I've Looked For Faith Everywhere But I Only End Up With More Questions

And it is beautiful

Interior of Saint Peter's, Rome, Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1754

As a kid, I believed I would meet God. My life was so good that I assumed that meeting God and having a conversation with him was the next logical step.

But time went on, and despite many trips to church, it didn't happen. So I wanted a picture. I imagined a glowing, perfect figure—a divine headshot you could speak with. My dad tried to help. He printed out one of the greatest works of art ever created, Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. I saw it in person last year at the Vatican, and though it is one of the most magnificent works of art ever made, I remember feeling disappointed as a child.

"This is just a painting," I thought. 

That was the first seed of doubt.

My doubt deepened as I grew up in a diverse city. I was often surrounded by people of different ethnicities, languages, and religions. In elementary school I wondered, “Wait a second, if there are so many religions, which one is right?” Once, I asked a teacher this question, and she gave me a kind answer: “Everyone is together in heaven, regardless of their beliefs here.” While it was a comforting response, I later felt unsatisfied. My dissatisfaction with such answers was apparent in a recent conversation I had here in Austin. Someone asked me why I struggle with faith, and a couple things came to mind.

First is the overwhelming number of religions. The simple fact that every culture across history has created its own religion makes it hard to fathom how anyone could believe that the one they follow is the real truth. Judaism? Christianity? Islam? Hinduism? Take your pick. I view much of the various religious texts as profound stories—like great novels—which offer wise moral lessons to make people’s lives better. But just because they make some people’s lives better, does that mean that the charismatic Aramaic-speaking guy from the Middle East 2,000 years ago was literally the son of God? Or that the other famous charismatic guy from the Middle East is God’s only prophet? Of course not.

The second is the existence of extreme suffering. I think back to another experience I had during my trip in Italy. On a train ride to the beach, I saw a man with a deformed body who seemed like he was mentally challenged. He was playing a toy piano and shaking a cup for change. His sad state was heartbreaking. What is God's plan for him? A true believer might argue his reward in heaven will outweigh his suffering, but I find that view both absurd and heartless. There are other counter-arguments against this infamous problem of evil, like the free will defense or greater good defense. But it is hard to see their validity when you are face-to-face with such pointless despair.

For those two main reasons, I find it somewhat shocking how people can have genuine faith in a particular religion (of course the one they happened to be born into). I understand that religious belief brings many people comfort, joy, and a sense of purpose. Good for them, I say. But I also say what I think: that the enigma of existence is not explained by religious traditions, which are full of superstition and falsehoods.

With that said, I am not dismissive of the value of religion. In fact, I respect and value many religious texts. For example, the Book of Proverbs and the Gospel of Matthew are filled with wisdom that has had a positive impact on me, along with many other spiritual books, like The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, and the Tao Te Ching, for example. Another reason I’m not dismissive of the value of religion is the argument that without religion—without a collective belief in a higher power—societies descend into chaos, with destructive ideologies filling the void. Intellectuals often point to Communism, Nazism, and even today’s Wokeism as examples. Humans are hardwired to worship, and it’s better to worship God than the false idols of these “new religions.” While there is some good sense in this perspective, it still does not mean that religion is the ultimate source of truth. It still does not mean that the people who wrote these ancient texts and stories were anything more than human. 

I was talking with a friend over the phone recently about all this, and I told him that the deepest thing I can say is that I just don’t know. Deep down, regarding the question of God, my gut simply says: “I don’t know, but I really hope so.” I would not describe myself as an atheist. But I don’t subscribe to any religion, and I don’t have faith. And if God does exist, I imagine it is something independent of any religion. 

What is tricky is that God is a hard thing to define, if it is even possible. On one hand there is the basic conception of God as an old man sitting on a throne in the sky. On the other hand there is the Pantheistic perspective, that the universe itself is God—that they are identical. Somewhere in the middle there are mountains of personal answers I’ve heard, that seem to fall in between those two perspectives. God the ultimate reality, God the supreme intelligence, God the conscious spirit, and other conceptions. I’m open to the possibility that any of these conceptions—some much more than others—are true. But I don’t have faith in any of them, because, again, I just don’t know.

Living without faith can be painful. But it’s also more interesting. And, I believe, if done with not a nihilistic, but an open-minded and optimistic attitude, more beautiful. This is true not only for the progress of civilization, but for the enrichment of any individual mind. Every day becomes a fun investigation into this mysterious and fascinating world in which we find ourselves. You don't need any ancient writings or divine headshots you can speak with to feel that it is an experience that is inherently meaningful.