Part I B: Is Emperical evidence the answer to our Faith problem?

The other problem I addressed earlier concerning the definition of faith is that of having to be able to prove something before it can be believed.  This is error because if something is proven it doesn’t require faith to believe it.  It doesn’t take a whole lot of faith to believe the sun will come up every morning or that gravity will keep us from floating up into the universe.  These are constants that we know to be true because we see them more fully.

              Some of my readers may be thinking to themselves, “that is the stuff I think about and believe in; I don’t worry about the stuff that isn’t provable” or something very similar to that.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to find concrete answers and absolutes.  The problem with only believing in concretes (without faith) is that there is no moving forward, there are no new hypotheses presented and everything ends up becoming stagnant.   Plus, in reality, it’s impossible for humans to not put faith into something.

              Someone who believes in only the testable comes to the conclusion that there are no answers to life.  A good example to illustrate my point is asking the questions, where or why did the Universe begin and how did it start?  Since it is impossible to recreate the beginning of the Universe it is impossible to answer these questions absolutely by any known method of testing (one must believe something by faith to broach this subject).  If an individual determines that because there is no possible way to answer these questions with near 100% certainty, they are unwilling to view this subject as material or meaningful to their life; they have chosen to put their faith in something by default.  

              To believe that answering the questions of how the universe began, or why it began is unimportant, it must be determined that there is no ultimate meaning to the universe or to life.  That is faith based on the individual’s part.  There is no way to prove to someone else that there is no meaning to life, thus one who comes to that conclusion has faith that they are not missing out on something more meaningful or fulfilling. 

              To say that one doesn’t care whether or not there is meaning to the universe is also a faith based position.  The faith resides in the belief that not caring is an acceptable answer.  It is the belief that there is no ultimate universal God that one will have to answer to.  Or it’s the belief that having to answer to this God doesn’t matter or the consequences are manageable.  Can anyone prove that there is no God or that the consequences of not caring if He exists are manageable?  If it cannot be proven that the consequences of rejecting God are manageable then proponents of this line of thinking are faith based too.  This is not a play on words!  At the heart of each foundational principle that man has, the choice to believe, is faith based.  

              To come full circle, those who believe that faith must be testable on every level with empirical certainty attainable and a material result must be established, have faith in whatever there foundational principals are and cognitive dissonance because they don’t want to believe they are faith based people.  Once an individual recognizes that they believe what they believe by faith then they have the opportunity to be real with themselves and others and determine if what they believe is worth their faith.