{"id":167724,"date":"2026-04-04T20:02:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/?p=167724"},"modified":"2026-04-04T20:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:02:20","slug":"kronika-pa-djupet-vad-innebar-tro-egentligen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/kronika-pa-djupet-vad-innebar-tro-egentligen\/","title":{"rendered":"COLUMN: In depth: What does faith really mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is a column. The writer is responsible for the opinions expressed in the text, not Freedom News.\nWe allow all opinions to be expressed, even if they are uncomfortable. We stand for real freedom of expression.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Here is Gustav Berg's second article under the main heading \u201dIn depth\u201d in the area of existential and moral challenges as well as analytical depths in religion, politics and philosophy. You may wish to read the first article first, entitled \u201dReligion and the critique of religion\u201d.<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Questions of faith typically involve various forms of religious belief and not infrequently religious conviction which, in some more bizarre manifestations, involves blind faith. Based on this blind faith, believers can commit the worst possible abuses against both humans and animals. Such abuse is often linked to pure delusions and prejudices in the sense of preconceived and more or less groundless ideas about the nature of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three definitions of faith<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
But what does it mean and what can it mean to believe and to be a religious believer? The Dictionary of the Swedish Academy has a lot to say about the word \u201dfaith\u201d and its several more or less related but still distinct meanings and uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • too likely to be true with regard to a fact (of which there may be certain knowledge)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • (often with the preposition on) hold to be true on more or less rational grounds<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • have firm religious convictions; be religiously convinced of the existence of deity<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
    Everyday faith and experience<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Then there is also something that all of us humans should have in common when it comes to more general beliefs, but which are more commonly regarded as more or less unreflected assumptions or certainties based on experience and habit. For example, the belief that the change of days and seasons over time will continue much as before, or that objects we drop fall downwards as they usually do and not upwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The boundary between knowledge and religion<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Whether it is a matter of believing in probabilities or that something is more or less unequivocally true, there is a dividing line between religious belief and religious conviction. As soon as religion comes into the picture, it typically brings about major changes in the way many people tend to think and, above all, feel about various phenomena in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The general power of religions over people shifts the focus from \u201dtrivialities\u201d such as probabilities and demonstrable truths or lies to anecdotes and unverifiable testimonies of more or less baseless claims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Because it is something as self-defined good and fine as religion that is at stake, the most far-fetched anecdotal evidence of the religious believer can suddenly be transformed into sacred truths beyond all reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    A matter of taste<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    When it comes to our different preferences in different areas, it is common to look for explanations in experiences, habits, cultural and family influences and psychological factors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    At the same time and in parallel, it is common to use the term \u201da matter of taste\u201d as some kind of overall consequence of what different preferences depend on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    A simple example: the sandwich choice<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    But let's think a step further. Can we explain and understand, even to ourselves, how it is that we choose to eat a cheese sandwich for breakfast one day, for example, while we think that ham sandwiches are tastier? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    An easy answer is that we want variety and would get tired of ham sandwiches if we ate them every day. But that's really a bit beside the main point. We get a little closer to the same thing if we redefine our \u201dtaste\u201d as something that varies over time while still being more or less stable on the whole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    In that case, the answer is that we choose the cheese sandwich one day because we have changed our tastes on that particular day and prefer a cheese sandwich to a ham sandwich, even though we \u201dreally\u201d think that ham sandwiches are tastier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    A question without a simple answer<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    But has this reasoning brought us any closer to the question of what \u201da matter of taste\u201d really is? Hardly. Because somewhere there are factors that manifest themselves as our subjective tastes as perceived at any given moment, and these factors are still floating around and eluding us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Small choices and big life choices<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    What we choose according to our tastes can encompass very many different levels of awareness and importance in our lives. For example, the rationale behind our choice of sandwich at breakfast is a fairly uninteresting and unimpressive issue in the grand scheme of things. However, if we choose to subscribe to a political ideology or religious belief, such choices can have a fundamental impact on the rest of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Rationale for choices and decisions<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Most probably, most people would consider their reasons for making choices and decisions in terms of both religious beliefs and political positions as something in some sense positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    As we all know, the value-loading of words plays a role, or perhaps rather an exceptionally large role! Take, for example, the positive connotations of concepts such as God, justice and good morals, and compare them with the odious negative connotations of concepts such as racist, oppression and evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    No one sees themselves as evil<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    But if we reflect a little on which individual physical persons have existed throughout history, including all those alive today, who have believed and asserted every conceivable thing we know, is it likely that anyone would have defined their beliefs or convictions in reference to something negatively value-laden? Answer no, with the possible exception of some mentally ill wretches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Justice as a driving force<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    So what are the beliefs that many people typically have about their faith and beliefs? Yes, probably the so-called justice is included in most cases. With that joker, everything from a psychopathic god who works with the torture of innocents to a communist who murders his fellow citizens because they belong to the wrong class can apparently work, which in fact is of course quite terrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The special status of truth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    And then there is the noble truth, which, regardless of most things in this world, is typically accorded a very special respect. And rightly so! Truth has an undeniable value, not least because of its close connection to science, which by definition is badly damaged and eventually dies without truth, even though absolute truth can in many cases be difficult or impossible to reach, and also difficult to interpret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The need fulfillment doctrines were created by ignorant<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    World religions and established political ideologies from left to right have one thing in common: they address needs and how those needs can be met. And of course, both humans and other species have needs that need to be met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    From operation to control<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    But through the sacred process of evolution, our fabulous species Homo sapiens has managed to rise above the immediate fulfillment of raw urges to a higher level of insightfulness via impulse control and understanding of the connections between cause and effect. This understanding also includes different time perspectives which can even extend far beyond the reasonably expected existence of our own individual lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Policy solutions to needs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The established need fulfillment doctrines address mainly material needs that are defined as reasonable and fair to be satisfied. In the political world through revolutions or reforms that often aim to redistribute resources from individuals, groups or peoples in possession of something to other individuals, groups or peoples who lack or have access to it to a lesser extent than what is considered \u201dfair\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The promises of religion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    In the religious world, needs are typically addressed through the promised satisfaction of them in a baselessly claimed afterlife. Alternatively, needs can be addressed by considering them as undesirable temptations from which it is desirable to free oneself, which is also baselessly described as possible after repeated rebirth by reaching nirvana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    A contested moral right<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Regardless of how the need fulfillment doctrines relate to needs, their common thread is that unsatisfied needs are fundamentally undesirable, unjust and immoral. They do not formulate it specifically, but by spreading their doctrines of power based on ignorance and prejudice, they imply that humans, and possibly all other living organisms, have some kind of automatic and moral right to have their needs satisfied. It is not so!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    A new perspective in modern times<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    It is possible to understand the needs fulfillment doctrine<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Before and after the theory of evolution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The world's religions were created by people who were unaware of the theory of evolution and thus lacked the prerequisites for understanding the conditions of life. The same applies to the major political ideologies, although they have been modernized to some extent and adapted to the social changes that have occurred since 1859 when Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species was published. This year - 1859 - is usually considered as the starting point in the glorious history of humanity when, for the first time in history, we took our first decisive step towards understanding the basic mechanisms and conditions of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    From scarcity to abundance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The need-fulfillment doctrines' focus on fulfilling our needs for supposedly fair and necessary material goods is quite natural as they were created in social contexts where actual survival was de facto threatened by lack of such. However, we have long since advanced to a level of technology that can provide us with the material necessities required for our immediate survival, even though material resources as well as influence and power are very unevenly distributed between individuals, peoples and cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    A paradigm shift<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    It is here, in this paradigm shift in human history, that we now find ourselves. As material imperfections no longer pose mortal threats to more and more of our fellow species, we need to change our worldview and start building new life-affirming narratives in furtherance of the sacred revelation of life. And it is here and now that we need to understand that the amazing empathy that our unique species has developed - rooted in the family-based reciprocal altruism! - is a compelling reason to scrap the old outdated and unscientific need-fulfillment doctrines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    A break with old systems<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    So-called Christianity and other world religions, communism and even liberal democracy are fundamentally wrong about human needs and the real reasons for the satisfaction of those needs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Compassion and sense of belonging<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Empathy or compassion has evolved through evolution because kin-based solidarity in the form of reciprocal altruism (mutual individual selflessness) has increased our chances of survival. Even among lower species, such endeavors are common via genetic and environmental imprinting of individuals and groups within species such as wolves, ants and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Criticism of established doctrines<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Delusional and prejudiced heresies such as so-called Christianity and Communism have thus started at the wrong end with their failed attempts to formulate self-defined goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The nature of selfishness<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Life is selfish and only as such can it endure! However, selfishness or egoism can be manifested at different levels of kinship. Usually, \u201degoists\u201d are considered bad people because their behavior will more or less immediately bring negative consequences to those they interact with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Thus, part of the criticism of egoism in the somewhat superficial sense is that the condemner of egoism is himself unconsciously an egoist who looks to his own interest and thus sees the risk that his own interest will be disadvantaged by association with \u201dan egoist\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    All action as self-interest<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    It is difficult, and in practice often impossible, to completely separate the goals, outcomes and motivations of actions that affect people other than ourselves. Apart from that, every thought ever thought and every action ever taken can in some sense be defined as uniquely selfish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Those who act with the conscious goal of positive consequences for themselves as a person, their family, their kin, their people, their race, their ethnic group, their species and their animal group always do so because the psychological individual experience of the action in question is valued more highly than the sacrifice of the action itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The highest morality according to the reasoning<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Thus, the most honorable behaviors we know and revere most are derived from reciprocal altruism, whose origin is kinship solidarity, which increases the likelihood of preservation of life through genetic survival of the similarly related.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The victim of family and people<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    The father who, without the slightest hesitation, throws himself in front of his son to catch with his own body the killing bullets that would otherwise have killed his son, or the brother of the people whose soul is filled with the sacred duty of sacrificing everything - including his own life! - in defense of his beloved fatherland and his revered people, are examples of two different behaviors of the highest possible morality! The only true morality that exists: the family morality!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    A call for change<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Do not defile the wonderful manifestations of fabulous life or its sacred tool, evolution, which has chiseled out everything beautiful, exquisite, wonderful and worth loving, revering and dying for out of sacred duty! Therefore, throw the old rotten doctrines of power into the garbage dump where they belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Final call to action<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    Open your heart to the miracles of reality in humility before the divine manifestations of fabulous life. Dare to refuse superstition, prejudice and intellectual dishonesty! Reject the world religions and the established political ideologies!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Prepare to start fighting for the preservation of life so that together we can create unprecedented empires. Ethnically homogeneous nations with all fellow peoples filled with love, fellowship and a superhuman will to do their very best for themselves, their family, their kin, their people, their race, their ethnic group, their species and their animal group will prove once again that reality surpasses fiction!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Writer: Gustav Berg<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    What really drives our beliefs, choices and morals? Join us for an in-depth exploration that challenges conventional wisdom and points to a new way forward<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":167731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[214,1520,211],"tags":[613,1167],"class_list":["post-167724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kronika","category-stor","category-opinion","tag-religion","tag-tro"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frihetsnytt.se\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}