Is Religion a Crutch for the Weak?
Why Faith Is Not an Escape Mechanism
Once in a while, I read an article that justifies non-belief in a religion for the reason that faith is a mere tool to alleviate one’s fears and sufferings. While this may be true in some respects, one should note how this does not tell the whole story about a person’s faith in God, particularly, in a Christian God.
While those who believe in Jesus do have the comfort of faith in a just and caring God who will make all things right in the end, this does not exempt the Christian from problems that the non-believer often overlooks.
Here are just three things that one must keep in mind:
1. A Christian still believes in hell
While a Christian may have the comfort in believing in heaven, a Christian also accepts the other end of this truth. A Christian must also believe in hell, and hell is probably the most uncomfortable thought a person may need to struggle with.
Hell is unending and unimaginable suffering. Hell is facing your worst fears.
Non-believers may have consolation with the thought that everything ends with this life, and that unending sleep is all they have to face after death, but a Christian must always keep in mind eternity.
How many atheists could not accept religion because of the thought that hell would be too cruel a punishment for a person? How many non-believers admit that if this were true, one would always live in fear? Yet the same people are the ones who claim that faith is a crutch and a balm that would remedy one’s fears.
You may also want to read:
How Do You Reconcile God’s Infinite Love and the Existence of a Frightening Hell?
Hell is not a punishment that a whimsical and vengeful God imposes. It is simply a self-chosen fate. Even now, in this very world, many choose to turn away from Him. We choose hell each time we choose the darkness. Given eternity, will we ever choose differently? Or shall we only choose ever increasing evils and miseries in which to plunge our souls? Read more…
2. A Christian is not exempt from taking up one’s cross
One must keep in mind how Jesus taught His followers to die to self and to take up one’s cross. This is not the mentality of someone who only needs a way to escape suffering.
While Christianity does not promote suffering, Christianity gives a person the proper perspective in facing it and overcoming it. If Christianity were a mere crutch, an invented religion to help us escape suffering, why would it be against euthanasia or abortion? But the goal of Christianity is not to merely end suffering by also ending life. Christ gave dignity even to our sufferings.
“There is kindness in Love: but Love and kindness are not coterminous, and when kindness (in the sense given above) is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt of it. Kindness consents very readily to the removal of its object – we have all met people whose kindness to animals is constantly leading them to kill animals lest they should suffer. Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.” - C.S. Lewis
3. A Christian must often face ridicule from the world
It is never an easy thing to be an outcast, to go against the crowd and to be mocked for your beliefs. But this is what a Christian during recent times must face. This is not comfort. This is not a way out of pain. This is standing up for your beliefs even when it’s hard, even if it would cost you your very life.
I have read so many books about the lives of saints that described how they were whipped, burned, tortured and put to death. These were not references that made me feel like I’ve finally found a crutch. These were true-to-life events that could terrify you and open your eyes to the evil that exists in the world, to that real war going on between good and evil.
You may also want to read:
If God is Loving, How Could He Allow So Much Suffering?
There are times when we’re just so lonely and hurting that we can’t help but wonder if there is indeed a God who sees us, a God to whom we can go to when we have no one else, not even our own strength.
The Bravest People
The bravest people I have ever known are those who are aware of the sufferings they would face and yet are willing to undergo them for the sake of something greater than their comfort. They are willing to bear the greatest burdens for the sake of love.
Believers are not people who have been blessed with a heavenly vision that gives them undeniable proof of a reward after this life. These are often the people who also have doubts and who struggle with problems other people may not even be aware of. But they choose to believe in a higher good, in a greater good. They also feel fear, but they try to find the courage to continue doing what is right. Even when they are alone. Even when the rest of the world mocks them and casts them aside.
Faith is not a crutch. It is a warrior’s banner that signifies one is willing to suffer and die for the sake of something greater than oneself.
The Courage to Live
“For God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.” - 2 Timothy 1:7, WEBBE
It takes a lot of courage to face life. To continuously perform our obligations, to face the loss of people we value so much, to undergo excruciating physical and emotional pain – these are just some of the problems that wrench our hearts and tempt us to seek means of alleviation and escape.
Some find their escape in bad habits. Some find it in illusions. Some try to find it in people who only fail them one after the other.
There are some however, who, instead of trying to escape, try their very best to face the challenges coming their way. They too, know their weaknesses, and they too, fear much the problems and sufferings coming their way.
But deep within them, they know they couldn’t just give up. Deep within them, they know that though the struggle wouldn’t be easy, there is no other option but to fight and carry on. Why? Because the urge to love has become in them more important than the urge to escape. Because more than their fear of pain or suffering, they fear of love being extinguished from their hearts.
Thus, though they frightened, they gain courage. Though they fall, they rise again. They choose hope instead of despair. They choose life instead of escaping it.
Fill your hearts then with as much love as it can contain. Consider not yourselves alone but others who need you and care for you. Consider God Himself who goes with you through your darkest sufferings. You are never alone, never unloved. Fear not your weaknesses. If you have much love, you will also have much strength.
“Faced with today’s problems and disappointments, many people will try to escape from their responsibility. Escape in selfishness, escape in sexual pleasure, escape in drugs, escape in violence, escape in indifference and cynical attitudes. I propose to you the option of love, which is the opposite of escape.”- Pope John Paul II
“If you ever need someone to listen or to pray for you, you can write to me as a subscriber simply by replying to your ‘Welcome’ email or to your succeeding Newsletters from me. You are not alone. (Note: By writing, you give me permission to publish your letter. You may want to use an alias or a pen name. )” - Joyce
