Sunday, February 25, 2007

Evidence of faith

Over at We Move to Canada, L-Girl has blogged about the new right-wing version of Wikipedia, Conservapedia. Visiting them, I've just learned the rather surprising 'fact' that...

Did you know that faith is a uniquely Christian concept? Add to the explanation of what it means, and how it does not exist on other religions.

The article on faith goes on to state that "Faith is complete trust or confidence in an unseen, loving power... Jesus was unique in preaching the significance of faith and it is exclusive to Christianity. No other religion is based on faith as distinguished from mere belief."

Now isn't that a kicker? Of the three major Abrahamic religions, to say this of Christianity strikes me as high ironic, to be politie about it. In Judiasm, as I recall, Jacob wrestled with God in a dream, and God spoke to Moses in the form of a burning bush — or at least through the agency of one. Islam holds that God has no body, no face, no form, and certainly no begotten son. But Christianity, the religion supposed based on faith alone (unlike, of course, these others), has actually had the Man Himself show up, wander around, and shake hands with people. Jesus didn't just speak for God; supposedly, he was God.

Spot the logic bomb, kids.

Now it seems to me a bit much for these folks to hog the concept of "faith" for themselves alone, especially when their religion is the only one that actually supposes that God has shown up in the flesh (literally), while Judaism and Islam offer no such physical proof. If faith is supposed to be about belief in the absence of proof, well... doesn't Christianity kind of come in dead last in this department? Doesn't their own argument actually disqualify Christianity as a "faith" at all, relative to Islam and Judaism?

1 comment:

laura k said...

Well said!

There are so many hoots in that Conservapedia thingy, one hardly knows where to start.

I know you're mostly photoblogging these days, so I'm honoured to have inspired some words. :)