Seth doesn’t get faith

The very nature of faith is that you don’t (and shouldn’t be) rational about it. In fact, you’re entitled to be aghast when anyone confronts you with proof. Proof and rationality aren’t the point.

Seth is right about so many things, but he falls into a modern trap about faith.

It’s very easy to live in an either-or world; even very smart people do it.

You can be either rational or faithful.

You can be either scientific or religious.

You can be either us or them.

Unfortunately faith doesn’t work in an ‘either-or’ fashion with rationality.  Faith doesn’t make us ambivalent towards evidence or proof – faith just accepts that we don’t have them.

Accepting a lack of proof is essentially scientific, by the way. The famed scientific process graduates a hypothesis all the way up to the rock solid status of, “Theory”.

The theory of gravity. The theory of relativity.

Sometimes faith is a matter of understanding that things are more complicated than we can measure; of accepting that our knowledge is, and perhaps always will be, incomplete.

To walk by faith and not by sight means saying, “The truth is more than my eye can measure.” This isn’t irrational, just… bold.

Again, this is right up science’s alley – scientific progress is a steady stream of new research telling us that what we thought was going on was really far more complicated than we ever imagined; what we thought we knew was just a drop in the bucket… or totally out to lunch.

Mmm… lunch.

Pitting faith against rationality is like pitting ketchup against mustard. Sure, they’re made of different ingredients, but why let that ruin your hot dog?

The very nature of ketchup is that you don’t (and shouldn’t be) mustardy about it. In fact, you’re entitled to be aghast when anyone confronts you with mustard. Mustard and relish aren’t the point.

Faith doesn’t mean irrational zealotry.

All it means is that mustard isn’t enough to make a decent sandwich.