Believe

by the Bravery from the Sun and the Moon

Hi all again for my monthly blog post. I am in a foul mood right now so prepare yourself for one of Dave's patented rants. Actually I have been in a less than stellar mood the past couple weeks. It is been brewing mostly from work, from some books I read recently, and well a realization I came to a few nights ago.

First, the work stuff. It's a very long story but the main gist is that I was denied an opportunity to share some research that I worked really hard on because it would cause too much discussion and "raise too many questions" from a particularly difficult product team. The worst part is that my manager and tech lead agreed with the difficult product team and did not back me. They didn't knock the quality of the research or the job I did. They just didn't want me to share it because it would cause too many ripples or whatever. What are these people? 12 years old or something? I pride on myself on producing quality work and it pisses me off to no end that I can't share it just to appease one product team that is basically acting like a grown-up spoiled child who doesn't want to hear anything that disagrees with their opinion.

I also been reading a bit more than I have been. One of the books I read is Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America -- and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell. It is probably the best book I have read this year. It is a devastating account of how a reporter found his faith by becoming a born-again Christian and then slowly having his faith destroyed covering the Catholic Priest sex scandal, the outright frauds of televangelists like Benny Hinn, the ex-communication of former Mormons and other failings of the church in his years of religion reporting. One of things that really struck me is that he didn't lose his faith simply because of the absolutely moral failings of the offending priests, televangelists but with those who stood by. The Catholic bishops who covered up the crimes of the priests, the congregations who stood by the priests even in the face of overwhelming evidence of their guilt, the mainstream preachers who refuse to call out the frauds for fear of jeopardizing their own standing. His faith could withstand the sins of the offenders but not the sins of silence by those who could have stopped them but didn't. I couldn't stop thinking about the book for over a week after reading it.

I started to find out as much as I could about the book and the author. In the process, I came across many reviews of the book. Most of them were positive but any book about religion, especially one about losing Christian faith and documenting religion's many failings, is bound to have some negative reviews. Some of the negative reviewers were written by religion writers and clergy who obviously still had their faith. I noticed in multiple negative reviews they used this one example. In the book, Lobdell recounts interviewing Packy Kobut, an Eskimo man in Alaska. In the 1950's & 1960's the Catholic church sent priests to Alaska to preach to the newly converted Eskimos. Alaska became a destination for the church to send priests who had molested children at their former parishes as a way to get them out of the way and cover up what they did. As a result, a whole generation of Eskimo boys were molested, or in more accurate terms, raped by these priests. Packy was one of them. Lobdell interviews him in jail where he has been in and out of for most of his life, much of it a direct result of being raped by a Catholic priest. But Packy, surprisingly, is still a devout Catholic and even cries to Jesus to forgive him while he prays in his jail cell. These negative reviewers attack Lobdell for not having "true faith" like Packy. In their minds, Lobdell was a weak Catholic because his faith should have been as strong as Packy's, who still had it even though he had been raped for years by a Catholic priest. I wanted to scream at those reviewers. How dare they hold up Packy as an example of what "true faith" is and then denigrate someone who was truly honestly wanted to believe but couldn't truthfully do so after all he had experienced.

I also read three graphic novels, The Burma Chronicles, Pyongyang, Shenzhen, and by Guy Delisle. They are basically comic travelogs of his time in three not-so democratic, more totalitarian countries. Many of the novels funnier moments are the almost comical, silly steps that these totalitarian states take to keep control of their people. In Burma, the government distributes newspapers that have potentially embarrassing and offending articles cut out, which is silly because the mere presence of empty cut-outs in the papers tells the people there is something not right is happening. I read The Burma Chronicles first and then read Pyongyang. I wasn't actually enjoying Pyongyang as much until about 3/4 the way through when the author takes a tour of a "gifted school" In Pyongyang. It is all big show but on the North Korean government to show foreigners how supposedly how great their schools are and how well educated their students are. But Delisle notices that even though the children are smiling as they perform, he can see how hard they are straining to smile. After that, he becomes much more confrontational to his North Korean handlers, whom have eaten up all the government propaganda all their lives. Until then, he had been deferential to them and tried to avoid controversial topics for sake of not causing tension. But after seeing those children who have obviously been coached and probably threatened to smile, Delisle starts challenging his handlers' distorted worldview. In one particular instance his handlers tell him that the US is afraid to attack North Korea because North Korea would crush the US, South Korea, and Japan. He then flat out tells them that the US could probably obliterate North Korea very easily but doesn't because South Korea really doesn't want to care of and support the poor North Koreans as a result. I have to say I enjoyed the last 1/4 very much and it definitely redeemed the book for me.

So I was thinking about work, Losing My Religion, Delisle books, conversations I have had, and people who I have clashed with. I came to a realization: I hate faith. I cannot stand people who have strong faith. I don't mean "faith" in terms of religion. What I mean faith in anything in religion, their own knowledge or ability, family, people, public figures, philosophies, etc. I mean "faith" in the sense that their belief in something cannot be attributed to the actual evidence in favor of it but something someone still thinks is true. I bet you have heard this a million times, "I don't know for sure, but I am going to take it on faith/put my faith in/my faith tells me..."

But wait, isn't faith in family, friends, the market, government, and other important things good? No, trust in those things is good. Trust is earned, faith is not. Trust is determined by past experience. I trust my sister will be there for me because she has been in the past. I trust my friends for the same reason. I trust many things because they have demonstrated concretely I can. Plus trust takes work. I have to continue be a good brother and friend to keep the trust of my sister and friends. I cannot take them for granted.

On the other hand, faith requires no work and it can be easily taken for granted. So what if God supposedly let my grad school friend die by having a drunk driver hit him? You have to have faith that God will answer your prayers and let you into heaven even though he has doesn't have to prove to you he exists or that the criteria he uses to judge you is even a just one. Apparently, just because someone is a product manager and has a CS degree from Stanford or a MBA from Wharton gives them an absolute innate sense of a perfect user experience should be for a product that potentially millions of people who are nothing like them will use. They can't be bothered with any of the research I did could possibly shake their faith in their own judgement about user experience even though none of them have any UX background nor have they ever launched a consumer facing product before. Apparently, we all have to be Packys, willing to have faith no matter what the actual evidence is.

And what us faithless ones, the Lobdells, the ones who are willing to say the emperor has no clothes. We get shouted down, excluded, and criticized for having the gall to call out someone's faith. I told one of my oldest friends that I didn't think he should marry someone he had only seen in person for less than a month. I asked how could he make an accurate assessment of who this person was in such a short time. His response was that he had faith that their relationship would work out. And predictably, he did end up marrying her. That didn't bother as much as some of my other friends who politely said that I had no business telling my friend what I thought. How dare I "butt into his life." What I see now is that even though many of them harbored the same doubts I had, they didn't want to risk coming off as that bad person. The bad person who says that maybe their faith is misguided or that the facts don't warrant such strong belief on their part. Well if being a "bad person" means saying what I think, trusting things that have been shown to be trustworthy and not trusting things that don't, and yes calling out people who have faith in things they shouldn't, then yes - I gladly accept being that "bad person."

What steams me the whole point of those who glorify faith as some great virtue is that these people really only care about themselves, not the thing they have faith in. So what your assumptions about users and user experience are wrong? So what if the Earth is billions of year old when the Bible says it is 6000 years old? So what if you rushed into a relationship and it didn't turn out exactly as you thought? What is the harm that is done? Turns out not that much. User experiences can be fixed, you can still be a Christian and believe the Earth is billions of old, and yes one can get out of bad relationships. What these examples show that people who have strong faith in things aren't afraid of the actual consequences of being wrong, they are much more afraid of how being wrong will make them look and feel. It will make them look and feel weak in their minds. Someone who had absolute faith and confidence in themselves and their beliefs is suddenly shown to be a fool and dupe. Faith doesn't make you more open or deeper, it is makes you defensive and petty. That's why those who have strong faith will try with all their might to discount, explain away, and avoid any sense of doubt. Because just a sliver of doubt can lead to destroying their whole self-image that faith built up.

I remember watching an episode of Scrubs entitled "My First Kill." Basically Cox teaches JD a lesson telling that fear of accidently killing a patient is a good thing. It prevents him from becoming a bad doctor. You just can't let it paralyze you. That is my approach to doubt. Doubt is good. Doubt prevents me becoming a false faith filled fool who would rather be certain and wrong than uncertain but more right. What is the harm of challenging one's own assumptions and perceptions. The worst thing that could happen is you find out that things work differently than you thought. And overall, you are better off. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance kills. Inquisitiveness doesn't.

But don't take my words on faith. If what I said rings true to your experience and you can see the sense in it, then so be it. If it doesn't, then chuck it all. But I would ask one thing. Does what I say been refuted in your experience with concrete evidence that makes you trust another interpretation over mine or is it because I have attacked your belief in faith and you can't have any doubt. If it is the latter, then you just wasted several minutes of your life reading these words.

I have given up on the Packys of the world. I have given up on lost causes. I have given up on faith.

Until next time, peace.