Well, it's the same sort of thing as "Trust but verify" (or rather, my 
description of faith - be it blind or not - is along those lines).

I would tend to agree that those with strong religious beliefs (and I do 
live and work around some who have very strong beliefs - I do live in 
Utah, after all <g>) tend to trust without verification.  And for many or 
most of them, that seems to work for them.

My mom also has a fairly strong faith; the Lutheran church (which I was 
brought up in) convinced me that organized religion was largely bunk 
because I saw the infighting between the pastoral staff (I worked the 
sound booth, and a lot of time when they were around those of us doing 
the sound, they were very unguarded in their comments).  When you see 
clergy acting like "normal people", they lose their mysticism (if it can 
be called that).  I also saw a lot more of the financial side than I 
probably should have - and here in Utah, it's hard to ignore the large 
section of local (and larger) businesses that are not merely LDS-owned, 
but owned by the LDS church.  TIME magazine did a story a few years back 
on the church's financial holdings, and the number and types of 
businesses they own is truly staggering.

Not to mention that the head of the Department for Alcoholic Beverage 
Control is run, IIRC, by someone high up in the church.  And we sure do 
pay a significant "sin tax" on "drinks of boozy goodness" here as a 
result - and that money goes almost directly to the chruch.

Yet at the same time, I cannot ignore the things the church has done to 
help her through some pretty difficult issues.  So for her, her faith 
works and has made her happier.  Who am I to argue with the result?

If I were to have a logical debate with her about the church or religion 
(or my father-in-law, who is an LDS Bishop), it no doubt would lead to 
anger and frustration, because I'd be challenging something that's 
working for them.

It's easy to sit back and poke at religions - I do it all the time in the 
spirit of good-natured debate, even with friends I work with (and even 
with a few who are LDS - but they've got to be people I've known for 
years before I go down that road, and they've got to know that I'm not 
begrudging them their beliefs, just that I'm interested in understanding 
more about the people around me and that any attempts to poke holes in 
their faith are part of my way of understanding more fully).

But like I wrote to Andrel a few minutes ago, I also can (and do) debate 
from both sides of an argument.  This does frustrate some who debate with 
me because they don't know if I'm debating from what I personally believe 
or if I'm exploring my own beliefs by challenging them to answer 
questions related to what I believe.

Ultimately, though, I believe each of us is entitled to our beliefs, up 
to the point that they infringe upon another person's well-being and/or 
sense of self.  (Basically, your religion stops at my nose - 
figuratively, not literally).  The local LDS ward houses know not to send 
missionaries over here, even though my stepson is still on the rolls; he 
identifies more Buddhist than anything, and they've gotten to know if 
they come round looking for Ken and he is here, he'll give them quite an 
existential debate and ask them some very challenging questions that they 
might not (or rather, will not) be prepared to answer.  The reason they 
will not be prepared to answer the questions Ken asks is because their 
life's experience has been limited by the church to the point that they 
haven't looked at why other people believe differently than they do.  
That sort of examination isn't - I don't think - forbidden, but rather it 
just never occurs to anyone at the ward level to try to understand.  They 
just come out and sell the church (which is really what the typical 
missionary from the LDS church is doing, at least in my experience).

The approach is two-fold - first, it's providing literature, but also 
just being good neighbors.  And that latter part is really cool, I have 
to admit.  I wish it didn't take a religious organization to say "you 
should be good to each other and help each other out if you are able to", 
but that's one thing I've observed out here - people help each other with 
stuff.  I'd see it in other parts of the country, too, but not to the 
extent I see here.

A friend of mine drove 45 miles (with a small trailer) to come and help 
us move, for example - and another drove his horse trailer up (after 
cleaning it out) so we wouldn't have to rent a truck.  Oh, and the first 
one?  It was his daughter's birthday - so he felt bad that he could only 
make one trip with the trailer, but most other places I've been, it 
would've been "I'd love to come and help, but it's my daughter's birthday 
that day."  I would have understood that as well - in fact, after he came 
up and told us that he could only do that, I told him he should've said 
something, and he said "it's not a problem - really, if it had been, I 
would have said something."

Yet at the same time, just culturally, we are outsiders (not LDS), and we 
did live one place where that was clearly obvious - very few people 
talked with us because we weren't part of their ward.  It's a weird 
dichotomy.

Jim

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