Many people reject any kind of overtly religious faith because of what they have come to believe is meant by “God”, “faith” and “religion”. And in many cases they are right to do so.
If “God” means some kind of “supreme being” who is just a bigger more powerful version of ourselves, then “he”, “she” or “it” should be ditched along with Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the (Jedi) Force. If “faith” means mindless attachment to, and emotional dependence on, that “supreme being”, it should be abandoned. And if “religion” is the organized means of pooling, imposing and exploiting such childishness, it should be rejected, opposed and eradicated by reasoned argument and the offer of a convincing alternative.
But those are three serious ifs ...
Why? Because that's what the Jewish scriptures call "idolatry", Christianity calls "superstition", and that secular Jewish prophet, Karl Marx, called the "opium of the people".
The naively secularist assumption that these "ifs" are all true for every religion, every faith, and every idea of “God” is itself a form of the same basic thing, though (apparently) in reverse: it is an irrational prejudice, a “fundamentalism”, or rather a quasi-religious fanaticism every bit as false and dangerous as any other.
A mature religious faith in God is the exact opposite of the childish caricature which religious fanaticisms perpetuate and anti-religious fanaticisms decry. A mature religious faith in God is about learning how to live with mystery, with being-as-mystery ... Mystery with a capital M! — and to do so together with one another, uniting us in our common wonder and awe, in our shared, yet personal, search to fathom this Mystery with reverence and with courage, seeking genuine knowledge and understanding so as to be able to discern how to live as fully and authentically as it is possible for us to do so.
For a mature religious believer, the word “God” is a breathless gasp, pointing beyond all our limits and horizons, all the familiar dimensions of our experience, knowledge, feeling, and even being. It is the proverbial finger pointing, not just to the proverbial Moon, but beyond all moons, stars and universes, beyond all matter, space and time … to the eternal, infinite reality we call spirit.
“God is spirit,” as Jesus so succinctly puts it, “and those who worship, must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)
That is a charter for a mature religious faith in God. And it is the mature antidote to both childish religion and its equally childish “opposite”.
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