Some people feel
that there is a life after death. They feel after human dies he or she goes to
the heaven or hell on the basis of his or her karma. Why do they feel like this? They feel like this because they
have belief. Belief is something
which you sense is true on the basis of personal experiences or by getting
influenced by other person’s beliefs. Everyone has their own beliefs but it is
not necessary that the two people will have the same belief. They can have
different point of views. Like one person has belief that war is against the
mankind but there is one more person who has belief that war is not against the
mankind. Similarly one has belief that eating non-vegetarian is not ethical and
unhygienic but the other person has belief that eating non-vegetarian food is
hygienic and harmless to humans.
Taking various
beliefs of a person individually is called self-belief
of a person. A person has different beliefs in different areas of knowledge
like- he or she has belief that earth is not round. He or she beliefs that god
is one also he or she has belief that India will come as a superpower in
this world after few decades. So this collection of various beliefs of a person
in different field of knowledge is collectively known as faith. Like belief, faith can or cannot be same for people in
different community for example; Christians have faith in bible and believes that whatever written inside is true. Similarly,
Muslims have faith in their holy book Quran.
Faith is something which makes people
follow a religion by adopting different traditions. Like in Jainism there are
two types of follower Digambar & Shwetambar. They all follow Jainism but
they have different traditions & different preaching by their gurus.
So we all have faith & belief but can we rely on them or can we prove that the information
which we are gaining from them is a legitimate
source in different fields of knowledge? Legitimate source is information which
has been proved by providing various substantial evidences. If a person makes
an assertion in any field of knowledge then to make it legitimate source that
person has to justify his assertion by proof. Hence, legitimacy is also
justification.
In my first
example I talked about there is another life after death. Is it really true or
this is just a myth? Is there any place like hell or heaven? What evidence can
the people provide to the world about this belief?
Well till now no one has provided any evidence that can justify this belief. Also
holy books like Quran and Bible. Can Christians and Muslims prove that whatever
written inside their religious book is true? Now let’s take an important
example existence of god.
Almost everyone
believes in the existence of god in this world.
But till now no one has provided any proof of god existence. Some people claims
that they have seen god but they are unable to provide any evidence. Apart from
all these reasons they pray to god even rely on him or her but are not sure
about their presence and existence. They believe that there is someone above
whose looking at us who has some supernatural power and he is the one who has
created us. All these beliefs are not been proved by deisms. All these
examples given above can be a legitimate source of knowledge in religion
because all these beliefs come from your faith and your faith has originated
from your religion.
According to me Knowledge means that there has to be
some widespread agreement and substantial evidence with justification. So considering
this definition as your base you can see that faith can be used as legitimate source
of knowledge in religion as it has millions of followers but it can’t be
considered in every field of knowledge. For example a doctor gives an opinion
on the condition of patient and advises that patient. His profession and
experience would be enough to be considered a legitimate basis. But what if his
opinion was based on faith?
This is the
condition where your faith starts fading. You cannot depend on faith when it
comes to someone’s life. A person who has faith cannot cure a patient who is suffering
from cancer or any other disease, he can only pray to his god to save that
patient’s life. Therefore, faith can be taken as a source of knowledge up to a limit,
not beyond it as it doesn’t provide any substantial evidence with
justification.
Like in science,
I don’t think faith can be taken as a legitimate source of knowledge. For instance
there is one person says that he has faith that earth is round & one
scientist claims that earth is round. What is the difference between the
assertions made by both? Well that person is not sure about earth being round.
He just believes that earth might be round also he cannot justify his statement
by any evidence accept his belief in it. On the other side there is a scientist
who not only believes but claims that
earth is round that means that he has some evidence to prove his point. The claims
made by the scientist may be inaccurate but he has given substantial evidence
which can be justified. That is why scientists work in laboratories not those
persons who have faith. There is one
more major role scientist’s play; which is Evolution
of life. Every religion tells about how evolution of humans started and
every religion has different answers to this. Like what the holy book of
Christians the bible says about the
evolution of human being is different to what written inside the Quran of Muslims. Their evidences about
the evolution of humans are all based on the myths nothing else. On the other
hand, scientists have proposed theories with evidences to explain the evolution
of human life. The most accepted theory was of Charles Darwin in the 19th
century.
Some people
claims that UFO’s or aliens or extra terrestrial exists. Also there had been
many claims people made about their encounter with aliens. Is it true? Well 99%
of all these UFO’s sighting have been identified as air balloons, military
aircrafts or moon in the clouds. Well that 1% can be those people suffering
from paranoia. Well
even I believe there is another life in this universe but I cannot make a false
statement that I have seen aliens to prove my belief is right. Some people
might be correct but why should we believe them with any proof. Therefore, your
faith cannot be a justifiable source of knowledge for everyone. It has to be
accepted by majority of people and this can only be done by providing
evidences.
Also in
mathematics, faith cannot provide any legitimate source of knowledge. A student
of maths using formulas & concepts which has been derived years ago can
solve a question. But can a person who hasn’t studied maths in his entire life
solve a maths question? I don’t think so. Mathematics is based on the concepts
not on faith otherwise every person would have mastered in maths as everyone
has faith.
So there is a
correlation between religion and faith that is why religion can be seen as a
justifiable source of knowledge. But we cannot use it in every field of
knowledge as it doesn’t provide any substantial evidence. To be accepted in
every field of knowledge you need to provide legitimate information which faith
doesn’t provide. Hence, faith cannot be legitimate sources of knowledge in
every field accept in religion.
Conclusively we
all should rely on our knowledge which we are gaining from other sources not
faith. We all should have faith but only in ourselves and god.
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