Seeing Blind Faith II
12/12/2002
My response to the initial question proposed to me about “Blind Faith” seems to be a little misguided. After clarification from the initial respondent I will again attempt to explain my beliefs.
Perhaps my previous article was too narrow-minded. In retrospect I focused on the word “faith” and concentrated too much on the religious aspects of the word. I believe that I am a pretty good judge of character. I also think that I am good at interpreting a person’s first impression. There are obvious exceptions, but I believe that you can tell a lot about a person within the first few minutes of meeting them. This is not to say that my perception of a person cannot change, but it serves as an indicator for me as to their general personality. I am generally slow to fully trust most people in a capacity that I would say I have faith in them.
Outside of family there is basically a series of stages that a person goes through to earn my trust and in doing so my faith. Initial interactions with the person need to obviously be positive because future meetings will likely not occur otherwise. Over a period of time the person usually does subtle things to show me that they will not take advantage of me when I am vulnerable. This sounds complicated, but such actions could be as simple as laying out a few dollars for lunch one day or cheering me up when I am having a bad day. As time goes on these actions build the trust I have for the person and in return I become more willing to go out of my way to help them.
Nothing I have written so far should be ground breaking to most people, as I am sure they have a similar set of guidelines that they follow consciously or otherwise. If in fact people have to prove themselves to me is that really “blind” faith? The non-technical way in which I define faith is an undoubting believe in someone or thing. Husbands and wives cheat on each other all of the time so how can I be sure that my wife will not do it to me?
People may have to earn my trust and faith, but once its been earned it is usually undying and unquestionable. My family and core group of friends have never let me down so I have no reason not to have faith in them. Some may see this as a selfish way of giving my trust, but I see it as an instinctual way of protecting myself.
There are plenty of things and people I have faith in out side of religion, some of which I might not even be able to recall off of the top of my head. I am tempted to say that I have faith that I will wake up tomorrow but, who knows, I may not. I have no reason to believe I won’t. Some might pick up on this and say I have no reason not to believe in the existence of God. I have my reasons and that is a whole other article!
Why? Just Because!