Faith vs. Religion

I've got to say that Paulius has been very flattering to me lately. He mentioned me in his inaugural podcast, and he gave me credit for influencing a change in his attitude toward religion. While the former is kind of cool, it's really the latter that I'd like to discuss a bit more in-depth.

Paul's post started off by talking about the Westboro Baptist Church... you know, the "God Hates Fags" idiots that protests at the funerals of military personnel who were killed in combat. He then used these morons as illustrations of larger issues. In fact, you should just take a moment to read his article, and then come back when you're done.

Okay, now that you've read his post, and gotten a bit of background, you should have a better understanding of where I'm headed with today's words, which are going to discuss the differences between faith and religion. The words are used quite interchangeably, but there is really a cavernous difference in their meanings.

Religion, as Paulius' reference to the Westboro haters illustrates, has been the cause of a great deal of suffering and oppression throughout history. The Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials are three glaring examples of evils that the Christian Religion alone can perpetrate under the right circumstances. This is because religion is not faith. Religion is religion.

My definition of faith is the belief in something that cannot be definitively proven. My belief in God is, by definition, faith because I cannot create and recreate an experiment that can provide sufficient evidence of God's existence. My inability to prove God's existence has absolutely no bearing on whether or not He Is; I am simply unable to prove things one way or the other. With this in mind, I would like to point out that atheism is technically a faith, when using my definition of the word. Paul, a self-proclaimed atheist, cannot prove that God doesn't exist any more than I can prove that God does exist. Absent this proof either way, we simply have different preconceived notions regarding this existence. Both of us have an equal amount of faith. It's simply that we have faith in different answers to the same question.

With this in mind, I will freely concede, from an intellectual standpoint, that I could be absolutely wrong about God's existence. It's completely possible that my communion with God is nothing more than neurons firing in my brain under the right circumstances... that these neurons release serotonin and other chemicals, causing a feeling that I interpret as feeling God's presence. Science has talked about the process, but it has not yet found a method of addressing causation, which means that science hasn't come any closer to proving or disproving God's place in the universe.

But enough about faith. I hope that I've sufficiently defined and illustrated what faith is. It's now time to talk about religion. While faith is the core belief, religion is the set of rules, traditions and rituals that are associated with this belief. Taking communion, the premise that the Pope is infallible, and going to Church are examples of some of these rules. In other words, religion is the set of dogmatic principles that an individual follows in the practice of faith. Faith is the core belief. Religion is what happens as a result of faith.

For example, some people believe that if they behave in a certain way on earth, they will receive certain rewards in heaven (or punishment in hell). They follow certain rules with the expectation of a certain outcome. Atheists have a belief system that’s not incongruent with the belief of people with faith. Atheists are convinced that there is no God, so the only consequences for their actions are here on earth. Their belief system is self-imposed, and by society.
With this in mind, an atheist can be a good person while someone professing faith in God can be an absolute monster. My friend Greg doesn’t believe in God, but he does believe in being faithful to his wife, loving his children, honoring his parents, not stealing, and taking care of his friends. These are all tenements of the Christian religion, and by my definition, Greg is a good person. As for evil Christians?!? I think that we can all agree that the Westboro idiots are not a shiny happy example of people practicing a healthy faith in God.
So the next time someone talks to you about your religion, maybe you can bring up the possibility that they’re talking about the wrong thing. Because what they’re interested in is not the set of rules, but the belief itself.