Question:
What takes more courage to believe or not to believe?
Answer: It takes no
courage to live out one’s brief days without ever having examined human
existence in its depth-dimensions, without ever having entertained a
thought of God, the soul or the afterlife, without ever having wondered
at the root causes of the desperate pass that humanity has come to
today in its ongoing crisis of civilization.
Conversely, it does takes a lot of courage, or a lot of love, to become
a seeker and to follow a personal path to investigate divine/religious
teaching independently for oneself, and to arrive at one’s own
conclusions. It takes courage to question religious beliefs that have
been handed down for generations to a particular religious community,
especially if these beliefs have been taught in an authoritative or
dogmatic manner.
I do not mean to suggest by this statement that we should begin to
systematically doubt everything that we have been taught by our
religious forbears. But when a teaching or set of teachings, strike us
as being wanting; when a teaching promotes religious nationalism,
sectarianism, elitism, or fanaticism; when a teaching is prejudicial,
divisive, and separates us from our fellow humans, of whatever race,
religion or colour; when a teaching flies in the face of reason,
justice and common sense, or well-established scientific truth, then it
is time to take a closer, harder look at that teaching and reject it.
The Baha’is in Iran showed tremendous courage when in 1844, and later
in 1863, they accepted the prophetic claims of the Bab (1819-1850), the
forerunner, and Baha’u’llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha’i
Faith, as Divine Messengers for our era of global unity. They did this
knowing full well that they would be subjecting themselves to
fanatical, religious persecution and would face possible martyrdom for
having accepted these divine claims. No less than an estimated 20,000
Babi-Baha’is paid the price of their beliefs with their life blood. The
Baha’is in Iran today show great courage, a courage that does not
respond in kind with hatred, by enduring a fanatical regime that is
systematically attempting to strangle the life out of them in every
possible way. It takes courage to dare to be
different. -
Jack
McLean
