Jamie_L

I've noticed recently that a lot of stories - be they written or filmed - focus on the importance of faith. I'm not talking about religious stories or religious faith, but more "secular" stories that deal with the importance of non-religious faith. I first had this thought watching "Miracle on 34th Street", in which there is quite a bit of discussion about the importance of faith in things that don't make sense. Since then I've had a hightened sensitivity to this theme, and it crops up a lot. Even in films that I like - "Field of Dreams" comes to mind. All over the place are non-religious stories that show how faith in something that makes no sense is a good thing. In most of these stories, the oppositie position - that it is foolish to pursue something without a good reason, is painted as a bad thing.

Why does our culture value faith so much? Is it connected to the underlying religiousness of our culture, tying ultimately to religious faith even though religion is not the point of these stories? Or is there something else that makes people feel that this kind of "faith" is a good thing, and that rational thought is bad?

Jamie

daemon

I've noticed this myself a couple times, and think it is simply that people, especially the very religious, want to feel that their personal faith is valuable, but at the same time, many don't want to be so tactless, or are not sure enough of themselves, to condemn everyone else. Hence, all faith must be good.

Dread Pirate Rasputin

I have noticed this too. It has always puzzled me that people put such high value on irrationality. The only explanation I can think of is pretty weak: that a great number of people feel a false sense of strength when they sacrifice their rationality, and they value this "power" more than the truth. But why someone who builds a baseball field because a voice tells him to is treated as a hero... that will always be beyond me.

ImGod

It's good marketing of the shows. They don't want to alienate potential audiences by leaving out too many different religions. The general spirituality (fill in your own god) stuff helps the majority fit into the story.

You notice that touched by an angel doesn't ever say that god is a baptist or a catholic. Just the glossed over touchy-feely god loves you, or he's going to be with god.

Echo

This same thing happens a lot in horror movies and supernatural thrillers, where the gullible parapsychologists are presented as noble, open-minded people, while the scientists are a bunch of sour, cynical skeptics who actually demand evidence that poltergeists are going around raping people or aliens are abducting people.

I wonder how these same people would react if courtrooms started placing less emphasis on evidence and more emphasis on faith? If there is an abundance of physical evidence to suggest that someone committed a serious crime, but his family has an unyielding faith in his innocence, should their faith trump the evidence?

Ron Garrett

There is something innate in human nature that gives credence to the incredible. We want to believe the ludicrous. Part of it, I think, is that as infants we generally begin in an environment of which we are the center of the universe. We crap our britches. We scream. Immediately someone big and powerful comes along and cleans us up. We are hungry. We scream. Immediately someone big an powerful sticks a nipple in our mouths. We start life understanding that the universe responds to our whims with little effort on our part, like magic. It's not something we give up easily, and we don't like hearing that fairy godmother can't wave a wand and make it all better, thus opening the door for the snake oil salesmen and evangelists of the world that cry "Don't question. Just have faith! Accepting without question is virtuous. Doubt is evil. God rewards faith and punishes doubt. Thinking is doubt! Questioning is doubt! Blessed are those who have self-inflicted lobotomies, pahraize Jeebus!"

We feel alone and isolated. We want the universe to be full of smarter than us aleins, ghosts or gods that will solve all our problems by telling us what to do, eat, wear or chant in order to magically fulfill our wishes and keep us safe.

Here's the sad part. I have to think that if we all just accepted the truth of our mortality and that there is no super something coming along to save the day, it might make us focus on fixing what we can fix and doing what we can do together more than we do waiting for uber-spirit to come along and clean up the mess. Far from solving the problem of our aloneness and individual powerlessness, I think religion and "faith" only makes matters far worse by diffusing our energies that could otherwise focus on the matter at hand.

sidewinder

Ron: I completely agree with your post but I am not optimistic that the "truth of our mortality" will be accepted anytime soon.

abe smith

"Faith" is valuable to the GReat Unwashed because it requires 1. no brains, 2.no information, 3.no facts, 4.no substantiation of any sort, 5.ANYone can do it., 6.There is no way of refuting it. 7..It can get you a good, profitable job selling bullshit to the polloi.,8. It can win you political elections..... Wow! Faith can do MIRACLES!

Malaclypse the Younger

Faith protects fragile consciousness from the fear of death and the existential terror of the utter objective meaninglessness of life.

However, having myself faced these terrors and found them as laughably unterrifying as monsters under the bed, I must admit that I have little sympathy for those who choose to protect themselves by warping their entire view of reality and ethics.

freemonkey

Good answers, everyone. I once heard someone say that the human species is, for the most part, in it's adolescence... This gives me faith that sooner or later we will grow out of it and begin taking responsibility for our lives like mature adults.