Real Faith Doesn't Require You to Check Your Brain at the Door

Q: I've read your column for years and especially appreciate how you counsel tolerance and acceptance of all on their spiritual journeys. I've wrestled with a question about faith and would like your thoughts.

I was raised Southern Baptist but left the denomination when it went off the conservative deep end. I now consider myself mostly agnostic. Regarding faith, I see it as something you either have or don't have. To believe in something is to know in your heart it's true. Faith can't be manufactured.

In any case, most of what I hear coming from religions flies in the face of science and logic, as I see it. I have to agree with Einstein's comment about rejecting a religion that required him to check his brain at the door. If the Judeo-Christian god does exist, how can a just deity condemn me for lacking something I can't create? I could sign up and pretend to be deeply religious but it would be a sham. I just don't have that spark. How do the great thinkers reconcile this? -- W., from Carolina, via godsquadquestion@aol.com

A: Some religious tinkers, like John Calvin, agree with you that faith is a gift from God to only some people. Those given the gift have it the way some people have blue eyes. This view is a problem for people like me, who believe that a good God would not cut anyone out of the possibility of a life of faith at birth. It's like saying that being a good person is an inherited trait and can't be learned.

What I do believe about this Calvinist idea is that faith, like virtue, is harder for some to acquire than others. This has nothing to do with reason or science. Smart people, rational people, good people can be religious or not religious. Real faith doesn't require you to check your brain at the door, unless you think Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Einstein, and Francis Collins (the genome guy) were and are stupid.

So let's dispense with the childish illusion that no smart people are religious and get to the heart of your question: How can a person having trouble with faith develop faith? I don't know for sure. I'd ask yourself this question: "Do I really believe I'm just a bundle of chemicals--just a material being, or do I believe there's a spiritual part of me that's also real?" I also know if you're asking the question with such intensity, you're already on your way.

Q: I was born to a Christian mother and a Jewish father. I've always wondered why when people learn of my background, many consider me "half Jewish," yet no one would ever refer to someone as "half Christian." Both my parents had roots in Russia and Austria-Hungary. (Their only difference in background was religion.) I always say I'm American-born with Russian and Austrian-Hungarian roots and am Christian.

I'm also puzzled about why only Jews get tested for certain diseases. What does religion have to do with disease? Why do just Jews get tested for Tay Sachs? Please elaborate. -- E., via godsquadquestion@aol.com

A: First of all, there's no such thing as a half anything. There are no half Christians, half Jews, or half Muslims. If you believe Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, who came to earth to die and be resurrected for your sins, then you're a Christian. If you don't, you aren't. Period. If you say and believe the shahadah, the affirmation of Muslim faith, "I believe that Allah is God and Mohammad is his prophet, then you're a Muslim. Period.

As for being Jewish, the definition of who's a Jew has gotten more complicated in recent years. In the Bible, if your father was Jewish, you were Jewish. Then things changed in Judaism and for almost 2,000 years, if your mother was Jewish, you were Jewish. Period.

Recently, some have maintained that even if only your father was Jewish you could be Jewish if you were raised as a Jew and received education in a synagogue. This has taken away the "period" and sent modern Judaism into a furious fight about Jewish identity, with the orthodox opinion holding to the post biblical definition that your mother had to be Jewish for you to be Jewish.

Whichever side you take in the debate, there are no Jewish authorities who believe that you can be a "half" Jew. You're either Jewish or not based on the identity of your mother or, as some ague, your father, plus your Jewish education.

Of course, none of these definitions have anything to do with what you believe. You can be a fully Jewish person and not believe anything Jewish. This makes Judaism much more like Hinduism, which also establishes identity (and one's caste) through blood, not belief.

As far as Jewish inherited genetic diseases, what you've heard is partly true. If you're descended from Jews who came from Europe, called Ashkenazi Jews, among whom intermarrying was common, certain recessive genetic traits were transmitted, and some of these caused maladies like Tay Sachs disease. Any close community produces such genetically-transmitted diseases. (Jews from the Mediterranean region, called Sephardic Jews, don't have any of the Jewish genetic diseases common to Ashkenazi Jews.)

My advice to everyone is that if somebody tells you they "are" something, you should believe them unless you have good reason for inquiring further. My advice to anyone who considers himself/herself "half" anything is to study, pray, and join a community of people who are whole somethings and become a whole something yourself.

By the way, there are no half-Americans, either. If you're an American citizen, you're my countryman. The world is better off when we accept people with whole identities, whole love and whole respect.

(Send QUESTIONS ONLY to The God Squad, c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207, or email them to godsquadquestion@aol.com.