I found a YouTuber whose video was attached to mine, a young man who was in the midst of questioning his faith -- getting out to the origins of the universe and all that. He's on the verge of giving up religion entirely - he sees it as a crutch.
I can recall the gripe of youth, and I still gripe about the fact that lots of people pray instead of act. But fortunately my ego was big enough for me to explain such people away. Everyone prays at the end of their personal ability. First people get uncomfortable and then try to avoid the problem, and then if they can't avoid it, they try to get somebody to handle it for them. That's whining. Then when they realize they can't get help, they start cursing. I take cursing to be the leading indicator of a man at his limit. Then comes rage, then comes prayer.
In watching the final episode of John Adams, I kept thinking about how painful it must have been for the man whose lifetime of sacrifices and excruciatingly high standards met with so few rewards, and how he lost his children. To Providence he cast his fate. He had every reason to complain, but did not. Very New England that, I recognize it in my father and in myself. Adams was a man of great faith in himself and also a man of God. I recognize also in him something my father never taught me which is how to extract the right amount of backbone from the words of the Bible.
You see in matters of faith, man seeks to defy death. Faith enables courage, and a wise man's faith gives rise to courage which is neither arrogant nor foolish and yet just as defiant of mortality. To recognize one's value in death as in life is to make the most of one's humanity. It is the essence of honor.
So what I wished to express to the young man losing faith through the skepticism of his fellows' shallow faith is to ask exactly how far the faithless might go, and how much a strong man of faith might go. I asked him to consider the Atheist Soldier. The man who believes in no God, no afterlife. What must he believe in if he were to put his life on the line? He must certainly believe in the works of his life. We speculate in the abstract, but there are surely people of reflection who nevertheless steel themselves for mortal combat - who can face the bullet. That is the power of faith, it makes us vessels of spirit. And which spirit would you be a vessel for? How are you called to duty? Who do you serve?
One who dies so that others might live... I don't need to go on about such heroism. We recognize how it echoes across human time and space. The faith of great men is expressed in their works and in these works they transcend death and might live in spite of temptations. In men of great ability, great faith is required. For the rest of us, yes, faith is little more than a crutch, the last whimpering of a coward who finds no way out.
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