When Faith Fails

The question of faith and its place in society is one which has troubled humanity since the beginning of the period of religious conflict. Thousands of years ago, it was perfectly understandable why faith was so crucial to a functioning civilization. With technology and scientific innovation still centuries from acceleration, there needed to be a foundation of ethics and morality which was coupled with an ontological answer to existence. As far as Western society is concerned, this began as early as the Greeks, whose virtue ethics were heavily intermingled with their pantheon of gods. Later, the Romans adapted a similar structure.

Christianity was an interesting wrench thrown in the mix. While the origins of its power are dubious, though I happen to ascribe to Nietzche's notion of "slave-morality" in this case, the fact remains that Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions rapidly swept up the world. Today, at least 3.8 billion people follow either Judaism, Islam, or Christianity. Clearly, faith has been, and is now, a vital component of our culture.

When studying history, it's quite easy to see where faith goes wrong. Just point to the Crusades, or some other massacre justified by a higher power. In our time, it's harder to see the impacts of extremism on our day-to-day lives. Especially here in America, those of us who are exposed to fundamentalism often don't recognize it, and those of us who aren't only think of it as something that happens to people and places highly disconnected from us. We see atrocities happen in our recent history, and we see wars waged because of them, and we see the calamitous outcomes of those wars, but again... it feels distant. Of course, we could never be anything like the people committing those crimes, could we?

Some of the Atheists and Agnostics are quick to point a finger at religion directly. It's necessity, they claim, is outdated, and if we were just to be rid of it, all of this horror would stop. Meanwhile, the religious folk exist along such a wide bandwidth of faith that some ignore the criticism, others shift uncomfortably in their seats, and still others get up and dramatically wave their fists in righteous anger.

Is it possible that everyone could be wrong in a situation like this? Is it possible that only I'm right? Not really on the first count, and of course not on the second. While religion has been the focal point for many of history's most heinous crimes, it's not exactly "religion's" fault. Religion just happens to be an ideology into which humans easily fall. It's not the only one, and it's definitely not the only one responsible for widespread death and chaos.

The Netflix series Midnight Mass beautifully portrays how quickly people can fall into religious ideology. What begins as a peaceful, if rather dreary, fishing town is converted into a Catholic hub, where all those who are skeptics are branded as Terrorists and Outsiders, and those who follow in "God's Army" are asked to do terrible things, and who do them almost without hesitation. Something that's touched on in the series which rarely gets any attention is how it's often the dreams and arrogant wishes of weak-willed people seeking power which drive these ideological fanatics. Most people will just blame the religion, or blame God, but in reality those two things are mere vessels for close-minded individuals to obtain power. In fact, there's a beautiful scene near the end of Midnight Mass, where the priest recognizes the havoc he's brought to the island he loved. His confidant from the beginning attempts to rally his spirits, to tell him that the horde of people on the island need leadership if their plan is going to be enacted, but he refuses, saying that Fatherhood is not supposed to be about yourself, it's supposed to be about God. Of course, the other character is so bound by her faith that she continues to use it as a shield against her horrific reality.

If one wants to find a non-religious example of ideological possession, the modern world is a fantastic place to start. The easy example would be to point a finger at World War II Germany, but we need not look even that far back. We can see ideologues everywhere in today's political and social climate; people who are so entrenched in their ideas and belief systems, religious or not, that they callously ignore and belittle conflicting viewpoints, often reducing them to straw-men to re-validate their point of view.

My Fundamental Problem essay series is a deep dive into how and why this behavior occurs. Essentially, humans have evolved to eliminate almost all information from their surroundings. Our early selves used this trick to be able to effectively distinguish between a cat stalking us in the brush and a wave of wind, or a snake hiding in a tree from a gnarled branch. Today, it's the reason it takes us a few nights to get accustomed to sleeping in a new place. Every sound is scary and every shadow is a demon because we don't know what we can eliminate yet. However, the process is quick, and it unfortunately applies to our way of dealing with the metaphysical as well.

The obvious introduction to this problem is confirmation bias. When we're presented with a set of possibly conflicting information, it's easier to choose an answer, however ludicrous, which conforms with our preconceptions. For example, if you believe the earth is flat and are presented with a series of data which prove the earth is round, it's easier to say that the data are a part of a government conspiracy designed to silence the truth. However, ideological possession can also happen during vulnerable times in our lives, when our usual belief systems aren't holding up, or an emotional upheaval requires us to think in simpler terms. Religious fundamentalism is a type of ideology, and all ideology is predicated on faith. Therefore, ideological possession can be thought of as what happens when faith fails.

Of course, the solution is not as simple as it sounds. What I want to say is, "back up for a minute, consider your options and the ramifications of your actions, remain skeptical, retain only that part of your ideology which does not harm others, do not ever believe you're completely right about anything, and always remain open to new ideas." Easier said then done, definitely. The human answer to being ideologically challenged is outrage, and that's a simple path to walk. It seems like human society is always filled to the brim with outrage, and with the 24 hour news cycle and social media portraying the worst of humanity, there's certainly cause to be outraged, sometimes.

However, I think it's important to remember a couple things. Firstly, outrage must not lead to violence. Too often in history has it been the case where an ideology is threatened and violence is the only apparent remediation. Whether it's between religious groups or not, it's common in every era of human civilization. Yet it accomplishes nothing. Violence does not show the strength of your ideas, it shows the depth of your weakness, that you are so weak as to feel threatened and called to action based purely on your ideology. Now, some may say that's naïve, but I think it's true. As savage creatures, another facet of humanity I explored in the Fundamental Problem essay series, humans are beasts at heart, and unless we actively manage our psyche's to attenuate our responses to threats in our ideologies with the "reality" - as seen for several vantage points, the beast can do horrible things. In other words, think things through before you act.

I also think we should be cognizant to never force our beliefs on other people, as strong as we may feel about them. If our ideas are as tenable as we believe, they will become accepted in their own time. A few central principles come to my mind, chiefly that every person should not have their basic rights trampled or oppressed, and beyond that they are free to do as they please, so long as they do not infringe the basic rights of others. Now, even that's a hairy mess to untangle, but I think it's the simplest way of saying, "Let others live as they live, and you may live as you live, but do not tell others to live as you do." Everyone has the right of their autonomy, and even if you feel incredibly strongly that you have the moral upper-hand in a situation, there is no place for your ideology to remove their agency from them.

Hopelessly idealistic? Maybe, but I'd rather that than vice versa.