James Gahee (UC Berkeley) on Faith and Values
March 28, 2012
Is Faith the Only Sure Foundation for Values in Personal and Public Life?
The importance of faith in the role of the lives of Americans has remained a big issue for some time now. It’s such a controversial and hot topic issue in which numerous arguments can be debated. The posed statement above states that “faith is the only sure foundation for values in personal and public life.” I completely disagree with the statement as I feel it has numerous flaws and assumes too much.
Faith is almost always linked to religion or believing in some sort of higher power, and therefore, it’s usually tied to issues with morality, ethics, etc. I don’t think that faith is necessary to have a foundation for values in life. I think that values and morality is in human nature and has nothing to do with faith. One can use people who refuse to have faith or believe that having faith is just a waste of time as examples. There’s been no evidence that people who refuse religion or faith have a tendency to be more immoral. If anything, it’s the (radical) ideologies/beliefs that stem from organized religions (ex. hate against gays because of biblical influence) that show more of a lack of values. By choosing to discriminate against a person based solely off of their sexual orientation, the same person who labels him or herself as a person with values is being a complete hypocrite in acting in a way that suggests that they suffer from a lack of values.
Rick Santorum recently suggested that it was absurd that the church and state should be separated, hinting that a presence of faith in governing would be beneficial. By doing this, Santorum is excluding those who don’t have faith; and to suggest that those who don’t have faith can’t make good decisions is naïve. It’s also ironic that Santorum opposes the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (an Islam-influenced group) in Middle Eastern governments. I’m pretty sure that Santorum wouldn’t say that Osama Bin Laden (a radical Muslim who still had faith in his god) had the perfect set of values. I just think that say saying that faith is the only sure foundation for values places too much of an emphasis on faith and implies that having faith equals perfection, which is a completely faulty statement.
Rick Santorum recently suggested that it was absurd that the church and state should be separated, hinting that a presence of faith in governing would be beneficial. By doing this, Santorum is excluding those who don’t have faith; and to suggest that those who don’t have faith can’t make good decisions is naïve. It’s also ironic that Santorum opposes the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (an Islam-influenced group) in Middle Eastern governments. I’m pretty sure that Santorum wouldn’t say that Osama Bin Laden (a radical Muslim who still had faith in his god) had the perfect set of values. I just think that say saying that faith is the only sure foundation for values places too much of an emphasis on faith and implies that having faith equals perfection, which is a completely faulty statement.
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