When Saying No to God Is an Act of Faith by Siya Khumalo (with Siphokazi Jonas)

Right.

And I love everything you've said because it kind of fits with what I was thinking about earlier today that a lot of us think faith is something religious people have.

So if you are explicitly a Muslim or if you are a Christian or a Buddhist or whatever, then you are a person of faith.

It's just part of being human.

When somebody sells a product to you, they are working on faith.

That's what marketing is because you don't know until you've tested it.

So it's the way we start knowing things is we form a hypothesis, then we test it.

And that's where brand loyalty comes from.

When we participate in the economy, We will say things like, this is worth such and such an amount.

That's not a scientific discovery.

That's a statement of faith.

To some extent, there is faith and confidence involved in everything we do.

And religion is just the bigger story dimension of that.

And when we get frozen in the way we look at God and religion and faith, when we can't dismantle that in our own heads, that paralysis carries over into the way we deal with other power structures.

Because faith is the story we tell about power.

What justifies the way it acts? What authorizes it? When you look at law, what authorizes such and such? Where does this mandate originate? By what right does this happen? Those are all religious questions.

They're all legal questions.

So when we struggle in the one arena, we might find that we struggle in another.

Some people don't.

So what was the rest of your question?

I guess my question was, why does it matter? Why does faith matter for the human experience?

It matters because human beings are not omniscient.

Some things have to be taken on faith.

We all do it all the time.

So when you book an air ticket, you don't know if there's a pilot.

Right.

And I love everything you've said because it kind of fits with what I was thinking about earlier today that a lot of us think faith is something religious people have.

So if you are explicitly a Muslim or if you are a Christian or a Buddhist or whatever, then you are a person of faith.

It's just part of being human.

When somebody sells a product to you, they are working on faith.

That's what marketing is because you don't know until you've tested it.

So it's the way we start knowing things is we form a hypothesis, then we test it.

And that's where brand loyalty comes from.

When we participate in the economy, We will say things like, this is worth such and such an amount.

That's not a scientific discovery.

That's a statement of faith.

To some extent, there is faith and confidence involved in everything we do.

And religion is just the bigger story dimension of that.

And when we get frozen in the way we look at God and religion and faith, when we can't dismantle that in our own heads, that paralysis carries over into the way we deal with other power structures.

Because faith is the story we tell about power.

What justifies the way it acts? What authorizes it? When you look at law, what authorizes such and such? Where does this mandate originate? By what right does this happen? Those are all religious questions.

They're all legal questions.

So when we struggle in the one arena, we might find that we struggle in another.

Some people don't.

So what was the rest of your question?

I guess my question was, why does it matter? Why does faith matter for the human experience?

It matters because human beings are not omniscient.

Some things have to be taken on faith.

We all do it all the time.

So when you book an air ticket, you don't know if there's a pilot.