: a proclaimed
partier, atheist. It took years of her praying every day that God would help
this person become a believer, and three years later the girl did become one.
She said prayer doesn’t always work in the timeframe or in the way we want it
to, but God answers us.
“Senior year of college I went to a Greek Life Christian Conference
and someone shared the story of Jesus. I realized I couldn’t fix myself on my
own and needed Jesus’ help. The life he had for me was better than the life I
had for myself. The biggest way my life changed was the freedom I experienced.
For a long time I felt the need to be accepted by all different groups of
people. When I heard my identity could be in Jesus, I didn’t keep trying to
live for other people’s expectations. My identity became rooted in Jesus. I no
longer did things to be accepted. I always had a confirmation that I’d be loved
by God. He gave me a purpose to live for. Soon after, I was offered a job as
the campus Greek Life Minister, and my whole life changed.”
It seems like these confirmations are important to keeping the faith,
and they must have to come semi-frequently or people would think God forgot
about them. I always thought that a person has faith or doesn’t have faith, and
it’s confusing to me that you can “grow or deepen” it. When I asked her how to
grow faith, or if “levels” of faith existed, she discussed it as being a
practice: actively practicing praying, trusting, believing, and going to places
like Bible study to practice in everyday life. She said it’s like your
relationship with anything else and you need to work on it for it to grow; in
10 years it’ll be better than it was in one year. It’s like there’s a faith
muscle that you have to actively work. I liken it to signing up for the gym on
a New Year’s resolution and falling off the wagon a few months later. Unless
it’s a daily habit, it has the capacity to waver.
The phrase “brokenness,” or “being broken,” was repeated at least five
times during the interview, especially when she said, “I realized I couldn’t
fix myself on my own.” I don’t typically
think that everyone is broken, but when taken in the context of the Christian
faith--that Christians are constantly seeking salvation from sin--this idea of
being innately broken makes sense. Lauren said that during her time of
depression and feeling lost she realized she couldn’t “fix” herself on her own
and needed Jesus’ help. This is exactly what Christians believe--that
surrendering your life to Jesus is the only way to be saved. I wonder where modern
ideas of fixing oneself, like psychotherapy, fall into the Christian belief. If
Jesus is the only way to be saved, what about the other resources available to
us for help? Do they work simultaneously with the grace of God?
She talked about an innate joy that she always feels; even on a bad
day she feels an inner peace that she didn’t have before. I think this relates
to her discussion of having an identity in Jesus, and no longer feeling the
need to be accepted and please others--she is living to please God. What a
relief it must be to not need acceptance from other people. This feeling of joy
and satisfaction is also rooted in the feeling that she feels she found her
purpose in life. Many people seek for their purpose their entire lives, and
question why they’re here; this can result in a sense of unease. I can imagine
that eradicating the need to please others, and knowing your purpose in life,
would create this joy she speaks of.
At the close of the interview, Lauren and I discussed what she would
consider to be a mystical experience, and her understanding of that was
realizing answered prayers. I asked her about dreams and if she thinks people
can receive messages or have a divine experience through dreaming. I recounted
a story to her that happened last week where in this dream I’m shopping through
a bodega and I see a birdhouse called a “prayer house.” You were supposed to
put the name of someone you want to pray for inside the birdhouse. I was
adamant about buying this house and said that I needed to put my friend’s
mother’s name inside of it and give it to her. The next morning I woke up and
my friend received a call from her mother that she was being taken to the
hospital due to a ruptured tumor. When I finished this story Lauren raised her
eyes with a look of bewilderment. She said, “Cara, God knocks on your door but
he doesn’t beg you to open it. This is a really good example of one of those
‘little knocks’ we get from God. Why else do you think you’re even doing this
paper?” I sat back in my chair for a minute, nodding in recognition. Why was I
even doing this research? After hearing Lauren’s story of losing and re-finding
her faith, it made me think of one of the most famously pious Christians who
also, for a time, questioned her beliefs: Mother Teresa.
On October 19th, 2003, Mother Teresa was beatified, officially
starting the four-step process of sainthood. She was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1979, and led over 4,000 missionaries in 123 countries. She is
idolized as the face of faith and piety. She also doubted the existence of God.
In a publication of Teresa’s journals and personal letters, Mother Teresa: Come be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta,
her writing reveals doubting her faith for the better part of fifty years. In
1931 she began teaching at Saint Mary’s High School for Girls in Calcutta,
India. While traveling on a train from Calcutta to the Himalayan Foothills in
1946, she heard the voice of Christ tell her to leave the teaching profession
to aid the poor and the sick in the ghettos of Calcutta. She lobbied for her
release from the school until 1946 when she was finally granted permission to
pursue her next calling. It was then that she said she felt the voice of God
leave her.
Lord,
my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now
become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted —
unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on
Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... Where is my Faith — even deep down
right in there is nothing, but emptiness and darkness — My God — how painful is
this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts
that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.
So
many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of
the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my
thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very
thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God
loves me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so
great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering
blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
— addressed to Jesus, at the
suggestion of a confessor, undated
She reveals not feeling or hearing communication from God for the next
ten years. Mother Teresa, an icon of faith,
is not the only person to question her belief in God. My next interview
is with Jeff, someone who had faith growing up, but strayed from that faith as
a teenager.
Jeff, 28, Manchester
“I was confirmed for United Church of Christ but I have not gone since
then. My parents took me to church but later in life they both admitted that
they were not really religious. Church in my family was more of a social
gathering; the church was down the street and all of our friends and neighbors
attended. It was more of a social than a faith related thing. Since I was 16 I can remember not wanting to
go to church or believing in God. I believed before then, growing up, because I
was told what to believe. I don’t know if I would consider myself a person of
faith; I’m definitely a person of logic.”
Before the interview Jeff casually spoke of not being religious, but
implied he had some sort of spirituality or believed in something. I asked if
he considered himself agnostic, but he said no, and that he didn’t want to
identify with anything other than atheist. This is possibly because of his
statement, “Emotional people like religion because it validates emotion and
love and things you can’t explain. It gives people a safe place. Vulnerable
people need religion.” Religion as something for vulnerable, emotional,
illogical people, and he doesn’t want to be identified with any of that. He
probably also does not want to be seen as “broken,” as Lauren saw herself. Yet,
he entertains the ideas of astrology, which I find intriguing, because many
people cast it aside as being something that illogical people believe in. “I
like astrology; I think it explains more than religion. It comes from the
cosmos. It’s also non-committal. I learned more about myself reading an Aquarius
profile than twelve years of going to church. It knew me better than I knew
myself.”
He also wishes that karma exists, and acts accordingly “just in case.”
I find that particularly interesting, because a lot of people do things “just
in case” God exists, the theory behind Pascal’s Wager: the argument that it is in one's own best
interest to behave as if God exists, since the possibility of eternal
punishment in hell outweighs any advantage of believing otherwise. So in
his behavior, it seems like the underlying motivation might be the same as some
religious people. The resulting “gain” so-to-speak is different: one with God,
and one with Karma, but how does that make the behavioral motivation any
different? Is it more illogical to believe in God than it is to believe in
horoscopes and karma?
Lauren had a period of faltering in her beliefs, but returned to it
during a difficult period in life; she sought it as a way out of her
depression. Jeff, on the other hand, can’t justify God as being real and seeks
other answers as the guiding influences in his life: science, astrology, and
what he can explain as being logical. Lauren saw some benefit to religion and
believing in God, which is why she returned to her beliefs, because at one time
in her life she remembers being comforted by it. Jeff only believed in God when
he thought he was “supposed to,” and never quite felt the benefits for himself,
a reason he never returned to the faith. This reminds me of Lauren’s statement
that people need to feel confirmation of God for themselves, and how important
that was to believing. Greg, on the other hand, is an avid atheist, but remembers
the comfort he used to feel from religion.
Greg, 26, Manchester
“I was raised Catholic went to Sunday School. As a teenager I was an
Evangelical Christian. I fell in with an Apocalypse church for a year after I
started dating this girl. Her mother was very religious, and it became a
condition of dating her. I liked the sound of it; it spoke to the part of me that
said everything that happens to you is directed at you. Earth is the only thing
that matters. Christian humans are the only people who matter--everyone else is
cast away. It spoke to that part of me that wanted to be special. I learned as
much about it as I could and I kept learning; eventually I came up against
contradictions in the philosophy and literature, and I didn't like what they
said. I stopped thinking it was true. I decided it wasn't true.”
Greg, at the end of the day, wishes that he did have faith
in God: “There are
times when I would find it comforting. There are times when I miss it.” But he also explains: “I don’t think belief is a
choice. You do or you don’t. You have to be convinced. I don’t really know what
conviction feels like. It’s like the outrage you feel when you know something
is right. I don’t know if you're aware of it as a conscious decision. “He does so much research into other schools of thought
and science that he can't be convinced of God existing, at least not the
Christian God we were talking about. It
seems that people who have decided that they don’t believe in God sometimes
wish that they could bypass their questioning minds.
He spoke a lot about reality being an illusion, and our perception
being our reality: “Your perception
changes your reality. You see what you expect to see but it doesn't make it
real. Everything is an illusion of what it really is. We perceive atoms as
being solid, but they are constantly moving.” If someone believes they were
cured of an illness because of God, and someone else believes it was because of
medicine, both of those beliefs will be real for each of them. At the end of
the day the person is healed, but the perception of how the healing occurred is
very different.
Greg really made me think about the fact that influence and perception
shape who we become and what we choose to believe in. He went from being an
active Apocalyptic Christian to being an atheist--his perception changed the
more he researched, and found what resonated with him. Christianity was not it.
For someone like Lauren, Christianity is it. What all three of them had in
common was faith, but in different things: God, science, logic, morality. You
have to have conviction to believe something, and all three of them agreed that
conviction comes from experience, and what makes sense to you. Every person I
spoke with sounded so convincing and articulate about their beliefs--because
they believe them. In your gut, what do you believe to be true?
One night in August I was sitting on my green sofa in the living room
of my condo with my boyfriend, R.C., when he pointed to the words “Faith, Hope,
Love” painted on my wall and asked, “Which of these do you think is the most
important?” I thought about it for a moment and replied that Hope was the most
important. No matter what their faith is, it’s with what anyone can identify.
It’s why I made the anchor of hope, not faith, a permanent image on my
body. People need an anchor to cling to,
and everyone’s anchor is different, and deeply personal. Whether my anchor is
God, or faith in humanity, I haven’t decided. I just know I’ll keep searching.
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