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Today is Good Friday, it’s the day that commemorates the crucifixion of the Christ, which was to be reborn three days later. Now this brought me to think how much our entire society was based on the concept of sheer fate. Now this post has no intention of turning your allegiance to Christianity but on only to shed some light of a universal concept that is greatly misunderstood. Now let us consider what we know. Can you bluntly prove anything that you know. Let’s take for example the Mount Everest, we’ve been told it’s the highest mountain on Earth. Even if I’ve never been there or know it’s precise location I believe what I’ve been told is true and in all good faith I will defend this position no matter what.

The word faith has various uses; its central meaning is similar to “belief”, “trust” or “confidence”, but unlike these terms, “faith” tends to imply a transpersonal rather than interpersonal relationship – with God or a higher power. The object of faith can be a person (or even an inanimate object or state of affairs) or a proposition (or body of propositions, such as a religious credo). In each case, however, faith is in an aspect of the object and cannot be logically proven or objectively known. Faith can also be defined as accepting as true something which one has been told by someone who is believed to be trustworthy. In its proper sense faith means trusting the word of another.
- Wikipedia.

Now religious beliefs are somehow based on similar assessments, there is claim that an event happened and we are to believe what we have been told. Now you’ll tell me the major difference is that if I don’t believe the Everest is the top of the world I can just buy a ticket for Tibet and go measure it myself. Now the strength of science is that it’s always based on empiric data that can be verified or on data that has been verified in a rigorous way. Now that is interesting because pretty much every religion on this planet is based on writings left by different people. From this point on, it’s the job of Historians to double-check if those information are true or the simple work of fiction. Hopefully we live in a ear where information can be easily preserved , when it comes to events like the 9/11 terrorist attack no one will be able to deny their existence because even a thousand years from now they’ll find audio, picture and video footage of the event.

By digging deeper we must understand that faith is not about what you can prove, it’s about a conviction that something exists without the need of tangible proof. That’s pretty inconvenient because if Jesus came in this century (21st) we’d have live footage of his death and rebirth and their would be a lot more believers right? Now some of you must explain to me how is it that so many people throughout the ages believed in God or for other cultures in different divinities. How is it that human beings all adopt a pattern that involves supernatural forces. Now what is raving amongst North America and Europe is the atheisism. Now that’s an easy position, I don’t believe in anything, or better yet agnosticism, give me proof!

There that famous/infamous say that “God is dead” or something. That’s like claiming that humans needed God up to now and that thanks to science they can shed that obsolete concept. Ok, now I’m not trying to make too much criticism but I’ll get back to my theory on the subject. The world is the balance of two opposing forces, order and chaos, good an evil, day and night. We have all reasons to believe the world is made of opposites that create balance; eat or be eaten, if we were only to eat we would run out of resources and all die (hey aren’t we doing that to the planet right now?) So in this perspective religion has been there to identify the different forces that rule this world and give meaning to what happens, whether it’s explainable or not. So there is no real difference between science and religion; they both try to present explanations to what is happening around us. So basics reviewed, by joining both how and why we get a suitable explanation for everything.

In my personal opinion science is simply an other form of religion, and like all others they don’t like others to take their place. One thing is certain, the human mind will always seek for the extraordinary, before there was magic, now there is science-fiction. You think Spider-Man or Batman are not mythic figures equivalent to Hercules or Troy? The human psyche is not made to joggle between two ideas, it’s much more simple to pick one and use it as default for any situation, I’m asking to question your faith. Whether it’s in science or religion, it’s the best way to understand others and understand yourself. I could tell you right here and now I have a cure for HIV and give you a ton of scientific proof but you’ll never be a 100% sure until you actually see someone being cured by it. If it were to be true you wouldn’t take long to accept the fact, and eventually would meet someone that was cured this way. The tale of the Christ works a bit in the same way. The existence of God was known back then, he made miracles and there was believers.

Now then again the choice is yours, I’m not going to write a book on this blog, but if you’d like to discuss this column with me, share ideas or concepts on life please leave a comment!
Read more on the subject: Technology as Religion, When Technology and Religion Converge