Do you believe in things that you don’t see? Most people do. Some believe in god(s), others in spirits or karma. Some people believe in science. These are all things that need faith to believe. It’s impossible to believe in Jesus in you don’t have faith. Also in science, you need to have faith in the scientist, that they are doing a trustworthy job and that their studies can be trusted.

I think people need faith. It doesn’t matter what the topic, but many things are either too complicated, too broad, too “out of this world” to be understood completely or to have them tested by yourself. After accepting that everyone needs faith of some kind, we can move on to next step: based on what evidence do you have faith in the particular issue?

A religious faith has a lot of “When you see the beauty of this world, how you cannot believe in Jesus?” and “If a God didn’t make the universe, where do we come from?” This can be frustrating as these kinds of blunt arguments are easily debunked. Science, on the other hand, tries to make test and hypothesis on the issue and then proof whether the issue in hand is correct or incorrect, but the more we study, the more we keep finding answers and we find things that we didn’t even know existed yet, making the previous studies moot.

Faith brings comfort and eases our curious minds. Whether you put your trust to Allah and are willing to kill yourself for a higher cause or pray during a crisis – you are thinking there are something bigger than you “out there”, who controls the situation, guides you and keeps you safe. In science things are easier in this aspect, as there are evidence and propabilities: for example, you can use mathematical formulas to calculate what are the odds that you will be killed by a plane crash.

Where does this faith come to our lives? Some parts of it must come from our upbringing and from our surroundings, but there is a lot in (in our personalities, do I dare to say in our souls) what we choose to believe in. There are wide differences in the object of faith, as some people are willing to put their faith into gurus and/or cults. Other may only have faith in themselves – as cynical it might sound.

For what I see there, doesn’t seem to be a pattern on who or what a person puts their faith into, but there is a lot of tension in between those of different faiths. Wars have been fought over faith and religion. In the end, I see that there are different levels of faith and that they should be divided into “healthy” options. First, have faith in yourself. Second, have faith in what you have the power to choose. And lastly: have faith in the universe as we humans are just tiny specs of space dust floating in space.

Keep the faith!