I’m pretty sure all of us can relate to this: we wake up in the morning for our morning class and start making the walk from our room to our classroom without realizing we have taken a “leap of faith.” We do not have any evidence that proves that our particular class will be there when we arrive. Yet every morning of the school year we continue this process. Faith. The Oxford Dictionary defines faith as, “Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” We exhibit faith whether we realize it or not. We trust that if we study hard enough we will make an ‘A’ on our exam, even though there are countless examples of people studying hard and still not succeeding. We have faith that by receiving our degree, we will increase the amount of opportunities we can have in our life, even though research has shown that the value of a bachelor’s degree is constantly going down. We have faith that when we go to McDonald’s and order our food we will receive exactly what we ask for.
I have the faith that when I go to McDonalds I shouldn’t ask for a vanilla milkshake because more than likely the machine is broken.
Some of us even have faith in a higher being, trusting that the being has our best interest at heart. No matter what we believe, often times we exhibit a faith or even hope that we use in all of our day-to-day affairs. Often times faith is associated with religion, and we hear time and time again about how we should not believe in anything without sufficient evidence. We are often told to aspire to a “higher truth” with no instruction or guidance of what it really is. We are told that it would be feeble of us to believe something simply because we feel it’s encouraging and not necessarily because we feel it is true.
We are told that people who believe in religion are just using it to escape the hardships of this world and create false realities to make themselves comfortable. I think it is a very hasty generalization to group all beliefs, especially religious beliefs, and say the sole reason why people believe in it is to become comfortable. No matter what we believe, reality will constantly knock us down laughing saying, “you thought.” Still, it is better to have hope that our future will be better than our present. What faith and hope tells us is that even though we face many uncertainties, hardships and trials, life will be ok and it will be better.
Not only should we stop questioning others’ faith, we should constantly question our own and realize the amount of beliefs we have that have no solid yes or no answer. Not only should we continue to make leaps of faith, but we should realize they are necessary.
Robert Dinkins, a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at RDinkins19@wooster.edu.