Love and Faith

Bear with me; this is going to be an odd post for a materialist reductionist to make.

We might have a deep-seeded feeling that we're special, or that the universe has a purpose, or that there's some patriarchal figure watching over us.  It may feel as real as anything can feel.  But then, we might also see tons of evidence that this is just a quirk of the way our brains evolved; a survival trait.  This evidence might be overwhelming and undeniable.

Still, there are countless people who will trust the feeling before the evidence.  Sure, we may have an open and shut case for how we evolved this feeling, but they'll still trust the feeling first and foremost.  "I know there's overwhelming evidence that this feeling is an evolutionary trait, but still, I feel it."

It was only recently that I saw the connection between this and another "irrational" feeling: love.  You can have a clear-cut rational case for why Person A is better for you than Person B, and yet you don't care, because you love Person B.  The feeling comes first.  All that matters is how you feel when you think about that person, when you see that person or hear their voice.  Nothing else matters, because you're in love.  The "why" is completely irrelevant; the feeling is everything.

And, for love, that can be enough.  An entire relationship can be built off of that constant reinforcement.

Sadly, I think the same might be true for faith.  Maybe that's what faith is.  It's the acceptance of a feeling above all else.  It's losing yourself in that feeling and trusting it more than anything that threatens it.  Maybe people are proud of their faith in the same way that they're proud about being in love.

I'm not saying that either of these behaviors are good; love can betray you, and we all know that faith can betray you and everyone around you.  But I'd rather be in love than not, and I can kinda understand why some people would rather have faith than not.