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Faith?

By Harry T. Cook

The attached commentary was submitted as an OP ED, authored by Harry Cook on behalf of the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights. The organization's introduction to the letter is as follows:
"This commentary expressly represents the organizational position and beliefs of the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights in opposition to Religious Freedom Restoration Act being currently being proposed in the Michigan legislature."

All signs point to a resurgence of "faith-based" politics that almost surely will produce
legislation and resultant policies that will have their ground in uncritical religious and
ideological belief systems.
The words "faith" and "belief" have together become a corrupting and dangerous
influence in the world. An imam, a would-be suicide bomber, an evangelist, a bishop,
even a President of the United States – each is permitted to defend his or her choices by
appealing to "faith," the validity of which one cannot determine, and to "belief," which
one is supposed to tolerate rather than challenge under the rubrics of "everyone is entitled
to his own opinion" and "it is wrong to criticize or challenge another person's religion."
By faith, the Crusades were undertaken; to defend belief, so-called heretics were
incinerated; on faith, some people still believe Earth is but 6,000 years old and those who
teach otherwise are anathema; for faith, ISIS extremists behead people who fail to be
proper Muslims.
In each and every case, the particular article of faith or tenet of belief cited is purposely
placed beyond empirical testing and open discussion. Warrant for trust in such articles
and tenets springs from so-called sacred texts, the contents of which are also supposed to
be beyond ordinary textual investigation, and which are to be taken as the express law
and will of whatever god is imagined therein. "It says in the Bible," "It says in the
Koran": these are the justifications given for so much of what the Scots poet Robert
Burns called "man's inhumanity to man."
What is called for in the 21st century is courage, not faith; knowledge, not belief.
Courage is that which enables a person to seek for and deal with what is real, rather than
what is imagined or wished for. Knowledge is that which is arrived at by observation and
rationalized experience. Courage to seek knowledge, rather than to rely upon blind belief
in what some religious or political authority claims to be true, is the key to establishing a
just society founded on reason.
The courage to search for and act upon knowledge regardless of sectarian demands will
be what saves America from becoming a theocracy. History bears witness to the fact that
widespread reliance upon faith in unseen deities and the laws said to have been laid down
by them (always mediated by a ruling hierarchy and defended by personal preference)
leads inexorably to theocracy, meaning government by ruthlessly applied central
authority and suppression of dissent.
Uncritical tolerance of faith and belief systems will lead us there. A belief-based system –
a religion, in other words – must be judged on the behavior of its adherents toward
others, and by no other standard. The Jesus of the New Testament prescribed just such a
standard: "Turn the other cheek toward the hand of the one who hit you (instead of hitting back), walk the second mile voluntarily after the first that was required, love both enemy
and neighbor, give up that shirt you're wearing today as well as your coat to the one who
has neither, and forgive as often as it takes."
Beyond that ethic, where religion is used – especially in league with government – to
restrict human rights, to bless unjust wars, to maintain class supremacy, to dictate who
can and cannot marry, to prohibit women from exercising their reproductive rights –
theocracy has come into its own. Even now the Michigan Legislature is on the verge of
enacting a "religious freedom" statute that, in effect, would license such bias and
discrimination.
Theocracy is a real threat. Let the theocrats concentrate on the ethical core of their system
and promote respect for the dignity of each and every human being: a faith worthy of the
name.

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