The Sacred Hill We Climb: Deconstructing Faith: The Definitive, Tenuous, and Elusive

As meaning-seeking creatures, our transitory passage through this world conveys to us the urgent desire to understand the nature of the human condition. What has emerged over time are a variety of sacred narratives that people find meaningful, even though universally encumbered with problems. The task of this book will be to develop a process for assessing such narratives, using tools that can build credibility.From the outset we wrestle with the indifference of the natural order to human affairs. Many of us work with a narrative that conveys to us a Creator God of unlimited love, knowledge, and power, yet one that coexists with a creation built around tooth and claw—and resulting pain, suffering, and death.Why?We do not have a completely good answer, but this incongruence remains as a significant loose-end associated with sacred narratives that otherwise enjoys wide attraction. Yet, because of its narrow grounding to the perceptual world, wisdom suggests that it be engaged in a prudential way, even while many true believers quite readily proceed categorically—offering up defining concepts of truth and error (or a darker contrast of truth and heresy). Although this book explores in cursory form a range of sacred narratives that distill to dogmas and creeds, primary focus is given to the process around which ideas get elevated.Because a great portion of the sacred landscape is weakened by its non-perceptual features, process is elevated in importance it a credible belief is to be advanced—one that can guide on the appropriateness of categorical thinking. We therefore start by giving thought to reason differentiating knowledge from opinion, fact from fiction, and certainty from uncertainty. We find facts and knowledge elevating certainty on what can be termed a ‘process hierarchy.’ By way of process, we can assess some ideas as being more certain and therefore credible than others, even if ambiguities remain. It is a method that can apprise us as to what is knowable regarding the sacred, and the degree to which we can be certain about the things we may hold as true and dear.It is a conversation that invites both the believing and nonbelieving communities to the discussion, attempting to proceed with grace on a topic that defies glib thinking. After all, narrative-credibility is inversely correlated with certainty, and is central to any concept of “faith.” This becomes the sacred hill we climb. Read more