Among the sales-pitch hooks of Catholicism, this gambit is a common one: certainty through faith is not a prerequisite; the desire to believe is enough for Mother Church.
Help thou mine unbelief!
Mark 9:24
The long, dark night of the soul is surely not peculiar to Christianity. Rare indeed must be the believer who has never doubted, for a moment, the existence of his revered, omnipotent big brother, who will protect him from death, who will set right all injustices against his followers, who will wipe away the tears and lead his flock into sunlit meadows. Apart from the truly brainless, who never think and never question anything they are told (a tiny minority, I hope and think likely), all theists must have had doubts at some point. Perhaps, in at least a few, those niggling, nagging, naysaying voices persist for a disturbingly long time. Perhaps, in some cases, more numerous than we imagine, they never go away.
A lifetime of unanswered prayer will do little to assuage the indecision. The theist wants, oh so wants to be sure he will survive his own extinction; that his foes will suffer eternal torment, and that his loved ones will share his eternal bliss. But his rational mind will not lie quiescent. What if it is all a story? Why doesn't god come forth and show himself? Where might the doubter seek solace, and what peevish behaviours might his never-sleeping subconscious serve up, in answer to the doubting whispers?
I contend that a frustrated desire to believe will favour two consequences. Firstly, the wannabe believer will seek reinforcement and reassurance from all quarters. Routine company of other believers, to whom it is natural to suppose faith comes much more easily than it does to oneself, together with rabidly-obsessive adherence to many-times-daily ritual, is the first of these. Which religion comes most readily to mind when you read the last sentence? Dubious acolytes will tend to gravitate towards patriarchal leader figures, founts of certitude based on quotations from ancient texts and supposed scholarly research.
The second, and unquestionably the more dangerous, consequence is likely to be a powerful urge to vilify and attack other unbelievers. For one thing, the presence of infidels is a permanent, standing reminder of one's own potential for infidelity. Lash out at the unbeliever, the embodiment of your own projected doubts. Destroy them all, and affirm your own status, in your own eyes, as a true follower for evermore. By stamping out the infidel, you stamp out your own misgivings. Wipe them from the face of the earth, until only the yes-men remain, mirroring our own desired perception of ourselves, welded unshakeably to the brotherhood.
Help thou mine unbelief!
Mark 9:24
The long, dark night of the soul is surely not peculiar to Christianity. Rare indeed must be the believer who has never doubted, for a moment, the existence of his revered, omnipotent big brother, who will protect him from death, who will set right all injustices against his followers, who will wipe away the tears and lead his flock into sunlit meadows. Apart from the truly brainless, who never think and never question anything they are told (a tiny minority, I hope and think likely), all theists must have had doubts at some point. Perhaps, in at least a few, those niggling, nagging, naysaying voices persist for a disturbingly long time. Perhaps, in some cases, more numerous than we imagine, they never go away.
A lifetime of unanswered prayer will do little to assuage the indecision. The theist wants, oh so wants to be sure he will survive his own extinction; that his foes will suffer eternal torment, and that his loved ones will share his eternal bliss. But his rational mind will not lie quiescent. What if it is all a story? Why doesn't god come forth and show himself? Where might the doubter seek solace, and what peevish behaviours might his never-sleeping subconscious serve up, in answer to the doubting whispers?
I contend that a frustrated desire to believe will favour two consequences. Firstly, the wannabe believer will seek reinforcement and reassurance from all quarters. Routine company of other believers, to whom it is natural to suppose faith comes much more easily than it does to oneself, together with rabidly-obsessive adherence to many-times-daily ritual, is the first of these. Which religion comes most readily to mind when you read the last sentence? Dubious acolytes will tend to gravitate towards patriarchal leader figures, founts of certitude based on quotations from ancient texts and supposed scholarly research.
The second, and unquestionably the more dangerous, consequence is likely to be a powerful urge to vilify and attack other unbelievers. For one thing, the presence of infidels is a permanent, standing reminder of one's own potential for infidelity. Lash out at the unbeliever, the embodiment of your own projected doubts. Destroy them all, and affirm your own status, in your own eyes, as a true follower for evermore. By stamping out the infidel, you stamp out your own misgivings. Wipe them from the face of the earth, until only the yes-men remain, mirroring our own desired perception of ourselves, welded unshakeably to the brotherhood.
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