Why Faith In The Context of The Science Method Is Strongest

Constantine: I believe, for crissakes.

Gabriel: No. You know. And there’s a difference. You’ve seen.

Faith is a powerful force that shapes our world.

Where people once almost exclusively invested their faith in the unknown, or some mouthpiece thereof, there now exist a pantheon of social media influencers, spiritual gurus, political and religious leaders, celebrities and other snake charmers that are worshipped alongside one another.

What do all of these things have in common?

In some way, shape or form they all promise to give or take something away. To imbue us with hope or relinquish our pain. Or even to entertain us with lives that somehow feel better than our own.

They are our modern day golden idols — The things people put their faith in, in the hopes that they can transform their lives.

That’s not to say that all of them are evil in nature.

Some may in fact have good intentions. While others might ravage their followers with despair, rallying them to commit destructive acts in their name (See: Any major cult).

At its core, faith is largely a communal act of belonging.

Which is to say there is almost always some aspect of groupthink; Whereby an individual gives up their personal experience of belief to the group — Removing the need for subjective proof and eradicating any semblance of doubt within.

The best analogy I can give for this is to imagine a person tells you they saw a ghost.

You have a few different options in this scenario to gauge the possibility that said event occurred.

Possible Explanations:

1. They were tired. Half-asleep or even hallucinating.
2. They misinterpreted a natural or common visual or audial phenomena (Or both).
3. They are mentally unwell. This works whether or not they are aware of this.
4. They have malicious intent. Money, power, love, fame…Can all be powerful motivators.
5. Or perhaps they did see what they said they saw.

…Of course there are endless other follow up questions about the time frame (Was it last night, or 15 years ago?), narrator’s memory (Were they wide awake, were they drunk or on drugs, what was…