Blind FaithKate Dainton

Blind FaithKate Dainton

“My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our

minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.”

- D H Lawrence

I don’t believe in a divine presence, nor do I subscribe to any organized religion, yet I am drawn to the mystery of faith and the idea of belief, what is ‘real’ to each individual.

It is human nature to ask the questions of who we are and why we are here and the theories and ideas for the ‘truth’ have become so divided and instilled over generations that a person’s faith or religion is defining to who they are.

Our expanding knowledge of science and history opens a door to the physical world we live in and the complicated wonders of the universe can be studied from fossils and clues in the world around us. Religion is ancient texts and scriptures our generations have grow up with, passed on through time and adapting to its various forms within cultures. Filling in the gaps of the ‘unknown’, religion turns to greater powers and deities to look to for answers.

Photographs capture what can be seen, and yet faith is often invisible. But even if personal faith can’t be seen directly, it is the effects on the everyday lives and the need to discover what it is that people find within their beliefs that reassure them ‘what is real’.

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that

you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe

that you came from God.”

“Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each

to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take

heart! I have overcome the world.”

John 17:29

Dele

“I’m a Christian. That means that I believe that God came down in a human form, the son of God. Jesus then died for us so that we can live life to the fullest like, and eventually when we die, spend eternity

with him yeah.

So the main focus of my belief is love, and I believe we as humans like, we can’t do it by ourselves you know, it gets to a point where it gets to our heads and we see everything we’re doing. I can’t love without

God, I can’t do it by myself.

Prayer isn’t just a form of asking God for help when things go bad, its actually like a, like a way of building a relationship with God.

The actual aim of Christianity, which everyone should believe, is that you need to you learn to love, understand that you can’t do it by yourself and through that whole process of loving you are impacting

everyone’s lives around you positively. Understanding that life isn’t just about you.

Definitely there’s bits of the bible I don’t agree with but it depends on the eyes your looking at it with. Looking through the eyes of an atheist or someone who doesn’t believe in God, you’ll see destruction,

you’ll see death, you’ll see no love and you end up reading the Bible as something literal when actually

it’s a life metaphor. I will pray to God to understand.”

“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in

spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”

Richard Dawkins

Jane

“I feel strongly against the principles of Religion due to its perceptions against women. I do know religion hurts women and it is still doing so in today’s world.

It conflicts me because the idea of a faith would be nice but I refuse to follow an ideal purely because it is comforting to believe. Religion doesn’t provide me with any answers and it certainly does not enlighten me.

I am an atheist.

Religions are antithetical towards one another and yet they all seem to have the same undercurrents of what they are trying to achieve. For me the issue of women’s status within religious cultures is concerning and

medieval and therefore I do feel very strongly about what it stands for.”

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live

without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.”

Joan of Arc

Laura

“I am a Christian Scientist, we believe in the healing of God and use the active components of love, homeopathy and faith to cure any illness in within the body. We have no need for modern medical practice nor

overwhelm our lives and places of worship with distraction of the modern world.

The whole notion of, I must be good I must be be wholesome, is a true reflection of God, who is perfect and who is infinite. In the first of the ten commandments of Exodus says “I am the Lord our God, I am the first God

and no one shall have any other Gods but me.” That is absolutely paramount. There isn’t any other power, there isn’t any other power than God. And therefore nothing else is actually real.

Putting that into practice of course isn’t easy. We look at what god is and what we are. If we reflect, love, truth and honesty then we are real, we are Gods will.

I have generally been fit all my life but for me I had a really quite significant healing and this re affirmed my faith and my belief that God heals all. Sadly I think God has got a bad press, and therefore for me, is whatever

this ‘thing’ called God is, this entity, we must embrace it.”

Richard

“I certainly do not endorse any particular philosophy or religion but it is such an interesting concept, especially when you’re bringing the idea of what is real, what is reality.

I don’t have faith in anything apart from the physical world, the physical which is, meaning what you cannot deny exists. For example as much as I wanted to, I cannot pass through this chair. It is solid, it is blocking me and that to me is reality. That is perceived to me as actual fact and if you came to sit on this chair you would

find the same problem and therefore perceive it in the same way. Whilst everyone will observe the world in a different way, there are certain things that are undeniable and

truly exist.

I think for me it [Religion] is not something I would ever align myself with, I am very open minded and can understand why it appeals to people and why people are drawn to it, but it stems down to how religion was

birthed and its underlining dark and frankly medieval principles which were created to control people.

I think a belief system in life is important but perhaps this can be referred to as a personal philosophy in such case. I think without one, we would cease to exist.

Consciously or not, there must be something to make you perpetuate your own existence.”

“We will overturn their hearts and their eyesights, even as they believed not at first; and we will leave them, in

their rebellion, blindly wandering on.”

Extract from the Qur’an. Chapter VI, Verse 110

Imran

“I’m from a Muslim background, been brought up a Muslim. For me, there’s lots of different angles. The faith gives you guidance on the questions which you can’t answer. Where you came from, where you’re going

afterwards and also guidance on basically how to become a better person. Because if you didn’t have it you’d have wishy-washy ideas about being good to people and everything. But if

you have a role model, if you have more definite guidance of the ideals then you can try to aspire towards that.

The other thing that faith gives you is that it reminds you of your own vulnerability. So you know that deaths going to come to everybody and weakness and illness and it sort of puts to you or gives you an idea of the bigger picture. It gives you an idea of how vulnerable and limited we really are and how little control we do

have of things. How completely insignificant we are.

We believe in one god, we call him Allah. He’s the creator, we are responsible to him, we answer to him. He’s given us a small degree of control over matters and basically he’s given us some guidance to adhere to through the messengers Abraham and Moses, Jesus and the final messenger Mohammed, peace be on them all. They

give us the inspiration to do the daily work.There’s got to be more to life than just the here and now.

It’s up to people the way they want to address that.”

Aisha

“Being Muslim means my life. For me it’s like the seed that’s growing. For my children, and my husband, we are all Muslim. My faith, the belief in one God is definitely the core of my life. My whole life is governed by my core beliefs that God is the one, he is the creator and he looks after us all. I lead my life how God wants

me to, how Allah wants me to.

What the Qur’an teaches us is to be kind to people regardless to who they are or where they’re from or what colour they are. My sons name is Abdullah, meaning servant of god and the other is Bilal, who was a black

African prophet, the first ever caller to prayer. These names mean so much to me and my faith.

Do I feel equal as a woman in a Muslim Society? There shouldn’t be a divide between men and woman but there is. I think this is more cultural than religious though.

Islam gives me more freedom than my culture does. “

“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because

these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages

reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of

ideas for their own sake.”

Christopher Hitchens - God is Not Great

First EditionPhotography by Kate Dainton © 2014