Is Faith a Virtue?

As an Atheist one of my pivotal doubts as to whether there is truth in religion is the emphasis on faith. I cannot understand how anyone could possibly be proud of their blind belief, let alone consider it a virtue. But I think the main source of my lack of understanding is that it had not occurred to me that faith works on two levels.

I can understand faith in the wisdom of God. I can understand, and agree with, the logic of obeying a benevolent higher power, even if the rules it sets seem illogical, because it is, after all, a higher power that will see the bigger picture and has your best interests at heart. This may be the version of faith that religious people prize so highly.

However the faith needed in order to believe in such a higher being in the first place is based on much more shaky reasoning. The best reason given for a God being illusive is so that we can believe in it of our own free will without absolute proof forcing our conviction. But with what exactly? Religious texts? Flick through most religious scripture and you will find accounts of miracles, powerful prophets and direct speech between man and God. Such obvious proof seems to rule out the possibility of faith.

Also there is the issue of other religions. For example, Christianity may be the most popular religion, but as with a hung parliament, it is outnumbered by the other religions combined. There are four times as many people who don’t follow Christianity as there are people who do. That means that if there is a Christian God, it is loosing big time, a concept I find difficult to attach to a supreme being.

The primary basis, and often the only basis, for a belief in God in organised religions is the testament of religious scripture. These scriptures offer no actual proof for their claims, and are written by people who lived long ago, before psychoanalysis and modern standards of reasoning could rule out mental illness (not counting Scientology, whose founder L. Ron Hubbard, born in 1911 is a confirmed fantasist). When you ask some religious people how they know their chosen scripture is true, the argument often goes round in circles, as demonstrated in terms of the Bible by the diagram below.

It all comes down to faith and blind belief, and although many claim that they know for certain that their God exists, I think it much more likely that, seeing as such peoples accounts contradict, this conviction springs from a deep desire for it to be true and a pure love for the idea. As it says in the Bible: ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’ (Hebrews C11,V5).

So is faith a virtue? Is faith something to be proud of? I’d have to say no. A blind belief in an implausible circumstance without evidence is an indication of a weak mind and an inability to cope with the responsibility for our own destiny.