People ask questions about faith for many different reasons. Sometimes people ask questions to show off their knowledge, or just to hear themselves talk. They're either not really expecting an answer, or they already have one in mind. Questions might also be asked with the purpose of catching someone else off guard, to make a point, or to trip up someone else.
Those questions about faith are not questions of the honest variety. These kinds of questions either don't need, or don't really deserve an answer. Unless you want to debate just for the sake of debating.
Honest questions about faith
If a question is an honest one, a person doesn't already have the answer in her back pocket. An honest question about matters of faith is asked in order to gain knowledge or to seek truth.
An honest question does not insult or degrade another's belief. It is not asked with sarcasm or venom. It is not designed to trap the responder. People who loudly protest what others believe only show what they're against. Being against something is not the same as being for something else. These kinds of questions are asked with agendas in mind. And they are not honest.
Honestly acknowledging questions and concerns about faith is a different matter. Seeking answers to questions about faith-related concerns can enlarge our spirits and help us grow. We ask these honest questions simply because we lack wisdom.
Where should we look for answers?
If we want an answer about a medical question, we might ask a doctor or go to a trusted website that houses reliable medical knowledge. It would seem silly to us to ask a garage mechanic a medical question. He might know a lot about cars, but what does he know about the causes of disease?
The same thing applies to honest spiritual questions. A bishop, pastor, priest, rabbi, monk, or some kind of clergyman who has faith, is a much better resource for questions of faith than seeking out websites that point out the flaws and faults with religion. What do those folks know about how to be a more informed believer? Nothing.
It's important not to confuse matters of faith with matters of reason. Faith is a matter of believing in something unseen or intangible. So called "evidence" can be made to support almost any claim. Just because information is printed in a book or posted on the Internet, does not make it true.
Even historical accounts often differ and contradict each other. We are all influenced by our prior beliefs and experiences. This is true even of empirical evidence. It cannot always be expected, for example, that two different scientists viewing the same body of evidence, will come to the same conclusion.
Taking a leap of faith
Taking things on faith means that we do not have all the answers. Sometimes we can find answers to our questions, and sometimes we cannot. Sometimes we simply take a leap of faith.
Wikipedia defines the phrase, leap of faith as "the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable or without empirical evidence."
By definition, questions of faith are not something we can usually "prove." Faith may be more of a feeling than a fact. Faith is a desire to act, or to experiment, on the word of God.
We pray to have faith, and we have the faith to pray. Faith will never be a perfect knowledge. If it were, it would cease to be faith.
When you have honest questions and concerns about your faith, be sure to look in the right places for answers. Some sources of information will be suspect, uninformed, and faith destroying. What's the point in that?
Choose faith.
