Which is, in your view, better: A strong faith or an insatiable curiosity?

Question

This is a "values" question, so your answer will be entirely subjective. However, to gain the 10 points, please expound on the reason for your choice.

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If you said both, how do you explore the reason for suffering, the origins of God, and the variation in religious faith/experience?

Answer 1

Both are important.

Faith is a commitment to something, a loyalty to something. Faithful is the word most commonly used.

Thus one should be "faithful" or have a strong faith towards their curiousity. If you are not curious, then what is the point of the spiritual journey? Why be on the journey if you have no desire to go anywhere or accomplish anything, etc?

"If you said both, how do you explore the reason for suffering, the origins of God, and the variation in religious faith/experience?"

Reason for suffering:
In the words of Swami Nithyananda "We suffer when there is a gap between our imaginations and reality." Ever go to a store, do your shopping and then go to check out. You expect (imagine) the process to be quick and simple. You don't want to wait. Yet the reality is that you must wait. If you fight reality and continue to try to force your imagination upon it, you suffer.

According to Hinduism we suffer because of ignorance. Hinduism teaches that everything in the universe manifested from God and thus retains its divinity. Thus everything, including you and I, is from God and contains the divine spark. Thus we should be treating everyone and everything with the same respect, humility, and honor that we give to God....but we don't because we have forgotten our true selves. We have gotten lost in the illusion that we are seperate from God, seperate from the universe, seperate from nature, etc, and we then don't treat it with the respect it is due and we don't treat each other respectfully either. Thus we not only cause suffering for ourselves, but we put upon others as well.

The origin of God:
God is all that truly exists. God is the ultimate reality, the ground of being from which the entire universe manifested out of. God is the unmanifested reality as well as the manifested reality. A Hindu word often used for God is Brahman which in Sanskrit means "expanding consciousness". The best example is a Hindu story. There is an ocean and the water evaporates up into the sky and forms clouds which then move by wind and eventually become so heavy with water that it falls in the form of rain or snow upon mountains. The water then forms streams which form rivers, ultimately the rivers merge back into the ocean. We are the individual water molecules that manifested out of the one ocean and were caught into a cloud (heavenly state of existence) and then fell down in the form of rain (manifested into a bodily existence) and are making our way back towards the ocean (God). The goal of each person can either be to return back to evaporate again to the cloud or to ultimately merge back into the ocean. The goal varies from person to person, religion to religion.

The variation in religious faith/experience
Different religions are merely different perspectives on the one God. There is a story Hindus use to explain this:
There are six blind men who each live in different villages that one day decide to go out for a walk in the forest. While out each of them comes across an elephant, a creature that no one in their village has ever encountered before. Each man reaches out to touch the elephant. The first man reaches out and briefly touches one of the elephant's flapping ears. The second man reaches out and briefly touches a tusk. The third man reaches out and is able to briefly touch its trunk. The fourth man reaches out and is able to briefly touch the tail. The fifth man reaches out and only touches a leg. The sixth man reaches out and touches only the body. Each of the blind men go back to their village and tell the others about their experience. Whose experience of the elephant was right? That's not really a fair question, obviously, because each of the men touched a different part of elephant and that formed their experience, their perspective on the elephant. Hindus say that we like those blind men and the elephant is like God. Each of us reaches out to touch God, but because God is so big, so vast, so infinite, we each just touch a different part of God. We each experience a different part of God, gain a different perspective of God. Some reach out and when they go to reach again they want to touch God in the exact same place, others long to touch other parts of God. The various religions are merely different perspectives on the one God and they are tools that people use to reach spiritual goals based upon their perspectives of God.



One should have a strong faith towards their insatiable curiousity because it causes them to reach out and want to experience God from various different angles. To gain new perspectives on God in the hopes of helping them to reach their spiritual goals. One religion may explain something one way and provide you with a new outlook that you hadn't considered before or it may provide you with a better appreciation for your own perspective that you already have.

There is a Hindu saying "be content but never satisified". The saying is because if you become satisifed you'll stop looking, you'll stop your spiritual practices, you'll stop the journey. You won't continue towards your spiritual goals, yet at the same time one should be content with where they are on their spiritual journey rather than get frustrated because they are not where someone else is already or frustrated because others aren't where you are now.


Excellent question.

Peace be with you.

Answer 2

I think an insatiable curiosity is better. I am biased, because I have more curiosity than I do faith. But I am also skeptical of my skepticism. I like to read about every subject I can and get as many points of view as possible. A strong faith might get you further along a given track. But I am more interested in traveling several tracks, even if I end up close to wear I began.

Answer 3

Insatiable curiosity wins hands down. A strong faith implies that one is satisfied with believing in what can not be known. Insatiable curiosity implies that one is in love with life and embraces the unknown. I would rather live an adventure than a stifled existence...and so I do.

Answer 4

Interesting question.

Strictly speaking, curiosity on its own has no value. If the insatiable curiosity leads to wisdom then there is great value in being curious.

A similar set of rules apply to faith. Blind faith without understanding has no value. Faith along with wisdom has tremendous value.

Answer 5

An insatiable curiosity. When you are curious, you are compelled to find things out, to figure out the what and when and why of life. Curiosity encourages growth. Strong faith can have its place, but it creates a stagnant sort of life. What kind of life would you have if you trusted everything that came your way and didn't bother to question it?

Answer 6

For me, that's the same as asking me which came first, the chicken or the egg!

I believe it's more important to have a strong faith, because that faith is what keeps me going and what will keep me going through eternity. But an insatiable curiosity is what led me to a strong faith, because that curiosity led me to ask questions and to search for myself (hence my nickname) what I truly believed.

Answer 7

Since I have the curiosity and not the faith, I will have to go with the answer "curiosity". Curiosity is the need to know, and I never want to stop learning. Faith is believing the unknown.

Answer 8

Insatiable curiosity. I believe that life is the journey. For me it's not about what comes after life it's about how I do life now. Continually learning is what furthers my spiritual growth.

Answer 9

Curiosity, certainly. No one knows so much that they have no further need for curiosity, yet that's exactly what faith means, accepting something unproven and no longer looking for answers.
Curiosity isn't such a great thing in and of itself, but it's far more likely to lead to knowledge than faith is.

Answer 10

They're not mutually exclusive. One can have a strong faith in something he doesn't understand and wishes to pursue (say, like, advanced physics).
I, for one, have a lot of faith and a strong sense of curiosity about my religion and the world around me.

Answer 11

I'd say curiosity. just alot more constructive attribute to have.

with curiosity, you'll likely naturally find the evidence thats hidden under the surface of what is, and not need faith. that is, you'll find the truth of it without having to believe blindly.

kinda like the question of being smart or lucky, you can always learn more, but you can't deliberately get luck.