Faith is not really the problem. People have believed in gods, rituals and meanings for as long as there have been people, and many have lived kind, brave lives because of what they believed. The problem is a particular kind of faith — the version handed over at birth, sealed, and never opened.
Your religion was chosen by your birthplace
Here is a simple experiment. If you had been born in a different country, to different parents, would you hold the same religion you hold now? For almost everyone, the honest answer is no.
Survey after survey shows that the strongest predictor of a person's religion is not argument, experience or study. It is where and to whom they were born. That does not make any belief false. It does mean that most beliefs were never chosen.
Inheriting is not the same as believing
Children inherit language, food and religion together, before they are old enough to question any of them. There is nothing wrong with that; every culture passes itself on. The trouble begins when the inheritance is never examined — when questioning it is treated as disloyalty rather than as growing up.
A belief you have never been allowed to doubt is not really yours yet. It is still in the envelope it arrived in.
A belief you have never been allowed to doubt is not really yours yet. It is still in the envelope it arrived in.
— Vinu Jaglan
What examined faith looks like
Examined faith has read its own scriptures, not just heard about them. It knows the strongest objections and has an answer, or admits it does not. It can say which parts it holds because they are true and which because they are familiar.
Some people who open the envelope find their faith again, stronger and more their own. Some find they no longer believe. Both have done something honest. Only the person who never opens it has avoided the question entirely.
An old instruction
The instruction to examine is itself very old. In the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha is remembered advising people not to accept teachings merely because of tradition, scripture or the authority of teachers, but to test them against their own experience. Centuries later Immanuel Kant summarised the Enlightenment in two words: dare to know.
Examining your faith is not an attack on tradition. At its best, it is one of the oldest traditions there is.
Opening the envelope
Start small. Pick one belief you hold only because it was given to you and ask why you hold it. Read one serious argument against it and one serious argument for it. Talk to someone who believes differently, to understand rather than to win.
Whatever you end up believing, you will believe it for your own reasons. That is the difference between inheriting a faith and having one.
When examination brings people back
Not everyone who opens the envelope leaves. Some return to their faith with a deeper understanding — knowing its history, its debates and its weak points, and choosing it anyway. Their belief is often calmer, kinder and harder to manipulate.
That is the quiet promise of examined faith: it is less afraid of questions, because it has already faced them.
Raising children who choose
Parents can pass on a tradition without sealing it. Teach the stories and the rituals, and also teach that questions are welcome, that other families believe other things, and that a good person can be found in every community.
Children raised this way may end up believing what their parents believe, or not. Either way, what they hold will be theirs — which is the only kind of belief that can survive adulthood.
Key takeaways
- Most people's religion is predicted by birthplace, not by argument.
- Examined faith — kept or left — is honest; unexamined faith avoids the question.
- The call to test beliefs is itself an ancient tradition.
Further reading
- Immanuel Kant — An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?
- Walpola Rahula — What the Buddha Taught
- Richard Dawkins — The God Delusion
