I believe in faith

I was raised an atheist, so for me concepts like god and heaven and hell seem more like fairytales than core beliefs. But I was asked recently if I was a person of faith. My gut answer was of course I have tremendous faith. But I know what they were asking was, am I a person of religion? which I am not. I realized at that moment that religion had co-opted the word with faith. I believe you can have faith even if it is not part of your religious beliefs.

I discovered many years ago that most of the people closest to me were people of faith, they mostly were also religious, some Jews some Christian some probably others I usually didn’t ask. While curious I really didn’t care. I found faith can be a common bond. It drives a common way to perceive life even in it many forms.

I do know that faith is very important to me. I know that to accomplish anything in life requires leaps of faith. To love someone requires faith and to me to be truly happy requires faith in yourself.

But I had to ask myself since I didn’t have a religion to help define my faith what was it I had faith in. So here are some ideas.

I have faith in the goodness of man, I see this all the time. When presented with a choice whither to help someone or not people will choose to help. When people do things that are perceived as bad they generally are not clear of their choices.

I have faith in tomorrow; new beginnings can start as soon as you decide to head in a new direction.

I have faith that the environment we live is a balance of all things, so if I approach my environment with balance in mind then my environment will reward be.

I believe in faith