Certainty and Faith

In some religious practice today certainty has replaced faith as a kind of super-faith.  As you can see from the definitions below, faith and certainty are near opposites.

Faith: belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

Certainty: a form of knowledge, based on strong demonstrable evidence.

Some have substituted certainty for faith as a way of saying that their faith is stronger (and by implication more correct) than yours; they have confused certainty with a stronger form of faith, which it is not. Religious certainty has moved into the political realm over the last decade and created a kind of uber-partisanship.
In speaking about the groups with certainty taking over of the GOP in the 1990s Barry Goldwater said, “The uncompromising position of these groups is a divisive element that could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system… Those people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise; the government won’t work without it.”
Certainty is the enemy of democracy because in real world terms there is little that we can be truly certain of; most positions have a substantial degree of uncertainty. When you have certainty on your side, there is no room for compromise. We see it in Iraq today; the Sunnis and Shiites both have certainty, there can be no compromise. Al Qaida has certainty; there can be no compromise. Much that has gone wrong in Bush foreign policy can be attributed to their certainty on matters where evidence is thin or non-existent. Stephen Colbert humorously touches on the confusion between faith and certainty when he says, “People love the President because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist.”
A little less certainty and a little more humility would go a long way in helping to heal the partisan divide in this country.

Comments

[Exhume Goldwater]

It's stuff like that which reminds us why Barry Goldwater might have made a great choice for this country in the past, and will make a great choice for it again in the future: Exhume Goldwater '08!