It is true that “You are not God – you do not have a monopoly on the truth”. But people still endorse faith. But while faith is not certainty it soon gets treated as if it is. Habits are powerful. If thinking you are right does harm then thinking God has given you your faith can do harm too. You may not be certain of the content of faith but you are certain God gave you faith. A slippery slope will appear and arrogance will grow.
Yet people say that religious faith is good. Most agree that it is
good if kept personal and not used to unduly influence anybody else. They
seem to mean placebo not faith. But the placebo is a lie. It means you are
trying to feel better when you are not better. It is only valuable say if that
motives you to exercise or something. But the good happens in spite of the
placebo not because of it – it is still a lie. A placebo can cause a person to
feel they can feel away or believe away a danger or tumour. Remember that.
Faith should restrict itself to believing that helping another without
wanting a reward is worth doing. It should not be about a God. In fact wanting
a God’s approval – a kind of reward too on its own - or even a reward from him
is not what faith is about. So there is no need for God. And there is no need
for a God who assesses and awards either.
Faith in untruths means undue
influence has been inflicted on you.
Faith in God mainly means how God
is working through people for you. Faith in people then is inherently involved
and that is easily exploited as we all know too well.
The claim that
faith in itself and the components it has – eg faith in the Mass – pretends to
turn faith into evidence. It is presented as evidence as in a testimony from
God and as a testimony from your alleged soul that this faith is needed and
that it has found it and found God in it.
Suppose people really did good with or without religion and we accept the religious thesis that goodness is religious even if the person does not realise it for it comes from God. Then it should not matter if we have explicit organised religion or not. This is an argument for religion being relegated to mere opinion. It should not be in schools or at state events. That is giving it too much value.
Faith in yourself to be defiant of "God" or reality is the faith that
matters. The person choosing the right to die to
avoid suffering is being defiant. It is , "F*ck fate or whatever is out there.
I will grab dignity and make my own decision." Actually defiance is a form of
control rather than giving up. Impending death cannot be stopped anyway.
Faith is tied to respect for God and thus does you potential harm.