Q&A: The Influence of Society on Faith
The Influence of Society on Faith
Question
Hello Rabbi, there is an issue that has really been bothering me lately, and I’m not exactly sure how to deal with it.
I’m a religious teenager, I keep Torah and commandments, etc. What has been bothering me lately is the thought that in the end, the main reason I do what I do and believe what I believe is because that’s how I was educated and that’s how I grew up.
Even if I don’t see any major difficulty or some logical contradiction in my beliefs, I find it hard to deal with the fact that I claim to hold an objective worldview (that God created the world, was revealed at Sinai, etc.) while knowing that if I had been born into a Christian family, for example, I probably would have remained with Christian beliefs and likewise believed that I held the objective truth. Is everyone supposed to just go on believing what their society has ingrained in them? If so, how can one seriously claim that this is an objective worldview and objective set of beliefs (after all, most of the reason I hold beliefs X and Y is because I was born into society Z)?
Thank you very much in advance!
Answer
Hello Eliyahu.
In principle, that is of course possible, and the same is true of any view or belief you have, including scientific views, and also including the concern that maybe you are not right because you are acting according to your upbringing (that too may be a result of your upbringing). Therefore, there is really no way to take such considerations into account. Their whole significance is only to draw your attention to think again and look for mistakes in your thinking. After you have searched honestly as much as you can (and there is never any guarantee that you succeeded), you should adopt the conclusions you have reached. There is nothing more you can do. That is the tool we have. One thing can indeed be concluded from this: we can never be certain that we are right.
Discussion on Answer
Very true. You should start from scratch as much as possible, and not be troubled by the question of whether it really is from scratch or not.
So, is there really no point in trying to start from scratch and build a worldview free of presuppositions, a “pure” one? Is it better to simply act according to the conclusions I currently have (without taking into account what caused me to reach them), continue examining them, and change/update them the moment I reach a different conclusion?