Blind faith? Faith can move mountains? Faith of our fathers? Author Richard Fast offers a critique on faith worth reading, I think.
“I’m NOT trying to sell Atheism … “God” forbid. I’m selling the concept of searching and finding your faith.”
Check out an excerpt from Richard Fast’s provocative article recently published in Backyard Church
I Finally Found Peace When I Accepted Atheism
The more I searched for answers outside myself, the more frustration and anxiety I felt.
I became an Atheist. I had found my answer.
I didn’t require a God or a particular faith to settle my tormented soul. With total peace of mind, I could accept that there doesn’t have to be a God. The universe could just be a beautiful mystery.
I didn’t have to invent or conjure anything to calm my soul. I didn’t have to force myself into mental contortions to follow someone else’s belief; I could happily accept that there are many questions to which I will never know the answers, and I’m okay with that.
Conclusion: True “faith” feels right.
If history has taught us anything, there’s very little we can honestly know. Finding faith is a uniquely human experience that makes the challenging road of life a little easier to travel.
But many years of searching, thinking, deep introspection, and an acceptance of Atheism (the unknowable) have finally given me peace of mind.
I’m NOT trying to sell Atheism … “God” forbid. I’m selling the concept of searching and finding your faith.
Whatever that may be, I sincerely hope that you find your faith, as I’ve finally found mine.
I am the author of The Challenge of Choice … how to make a “good” decision when it REALLY matters!
Life Matters 
Good post. And interesting.
If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward and get together and tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the day? What’s that say about their reality?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you, Poetpas. It’s good to be challenged from time to time to clarify what we agree with and what we don’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“The more I searched for answers outside myself, the more frustration and anxiety I felt.” Amen. 😉 I relate to this. It’s a main theme of my book. That feeling of either resistance or joy from one’s inner consciousness is the guide. The answers lie within and don’t always take the same outward form for each individual.
To anyone involved in this type of existential search, I would issue one caveat. In our time and place we’ve seen the shift in the dominant paradigm from that of Christianity to that of philosophical materialism, so the dogmatism associated with the latter often goes unnoticed (we accept it as reality the way people used to accept Heaven and Hell and the literal truth of the Bible). This wide acceptance makes that brand of dogmatism harder to question.
Treating current scientific understandings as dogma becomes an easy trap, which at one time I fell into, substituting one institution for another in my own process of trying to “force fit” a belief system. This is its own form of fundamentalism. Science at its best is dynamic, its understandings ever-evolving. Its always good to remember that what appears to be objectively “true” today may be laughed at as quaint and backward tomorrow.
LikeLiked by 3 people
“laughed at as quaint and backward tomorrow.” Thank you, Camilla.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I went with God instead of literal Bible stories and opinions. As you suggest, “my faith” is a relationship with God via Jesus of Nazareth.
LikeLike