Religion--just like the rest of life, rests on things that cannot be "proved. [View all]
There are many things whose existence can be taken into a laboratory and proved.
There are other things that cannot be thusly proved, and therefore are said by some not to exist. And yet we all live with trust that both categories are essential. The belief that only the first, scientific, category has validity, is the dark side of a scientism which flows from absolutizing the Enlightenment.
Here are a few of the things we allor at least most of usbelieve by faith.
Lifemy lifehas meaning.
There are those we admire who live beautiful lives.
Every human must have some purpose which is a guiding principle for action.
Occasionally we are encountered by some vision, experience, notion before which we bow in awe.
Most of the values which make life meaningful cannot be proved as existing.
To live without hope is to live in despair, therefore we must live in hope.
To trust anyone or anything is to live by faith.
The universe has a built-in struggle for refinement. In science we call it evolution. In philosophy we call it the élan vital.
A hunger to be accepted means we long for some human relationship.
There is a spiritual hunger build into most of our lives. There is that to which we can only point that gives meaning and hope.
We live by affirming that behind all value is that reality which has lured people in every culture and time.
Most of life involves believing things we cannot see, let alone prove.
This beyondness is the core and instigator of religion and thus the quest for God, whose existencelike all these other thingscannot be proved.