Saw this posted to Facebook, by Patrick Yaeger who maintains the GCRM Media Center on Facebook, an unbelievably wonderful resource.

Dawkins is asked at a lecture, what if he is wrong, and the video is of his reply. This is where I think most contemporary Christians, and all far right religious zealots and bigots have it all wrong. They are so sure that they are right. Faith isn’t about “knowing you are right.” Faith is about trusting God without knowing you are right.

Abraham is the Father of Faith, and the most basic Biblical story of Faith is the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. If Abraham took Isaac to the mountain and wasn’t afraid of what would happen- in other words, on the way up the mountain, his mind was full of the thoughts “God won’t let my son die,” Then he really had no faith. He would know everything, and would in essence, be God. If Abraham had gone up the mountain believing it was God’s will to kill his son, he really had no faith. He would have been a murderer, who thought that murder was justified. But the truth is that Abraham made his way up the mountain, not knowing what would happen, and he had the strength to do that precisely because he had faith. He had no idea what would happen. But he knew his job was to trust God. God gave Abraham specific instructions and Abraham followed them.

Most important to the story is that Abraham says nothing to anyone about what is about to happen. This too is a part of having faith. This is where today’s Christians get it all wrong. They don’t stay with the not knowing and following God’s directions because that is very difficult, and they have too little faith to sustain them. So they move to a place of knowing they are right, and trying to push that on everyone else, to create a self-fulfilling prophesy.

YouTube – Richard Dawkins – “What if you’re wrong?”.