Faith: A lifelong internal debate
I think most people
through out their lives constantly struggle with issues of faith and with doubts, most
do so secretly for obvious reasons. Saying one either has faith or does not have faith is unrealistically
simplistic. Imagine that by putting your left foot forward you have faith, then
by putting your right foot forward you don't have faith, to move forward in
life you have to alternate between the two constantly. This struggle is what
defines us, our fragility and our humanity.
There are some who interpret
Atheism as anti-god; others see it as a convenient soap box from where to
launch tirades against mainstream revealed religion. But being an Atheist is
just that, being a-religious, i.e. noncommittal concerning religious matters,
unconvinced by revelation, and lacking an internal faith compass for want of a
better word. But it also means that the person choosing this path desires that
the world be equally indifferent to religion and as such sideline faith in
matters that concern the wider civic community.
Faith has always been and
will always be a personal matter and an ongoing internal struggle for many. In
fact, even within the fold no two people who follow a single theology do so in
an identical manner. But no one can or should suggest that one person is more
devout than the other for whatever reason. Because to make such a claim one has
to delve deep into the hearts of men and women and no one has yet succeeded in
undertaking such a treacherous journey, nor completely mapping the rugged geography
of the human soul.
Each person has a unique
way of believing or not believing, even those who follow the strict dictates of
a monotheistic faith system do so differently even if the difference is minute.
Each person has a personal relation with an all powerful force that some choose
to call God. Even the most committed atheist recognizes, so I believe, that
there might be an all powerful unseen force that manipulates events and that
the path one follows in life is not one chosen by mere happenstance.
Even the most beloved of
American Presidents wrestled with doubts as a recent article in the Huffington
Post blog shows: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-mansfield/understanding-lincolns-atheist-period_b_2145340.html
Abraham
Lincoln may not have been a Bible thumper, but he saw his moral path clear
enough to recognize the evils of slavery and the necessity of abolishing it.
His example is one that all modern American statesmen would do well to follow.
that
the president "seldom communicated to anyone his views" on religion,
and he went on to suggest that those views were not orthodox: "on the
innate depravity of man, the character and office of the great head of the
Church, the Atonement, the infallibility of the written revelation, the
performance of miracles, the nature and design of...future rewards and
punishments...and many other subjects, he held opinions utterly at variance
with what are usually taught in the church."
Noll argues Lincoln was turned
against organized Christianity by his experiences as a young man who saw how
excessive emotion and bitter sectarian quarrels marked yearly camp meetings and
the ministry of traveling preachers. As a young man, Lincoln enjoyed reading the works of deists
such as Thomas Paine. He drafted a pamphlet incorporating such ideas.
Nonetheless, after charges of hostility to Christianity almost cost him a
congressional bid, he kept his unorthodox interests private. The one aspect of
his parents' Calvinist religion that Lincoln
apparently embraced wholeheartedly throughout his life was the "doctrine
of necessity", also known as predestination, determinism, or fatalism.
It was almost always through these lenses that Lincoln assessed the meaning of the Civil
War.
James Adams
labeled Lincoln
as a deist. It has been reported that in 1834 he wrote a manuscript essay challenging
orthodox Christianity modeled on Paine's book The Age of Reason, which a
friend supposedly burned to protect him from ridicule. According to biographer
Rev. William Barton, Lincoln
likely had written an essay something of this character, but it was not likely
that it was burned in such a manner.
There
was the strangest combination of church influence against me. [Edward Dickinson]
Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got
all of that Church. My wife had some relations in the Presbyterian churches,
and some in the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I
was set down as either one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that
no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, and was
suspected of being a Deist and had talked of fighting a duel.
In 1846, when Lincoln ran for congress against Peter Cartwright, the
noted evangelist, Cartwright tried to make Lincoln 's religion or lack of it a major
issue of the campaign. Responding to accusations that he was an
"infidel", Lincoln
defended himself, without denying that specific charge, by publishing a
hand-bill in which he stated:
That
I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the
truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of
religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.... I
do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew
to be an open enemy of, or scoffer at, religion.
As Carl Sandburg
recounts in Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, Lincoln attended one of Cartwright's revival
meetings. At the conclusion of the service, the fiery pulpiteer called for all
who intended to go to heaven to rise. Naturally, the response was heartening.
Then he called for all those who wished to go to hell to stand, unsurprisingly
there were not many takers. Lincoln
had responded to neither option. Cartwright closed in. "Mr. Lincoln, you
have not expressed an interest in going to either heaven or hell. May I enquire
as to where you do plan to go?" Lincoln
replied: "I did not come here with the idea of being singled out, but
since you ask, I will reply with equal candor. I intend to go to Congress.”
William Herndon,
Lincoln 's law partner, stated that Lincoln admired deists
Thomas Paine and Voltaire, and had read and knew of Charles Darwin before most.
"He soon grew into a belief of a universal law, evolution, and from this
he never deviated."
During the White
House years, Lincoln and his family often attended the New York Avenue
Presbyterian Church, where the family pew he rented is marked by a plaque."
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