Monday, August 30, 2010

Faith

"Faith" is a highly loaded concept for me. I was raised religious. I do not practice any organized religion. But I have faith, didn't always, do now. I practice my faith in my way, which almost certainly is not your way. Well, statistically speaking, it could be your way.

On it's face, faith is confident belief in something for which there is no physical evidence. Comprehensive Truth Systems, such as organized religions, invoke faith. This was my first encounter with the concept. If something made no sense in any conventional way, faith was invoked. The ways of God are unknowable. He operates in mysterious ways, beyond our comprehension. He created a world brimming over with disease, famine and violence. He permits murder, genocide and evil beyond description. Yet he is inherently good and loves us dearly. We can talk directly to God in prayer. God talks to us in a 2000 year old book. God does not have email, does not send smoke signals. The consequences of our prayers are inconclusive. Sometimes it seems our prayers are answered by some physical event. Usually the phone line is dead. Great persons of faith confess doubt. Usually doubt is resolved with a more intense embrace of faith.

Yet faith permits us to move on, to live moral lives. Faith kindles expectation of eternal life, of a marvelous future (or a horrible punishment) after we die. We believe in resurrection from death, although the chief cited example is 2000 years old. Our contemporaries do not reconstitute themselves after death. The only way to produce a living being is the old-fashioned way, insemination, fertilization, gestation, birth, and intensive loving care ensuring survival of the helpless infant. Resurrection is only witnessed metaphorically. Yet we can believe in our resurection, we can believe we have eternal souls.

We hold our faith strongly. Faith, being belief in the absence of evidence, cannot be refuted. We may have differing faiths, but we cannot compare them on any usual basis. We cannot discover truth about faith. We just believe it. So faith is very useful, particularly when it is challenged. Faith keeps people moving when experience would suggest stopping. Faith allows people to walk purposely into certain death without fear. That is real power.

So it is no occasion for wonder when we observe faith in action, when we rely on faith ourselves. If our faith works for us we have no cause to question it. Recognizing the power of one system of faith does not necessarily internalize identical faith. Is all faith equal, impossibly contradictory but equally "true?" Or is faith a device we employ to deal with fear and mystery? Life is, at the least, a confusing proposition to minds programmed to make sense of their environment. Faith is one answer to that timeless existential problem. Faith is capable of overlaying a reasonably consistent narrative which answers our questions and allows us to get on with living. And faith supports multiple, parallel narratives. Faith supports private belief and it presents with ancient authority. Faith is not very choosy about narrative. If we are religious, we tend to hold true the faith of our predecessors. In India we may become Hindu, in Japan Shinto, in America most probably Christian. Faith provides no tools for assessing whether one faith better corresponds to reality than another. Faith is developed and sustained by close association with other believers of the same faith. Faith may have deep historical roots, may be associated with splendid ceremony, precious artifacts. But it is still faith, accepted without rigorous proof. Incompatible with proof. Outside evidence. Reinforced only by our internal experience. When God speaks directly to us, he speaks to us alone.

The believer ceases to recognize the nature of faith and accepts his faith's teachings as truth. This truth is so interwoven with one's perception of existence that it is beyond challenge. Other faith with equivalent roots, traditions and ceremonies can be dismissed out of hand. Heretic, infidel, schismatic, pagan, heathen, fanatic. Damned bloody words to describe someone else's faith.

Faith is useful, and not just useful as a device to control others, as an opiate for the masses, as a substitute for bread. Faith is useful to every individual. Hope is faith in a particular future. We need faith to keep moving purposely beyond simple instinct for survival. Faith quiets our unruly thoughts. Faith allows us to concentrate by postulating answers to existential distractions. Faith usually arises in a religious context. Religion provides systematic solutions to the unknown, to questions otherwise unanswerable. Why are we here? What is our purpose? What really happens at birth and at death? There are as many answers as religions. They all work for
someone. The answers may not be complete, but they are sufficient.

I am not ridiculing faith. I am not denying the truth of religion. If you are thirsty, I would not withhold water. I believe the universe is beyond our comprehension. We should use the tools we have for whatever strength we might draw from them. Life can seem pointless without faith. Believe in something. It will help. I'd prefer that whatever you believe does not harm me, otherwise have at it.

Faith operates in prosaic contexts as well. If I study hard, if I develop useful capabilities, I will find a way to employ that learning. No matter my age or formal education. Whatever it is, I will be ready when opportunity pops up. Perhaps I will create opportunity. None of this is certain. But faith is sufficient to keep me going. The farmer plants his fields having faith in good weather. He may lose his crop in any given year. Still he tills and plants. The only certainty is there will be no crop if the farmer does not plant.

We all operate on faith. Faith that we will not be the one hit by a bus. Faith that the aircraft was properly maintained. Faith that our body will continue to fight off microscopic invaders, will arrest disease. Statistics tell us people die at certain rates from certain conditions. But statistics apply to populations, not individuals. Faith in our future is necessary. Not faith in an eternal existence. We can accept that we are creatures subject to whatever befalls creatures. I do not think I will see my cherished dog, Edward, again in Heaven. But while I still exist, I can marvel, I can appreciate, I can experience, I can love and be loved, I can play. I have faith I cannot live a better way.

I have faith in my future, and in the future of my children and grandchildren. This has not always seemed true to me, but it does now. For me faith is necessary. Multiplied over a thousand generations, it seems to be sufficient as well.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Swimbladder: maintaining equilibrium

I've been thinking about a new blog title for some time. "Swimbladder" was available and, I think, appropriate. This organ is found in most fish. The bladder contains gas, "air" if you will, which the fish controls to maintain neutral buoyancy at whatever depth the fish exists. Without the swimbladder, fish could not have developed body structures, like bones, that are more dense than water. The swim bladder gives the fish equilibrium in water, keeps them upside up, allows them to focus energy on movement, sensing, feeding and eluding being eaten.

The swimbladder is also the fish equivalent of an "Achilles heel." The abrupt change in density of the fish's body to air in the swimbladder reflects underwater sound. Undoubtedly, marine creatures with echolocation capabilities can detect prey in this manner. For the past 50 years, humans with electronic technology have also been able to detect fish this way. Modern fishfinders are an indispensable tool for catching fish. Having decimated most fish populations already, we need more sophisticated fishfinders to hunt down those that remain.

During my life as a marine electrician I installed increasingly more powerful fishfinders as they were developed. I've read the literature on the much more sophisticated equipment employed on commercial vessels. The fish haven't a chance if they exist in quantities economically worth catching. I don't feel guilt for installing recreational fishfinders, but I no longer eat fish either. As a general statement, I believe there is no such thing as a sustainable fishery. Experts may disagree, but the historical examples are of cascading collapse, not full recovery. We eat fish today that were considered valueless "trash fish" 50 years ago. But this is not a polemic against fishing. As I watch the charter boats leave the harbor where I keep my boat, I am pleased that the fishermen on board will experience the ocean and some of its creatures.

For me, the swimbladder represents adaptation which maintains equilibrium. "Swimbladder" is not as euphonious as "cricketwing," the title of Lissa Clark Adkins' blog, which I follow and respect very much, but "swimbladder" is a meaningful metaphor for me. The comparison makes me smile a little.