I’ve been thinking a lot about faith and truth recently and whether or not one can be used along with the other, as they so often are. I have no problem at all with faith. I myself have faith in something, and I’d bet anything that we all, no matter who you are, also have faith in something. Of course, that something is different for all of us, but that something seems to always be some sort of higher power/force that controls/looks over all of our actions and causes whatever happens to happen, yes? Whether that’s God, or Allah, or nature, or L. Ron Hubbard is irrelevant.

The only problem that I have with faith is when it is claimed to be “the truth”, because that statement itself is not compatible with what faith in its essence is. Faith is defined as “belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence”. Truth is defined as “a proven or verified principle or statement”. Now, how can one possibly describe anything to do with faith as “truth”? In its very meaning, faith is not truth, at all. It is believing in something without knowing whether or not it is true. One may feel as if their faith is so strong to them that it is a personal truth, but personal truths are meaningless for the rest of humanity. I could just as easily claim the Bible to be the ultimate truth and the word of god as I could claim The Lord of the Rings Trilogy to be the ultimate truth and the word of god. They are exactly the same. Something that is true has been proven to be so and is unable to be disproved at any time, and since faith cannot be proven or disproved, one cannot say that they know or understand the truth. Yes, over time we have claimed many truths (the world being flat, Michael Jackson not being a pedophile, etc.) but these truths are later proven to be not so. Therefore, surely any truths that we hold now are not truths at all because at any time they could be disproved? Can we hold on to anything as “truth”?

For just over two years I accepted the Straight Edge philosophy and believed that it was the true way to live better and that I was going to stay Straight Edge for the rest of my life. Around the same time I also claimed that Jesus Christ was the way to God and the ultimate truth and, like Straight Edge, I thought it was certainly true that I was going to stay Christian for the rest of my life. I failed at both. I find myself unable to put my faith in truths which are unable to be proven as truths. What’s true for me now may well not be true for me tomorrow. For those few years Straight Edge and Christianity were true to me, but that is no longer the case. I’m as not Christian as I am not not Christian. Truths on each side of the argument cannot be proven as truths, therefore I cannot claim any side to be the holders of the “truth”. Atheism and Deism hold the same fundamental flaws: they both claim a truth which cannot be proven as a truth, therefore is worthless. Surely we need to describe all of our feelings as Agnostic, because we may have faith in something but we must acknowledge that at anytime those faiths and “truths” that we hold onto may change? Religious belief in itself is Agnostic, as faith is the core, and faith itself is Agnostic. To claim to “know” through faith is to claim “truth”, and, as previously mentioned, it is impossible for anything based on faith to be true, as faith itself isn’t truth or, for that matter, concerned with truth. If I have faith in Allah, I cannot claim my beliefs as true and a Scientologists beliefs as untrue, as both are as true and untrue as the next…

What does this all leave us with? Nothing. But, we can search for something. Searching is the key and fundamental part of life. Hold on, by claiming that searching is the key and fundamental part of life, am I claiming a truth which is impossible to be proven or disproved? Woops…