A warm welcome to you, we are glad to be able to announce the launch of Encompassing Heart’s new website.
And this gives us the opportunity to share our first article...
According to the Oxford English dictionary “faith” has a number of meanings but the most common definitions are a “strong belief or trust in someone or something (even without proof) and religious belief”.
The word “faith” comes from the Latin fides meaning trust or belief.
In one sense “faith” is most fundamentally found as a response to religious revelation. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. (Hebrews 11:1). “Faith” is something deeper than logic or proof.
Science explains creation through observable, testable processes. It does not answer why the Universe exists, but it works to explain how it came to be. The deeper and more fundamental question is “why?”. It is uncertain whether science from laws of a finite Universe can ever answer that question.
The thought of the Universe as an unintelligible brute fact is not a very inspiring answer to many. That we are the result of a pure lottery in an infinite multiverse. But in a sense, those that believe in that narrative have “faith” in that story.
The answer to why we are here is addressed most commonly by religion.
In the case of the great religions of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, Bahai faith, and Zoroastrianism there is a belief in God the divine creator. Other faiths do not believe in a creator god but for instance in Buddhism hold to natural laws like Karma, dependent origination and focus on attainment of liberation from suffering or nirvana.
Perhaps there is a synthesis of belief enshrined in the story of the parable of “the Blind men and the Elephant”. A group of blind men (or men in the dark) encounter an elephant for the first time.
Each touches a different part of the animal. One touches the trunk and says “an elephant is like a snake”. One touches the leg and says “No, it’s like a tree”. Another feels the ear and says, “It’s like a fan”. One grabs the tail and insists “It’s like a rope”. Another touches the side and says, “It’s like a wall”.
Each man is convinced he is right, and they argue about what an elephant really is, unaware that they each perceive only a part of the whole. This parable appears in ancient Indian texts.
Thoughts about “Faith” and “Inter Faith” dialogue are important where millions have closely held beliefs in the question of “why” we are here.
It is hoped Encompassing Heart can focus these questions and promote harmony and understanding through interviews, collaborations, conferences, discussions, research...
The Encompassing Heart team