FAITH IN GOD: – “One of the most important qualifications for the aspirant is faith. There are three kinds of faith: (i) faith in ONESELF, (ii) faith in the GOD and (iii) faith in LIFE.

Faith is so indispensable to life that unless it is present in some degree, life itself would be impossible. It is because of faith that cooperative and social life becomes possible. It is faith in each other that facilitates a free give and take of love, a free sharing of work and its results. When life is burdened with unjustified fear of one another it becomes cramped and restricted.

Faith in GOD becomes all-important because it nourishes and sustains faith in oneself and faith in life in the very teeth of set-backs and failures, handicaps and difficulties, limitations and failings. Life, as man knows it in himself, or in most of his fellow-men, may be narrow, twisted and perverse, but life as he sees it in GOD is unlimited, pure and untainted. In GOD, man sees his own ideal realized; GOD is what his own deeper self would rather be. He sees in the GOD the reflection of the best in himself which is yet to be, but which he will surely one day attain. Faith in GOD therefore becomes the chief motive-power for realizing the divinity which is latent in man.

BLIND FAITH:- Our world today is dominated by Religions that require blind faith and obedience. Humans will continue to abuse each other until we understand that we share a responsibility to ourselves and to each other. The power of our inner spirituality is called humanism.

CRITICISM OF FAITH:- Some critics argue that religious faith is irrational and see faith as ignorance of reality: a strong belief in something with no evidence and sometimes a strong belief in something even with evidence against it. Bertrand Russell noted, “Where there is evidence, no one speaks of ‘faith’. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.” In the rationalist view, belief should be restricted to direct observation in the past and present.