Blind Faith

The point, or counter-point, I was ultimately trying to make in class that I never got around to saying was that I believe many people use their belief in God as an excuse not to think for themselves. As a Christian myself, I believe God created us with analytical minds and free will for a reason. I believe that if you have never questioned your faith in God and you call yourself a Christian ( or a Muslim, Buddhist, whatever) then you aren’t really a Christian. No one is born a Christian. You have to be “born again.” You must make a conscious decision utilizing your own free will to decide to put faith in God. If you’ve just blindly accepted what your parents have taught you since you were young then you’re faith is simply not real. Basically what you’re communicating to me then is that if you had been born and raised a Muslim rather than a Christian you would be a Muslim right now because you lack the propensity to question your own beliefs and just blindly accept whatever you have been taught. This is why God constantly puts our faith to the test, to strengthen it and determine if it is genuine.
The statement “ I don’t know what justice is so I’m just going to trust that God knows what it is and stop thinking about it” is a very dangerous road to follow. This would only work if there was one universally accepted religion and view of God, but there is not. Justice is defined differently within different religions. In some sects of Islam, there is jihad. In some sects of Christianity, there is persecution of homosexuals. All of the people in these extremist sects trust that what they are doing is right and just and that God condones their actions. This is why blind faith is potentially so dangerous. Just because you were lucky enough to be born into a non-extremist sect of your faith doesn’t mean you should not question your faith. Between a faith in God that has been truly questioned by the individual and put to the test and has stood firm or a faith that has remained delicate and untouched since youth, I’ll take the former, because it will withstand further tests in the future.
It is debatable whether or not God will reveal these concepts such as justice to us once we get to heaven. Do you really believe that because our finite minds cannot comprehend something here on earth that somehow our minds will become like the mind of God once we get to heaven and we will have His powers of understanding? How could God bestow knowledge on us that only He can comprehend? Our minds will never be like the mind of God. This is why we have to trust. Blind trust, however, leads us down a very dangerous road, which is why philosophy and religion must go hand in hand, because religion provides the morality and philosophy provides the analysis. This way, you don’t have infanticide for the greater good of society and you don’t have jihad for the sake of your religion.