Well, okay. I didn’t so much pose it as answer it. “Yes,” I said. I argued that religious faith is irrational, by definition, in a way that secular faith isn’t. I argued that religious faith means maintaining one’s faith in the face of any possible evidence that might arise to contradict it; in fact, that it means asserting ahead of time that no possible evidence could ever undermine your faith. In other words, it means asserting that your faith trumps reality. I said that religious faith answers the question, “What would convince you that your faith was mistaken?” with the answer, “Nothing — I have faith in my god. That’s what it means to have faith.” (Thanks to Ebonmuse for this, for about the fiftieth time.)

And yes, I said: I think that’s irrational. Secular faith (and the leaps thereof) often has instances of being irrational: but it isn’t irrational by definition. I think religious faith is.

But to the believers who insist that their faith is rational, I would ask them to consider this question, the question posed by Ebonmuse and cited at length in my previous post: What would convince you that your faith was mistaken? What conceivable evidence would make you change your mind and decide that God didn’t exist after all? Again, if the answer is, “Nothing could change my mind, that’s what it means to have faith” — well, that pretty much proves my point. (If the answer is something other than “Nothing,” don’t just argue your case here — be sure to tell Ebon about it. I’m sure he’d be interested to hear it.)

I applaud these believers’ desire to see their faith as rational. I think the desire to have your beliefs be rooted in reality — or to not have them be preemptively defiant of it, at least — is a good instinct, a noble and worthwhile yearning. But when it comes to religious faith, I just don’t think it’s happening. Again, while secular faith has instances of irrationality — many of them, even — it isn’t irrational by its very nature. I think religious faith is.

But —

and this is very important —

I don’t think religious believers are.

Not all of them, at any rate. Not by definition.

Here’s the thing I think atheists need to remember. It is entirely possible to be an overall sane, rational, functional person, and nevertheless have one particular area of irrational belief. Or even more than one.

In fact, it’s not just possible. It’s damn near universal. To atheists, as well as to believers.

Do any of these sound familiar? From your life, or from the lives of anyone you know? If not, I’m sure you can come up with some of your own, from your past, or maybe even from your present.

And none of these beliefs make us fundamentally irrational people. It is entirely possible to have certain irrational beliefs — even significant beliefs, even stubbornly held ones — and still be a basically rational person in most other areas of our lives. It’s not just possible. It’s universal. We all do it. In fact, hanging on to mistaken ideas once we’ve committed to them seems to be a basic part of how our minds work. And despite that, we’re still generally rational people, able to process information and analyze it effectively and make appropriate decisions about how to act on it… most of the time.

Look. I think religious leaps of faith are very different from secular ones, and I’m not going to pretend that I don’t. I think religious faith is inherently irrational, and I’m not going to pretend that I don’t. But the fact that religious believers hold one irrational belief that atheists don’t hold doesn’t make them fundamentally less-rational human beings than us. And we shouldn’t pretend that it does.

I want to talk about the difference between secular and religious faith.

I’m irritated by the argument that, because atheists don’t have faith in God, we therefore don’t have faith in anything. And at the same time, I’m irritated by the argument that, because atheists do have faith in things and can take leaps of faith, therefore an atheist’s secular faith in love and whatnot isn’t really any different from religious belief.

At the risk of sounding like I’m quibbling over language, I think secular faith and religious faith are very different animals. They’re not entirely unrelated, but ultimately they’re not the same thing at all. In fact, they’re so different, I’m not sure they should even share the same word.

So let’s take this one at a time. What is secular faith?

So now we have some pertinent synonyms for “secular faith.” Trust. Reliance. Confidence. Conviction. Hope.

Keep those synonyms in mind.

And religious faith is… what?

So religious faith is… what?

In writing this, I didn’t want to be a jerk and assume that I know better than believers do what faith means to them. I always hate it when theists assume they know what atheists think without actually bothering to check, and I don’t want to commit that error myself.

That being said, here are a few definitions of religious faith that I did find.

“…since faith is supernatural assent to Divine truths upon Divine authority, the ultimate or remote rule of faith must be the truthfulness of God in revealing Himself.” (catholic.org)

“Faith therefore is to believe that which you do not see, truth is to see what you have believed.” (St. Augustine”)

“‘Faith’ involves a growing recognition of who Jesus is… It is much more like an intuitive perception — a kind of ‘sixth sense’ — about this person Jesus: an inner prompting which compels us to go after him, to engage with his words and character, to ‘relate’ to him… But ‘faith’ is also not just about the intuition to seek. ‘Faith’ consists in taking Jesus at his word. This story illustrates clearly that ‘faith’ is characterised by a willingness to grasp what is being offered in the encounter with Jesus… ‘Faith’ in this story is not primarily some settled and serene conclusion reached at the end of a chain of philosophical reasoning. No, faith is rather the readiness and eagerness to receive what is offered to us in Jesus Christ. It is the hand that grasps the gift of God in Jesus and makes it our own. This is biblical faith.” (Revd Dr Paul Weston, ely.anglican.org; emphasis mine)

“Assent to the truth is of the essence of faith, and the ultimate ground on which our assent to any revealed truth rests is the veracity of God.” (Christiananswers.com)

“The dictionary definition of faith is, ‘the theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God’s will.’ For a Christian, this definition is not just words on a page it is a way of life. Faith is acceptance of what we cannot see but feel deep within our hearts. Faith is a belief that one-day we will stand before our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” (Allaboutreligion.org; emphasis mine.)

“Biblical faith, however, is specific and unique. It describes the person who chooses to believe, trust, and obey God. This principle is vital — the object of faith determines its value. Thus, it is very important that what we believe, what we have faith in, is really the truth!” (Herbert E. Douglass, The Faith of Jesus: Saying Yes to God’s Love)

“Faith is not a power or faculty in itself which “moves” or “compels” God. It is an attitude of confidence in God Himself. It always points to the One in whom it is placed.” (inchristalone.org)

“Faith, then, is like the soul of an experience. It is an inner acknowledgment of the relationship between God and man.” (John Powell, A Reason to Live! A Reason to Die)

“Faith saves our souls alive by giving us a universe of the taken-for-granted.” (Rose Wilder Lane, The Ghost in the Little House)

“Reason is an action of the mind; knowledge is a possession of the mind; but faith is an attitude of the person. It means you are prepared to stake yourself on something being so.” (Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1961–74)

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

So let’s sum these up, and make it as simple as we can without being simplistic.

And it means believing in God no matter what. It means an unshakeable belief in God. It doesn’t necessarily mean an unquestioning belief in God — again, many believers do ask questions, and hard questions at that — but it means a belief in God that survives those questions, and any questions. It means having belief in God, not as a hypothesis that so far has stood up to the evidence but might not always do so, but as an axiom. A presupposition.

Here’s a test that I’ve found to be extremely useful. Central to my whole thesis, in fact. In Ebonmuse’s excellent Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists, he makes this observation: “Ask any believer what would convince him he was mistaken and persuade him to leave his religion and become an atheist, and if you get a response, it will almost invariably be, ‘Nothing — I have faith in my god.'” He then goes on to offer several examples of the types of evidence that he, as an atheist, would accept as proof that a given religion is true.

Only two responses to the challenge, “What would convince you that your faith is mistaken?” And both those responses are strikingly unresponsive.

Now. In contrast. Let’s return for a moment to secular faith. And let’s offer one of the examples I mentioned before: my faith in Ingrid.

Is there anything that could convince me that my faith in Ingrid is mistaken?

Sure. Yes. Absolutely.

She could murder all my relatives. She could set our house on fire, purely for the thrill of watching it burn. She could clear out our joint bank account and run off to Brazil with Keith Olberman. She could be revealed to be a Russian spy (or a Cylon agent), who’s pretended to be in love with me all these years simply to gain information. She could shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

None of these things is logically impossible, or physically impossible. (Well, except the one about being a Cylon.) They’re not very likely, of course… but they could happen. And any of them would convince me that my faith in her was mistaken.

And that doesn’t make them weaker, or less valuable. Quite the contrary. It just makes them rational. It makes them grounded in reality.

Let’s look at those secular synonyms for “faith” again. Trust. Reliance. Confidence. Conviction. Hope. Those are the things that secular faith means. They mean a willingness to move forward in the absence of an ironclad guarantee. A willingness to hang onto the big picture in the face of small failures and setbacks. A willingness to persevere during difficult times.

But not one of these synonyms for secular faith implies a willingness to maintain that faith in contradiction of any possible evidence that might arise. Even when people’s secular faith leans towards the irrational — faith in lovers who repeatedly cheat, faith in leaders who repeatedly let us down — it still could theoretically be contradicted by evidence. Yes, some people maintain their faiths in the face of ridiculously obvious evidence to the contrary. But I think there are very few, if any, people whose secular faith in their lovers and leaders, their plans and ideologies, could not possibly be shaken by any imaginable evidence whatsoever.

Even if there are some people like that… how shall I put this? That kind of unshakability isn’t inherent to the very nature of secular faith. It isn’t a necessary and central part of the definition. Even if there are people whose faith in their cheating lovers could never be shaken even if they caught those lovers actually having wild naked sex with another person… I don’t think anyone thinks that that’s what it means, by definition, to have faith in your lover. I don’t think anyone thinks that giving up on your faith in your lover’s monogamy when you see them screw someone else somehow means that you didn’t really have faith in the first place… or that your faith wasn’t strong enough. (An argument that does get aimed at atheists who once had religious faith.)

And that, I think, is the difference between secular and religious faith. That is why my faith in Ingrid, in democracy, in myself, are fundamentally different from a theist’s faith in God. I have faith in Ingrid… but it’s not a central defining feature of that faith that nothing could ever shake it, even in theory. I don’t answer the question, “What would convince you that your faith in Ingrid is mistaken?” by saying, “Nothing. Nothing could convince me that I was mistaken. That’s what it means to have faith.”

What’s irrational is to maintain one’s faith in the face of any possible evidence that might arise. What’s irrational is to assert ahead of time that no possible evidence could ever shake your faith; to assert, essentially, that your faith trumps reality. And what’s profoundly irrational is to insist that doing these things is a virtue, an admirable trait that makes you a good and noble person.

Which leads us to a somewhat explosive question: Is religious faith irrational?

And that’s the subject of tomorrow’s sermon.

(Many thanks to Ebonmuse of Daylight Atheism for his help compiling the “definitions of faith” list.)

Odd experience. Neat, but odd.

Quick explanation. A friend of ours was being installed as senior minister in a local Bay Area church, and we went to the installation ceremony. A very lefty, groovy church, of course: completely gay-positive, sex-positive, feminist, very ecumenical, very inclusive, no smiting or hell or judgment talk, a major focus on compassion and social justice. And a nice place, too: warm, friendly, welcoming, with a great capacity for joy and a surprising sense of humor about itself.

I was surprised, though, at how God-dy it was. I hadn’t been expecting that. Somehow, I’d assumed that leftist, gay-positive, ecumenical, etc. churches didn’t really talk about God that much. Like the Unitarians. But the belief in God was very much present in the service, to a surprising degree. And so the churchiness and religious aspect of it was much more up in my face than it would have been in a less God-focused service.

It was a long ceremony. Over two hours. And while it wasn’t boring — quite the contrary, I found it a fascinating experience, and often a very pleasant one — it gave me a lot of time to contemplate religious belief up close… as well as my own reactions to it.

But the arguing wasn’t fun, the way it is in the atheosphere. In fact, it made me feel like kind of a jerk. Not a fair or accurate feeling, I don’t think, but a feeling nonetheless. Even though I wasn’t saying anything out loud (except the occasional sotto voce comment to my companions when I just couldn’t stand it), it reminded me of the unpleasant fact that, in our society, the role of the skeptic/ vocal atheist/ critic of religion and spirituality is often the role of the buzz-kill, the party pooper, the Great Rain God On Everyone’s Parade. And it reminded me, quite viscerally, of just how much of an outsider I was in this place. Even in the grooviest, friendliest, leftiest, most inclusive church I could hope for, I still felt like an alien.

Plus, because of how God-dy the service was, I was having a near-constant struggle with myself about how much I was and was not willing to participate. One the one hand, I didn’t want to be rudely conspicuous about my lack of assent to the proceedings. After all, as Miss Manners would say, if I’d felt such strong disapproval of the event that my only honorable response would be conspicuous defiance, the proper thing to do would have been to not attend at all. And I didn’t feel that way, at all. But at the same time, I was absolutely unwilling to say or do anything — and I mean anything — that expressed, or even symbolized, agreement and assent with what was being said or sung.

But on the flip side of all that, something else occurred to me, and occurred to me very strongly:

If this were what all religious belief and practice was like, I wouldn’t really care about it.

All religions aren’t like this one, of course. Religions like this one seem to be in the minority, and not a very large minority at that. And so my ongoing critique of religion will continue. Furthermore, while I don’t 100% agree with certain hard-line atheists that moderate religions give credibility to extremist and intolerant ones, I do think there’s a valid point in there somewhere. If nothing else, moderate religions give credibility to the idea that believing in things that don’t make sense and that you have absolutely no good evidence for is not only acceptable, but a positive virtue. And that is a big problem for me — especially since most religion isn’t groovy and tolerant and ecumenical.

It was good to have a reminder, though, that while I still don’t agree with churches like this one and still have serious problems with them, they really aren’t the enemy. These are good people, likable people, people I’m thrilled to have in the world.

But here’s the main thing, the final thing, the surprising and surprisingly large thing that I took away from this church service that I hadn’t even remotely expected:

I no longer have church envy.

At all.

But at no point during this church service did I think, “This is something I would like to have, and don’t.”

Ingrid said something after the service that struck me strongly. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but as soon as she said it, I realized it was true for me as well. The night before the church service, we had gone to Perverts Put Out, a semi-regular reading series by local sex writers. (I was one of the readers, in fact.) Now, Perverts Put Out is always a high-quality event… but this night was exceptional, even by PPO standards. One of those nights that you remember for years. And what Ingrid said is that, at that Perverts Put Out, she felt more transcendence, more joy, more sense of meaning and connection and community, than she even came close to feeling at the church service.

Yup.

Now, it’s not like this is a question of “either/or”. It’s not like you can have a porn reading or you can have church, but you can’t have both. Especially with this church. In fact, we weren’t the only people who went to both: we ran into a couple of people at the church service that we recognized from the porn reading the night before. I’m not trying to draw a contrast in that way.

I’m just trying to say:

There is nothing here that I want or need.

If any church — certainly any actively God-dy Christian church — was going to fill me with church envy, it would have been this one: this gay-positive, sex-positive, warm, loving, ecumenical, inclusive, progressive, social-justice church. And it didn’t.

And that’s an amazing realization. Even when you take away all the icky stuff from religion — even when you take away the conformist indoctrination and the fucked-up politics, the hatred of women and the fear of sex, the intolerance of other religions and the insidious terrorism of the concept of hell — I still don’t want it. It’s not just the obviously fucked-up trappings that I don’t want. It’s the religion itself.

A while back, I wrote a post asking, If You Weren’t An Atheist, What Would You Be? In it, I pondered this very issue: the yearning I had for the things religion seemed to offer, the search I’d been on in my past for a religious organization that I could be part of. I looked at religions that I had a fondness for, and asked: If I weren’t an atheist, what would I be? Would I be a Quaker? A pagan? A Bahai? A Jew?

But now I have my answer to that question.

If I weren’t an atheist, I’d be an atheist.

As promised. Sometimes dreams really do come true…

And, of course, to plumbing.