Hello to all…this is my first post here.
As a former Christian minister, I’ll share my personal experience and the experience of dealing with my former colleagues.
The answer to your question:
“Is faith something that we should all have or is it a false hope that leads to dissappointment?”
Is YES. Both are correct.
Having strong faith in a higher power that has a good will for you is a nice thing to have. That security blanket is a very nice thing. It DOES help you get through tought times, or at least allow you to change your feeling of hopelessness at your own inability to help yourself, and place that hope in another being or person.
But here’s the problem:
“Because they believe if they follow this simple set of rules when they die they become eternally happy, or meet 30 virgins.”
This reward is your ultimate hope in religion. That one day all the pain will go away and you’ll finally be happy. You’ll finally have everything you want and be able to fully be the person you think you should be. This hope becomes so great and powerful that it becomes the focus of your entire life.
This “simple set of rules” goes from being a guidline for good living to being a slave master that drives you. You can become so obsessed with fulfilling these requirements that instead of the hope being a good thing in your life, the rules become your owner. You don’t want to take any chances at spoiling this ultimate happiness, so your quest for perfection begins.
You will never be able to find this perfection, and so here you are again…hopeless. Only now you have a God to serve and rules to follow and you conscience becomes almost fully stained by guilt.
I have seen people (myself included) ruined over this hopelessness.
So…faith can be a good thing…but the weight it covers is far worse that any benefits you may reap.
So…how do I think you can be sure that faith is a good thing?
Have faith in yourself. Believe in a higher power if you wish…that is a simple choice to make.
But if you choose to decide one is there, believe that it’s desire for your life is simply that you would be the best “YOU” that you can be. That you would find peace, happieness and contentment in this life and the next.
Believe that you are OK with your God, no matter what anyone tells you and that if at all possible, it will help you to acheive success.
I believe this is the faith that is helpful. It is faith without the pain of failure and hope without the sting of dissapoinment with yourself and your God.