I was not brought up in a religious family. If religion were a language, all my life I've struggled with the grammar of it. I had trouble conjugating some of the central beliefs about God into what made sense for me. I opted for silence when my colleagues casually discussed going to church on Sundays. At weddings when the pastor leads the audience in hymn, I look down at my shoes and mutter the lyrics to whatever the latest Katy Perry song is trending on the radio. Except occasional late night deep thoughts with a few close friends (usually fueled by adult beverages), I avoided the topic altogether.

Yet part of me yearned to talk about it — God, faith, religion, and what are seemingly irreconcilable contradictions among the three. It’s not surprising — I don’t think — it’s almost impossible to be truly introspective without wondering about the Big G. Once, after a lovely lunch with a co-worker, I returned to my desk to an email like this:

“…Continue to think, be introspective … but don’t worry about it too much … He will lead. As you learn to walk more closely with Him, He will walk you right into more than you can think or imagine. Of this I am absolutely certain … He has done it for me. :-) Just a simple country boy … who He has shepherded to see the WORLD! :-) AMAZING!!!”

Needless to say, I had no idea how to reply to that email other than “Thank you.”

But a few months ago I decided to tackle my own trepidation. I wanted to finally develop a map for myself on how to talk about religion, and, more importantly, recognize patterns in how others talk about it. I’m not here to argue right or wrong, truth or falsities, but rather just apply the basic principle of empathy — I want to be able to explain to others where I am coming from, and understand those whose views are different from mine.

I started with the general premise that every person has a right to his or her beliefs, provided that those beliefs do not abet in tangible actions that harm others. Life is hard enough already — whatever you want to believe that makes it easier is fine by me. (I know it gets murky here, because in this country at least, votes are cast at times based on ideology. But I don’t want to make this a 106 minute read.)

I should disclaim here that I am no religious expert — as in — I don’t teach theology, nor have I spent a lot of time studying religious texts or history. I am simply drawing from tracing the routes of conversations I've had with people of multiple belief systems, some very similar to my own, and others on the opposite end. My mental mapping has led me to a couple of conclusions:

First, once I put aside arguing an absolute truth — if God exists or not, if so, who is she or he — what I found is what I call “loci of comfort,” which is that at the very core of a belief system is the need to reduce cognitive dissonance by rejecting certain evidence and accepting others. It is the logic that each individual person crafts for him/herself to help him/herself structure his/her own beliefs. In some cases, that logic includes arguing an absolute truth over all other possibilities.

Here are the three loci of comfort that I’ve found (there may be more) where most of conversations about God for me tends to end up:

The first is a deterministic view of life. Basically — and I am highly oversimplifying here — God has a plan for all of us. The boundaries of what human beings in our limited capacity can know do not allow us to fully understand God’s plan. All suffering and adversity is part of that plan and has a purpose. Depending on who you talk to, this view is often coupled with the belief that God is simultaneously good and omnipotent.

While this view is attractive to many — and that’s totally fine by me — I myself am utterly uncomfortable with it, for a couple of reasons:

a) There is no way to prove whether suffering happens for a reason or because we have a need to explain (to reduce cognitive dissonance) why bad things happen to good people. Regardless, I find it somewhat paternalistic when someone tells me that what I am going through has a purpose other than the one I've discovered for myself. In many cases, suffering is random, and does not harbor a purpose. There is no reason behind why one child is born in a poverty-stricken environment and faces death by hunger and another is not.

At times, this view can be cringe-worthy for those who do not harbor it. A friend told me that after his brother’s child died of cancer, the minister explained that God chose for it to happen because they are strong enough to bear it. He had to refrain himself from punching the guy. I know I would have trouble accepting that, and accepting such a God.

b) Since I don’t believe that suffering happens for a reason, omnipotence and absolute goodness to me becomes a fallacy. To be omnipotent and to not prevent suffering is not good, and to be good but cannot prevent suffering negates omnipotence.

c) The view that humans cannot understand God’s plan is what I often see employed in literature as an infallible argument. Basically, it’s a kind of logic where it is impossible to be proven wrong. Freud, who was a brilliant writer, argued in The Interpretation of Dreams that if someone does not have a traumatic childhood memory — such as an Oedipus Complex — it is because that person has repressed it. There is no way to prove against that argument — you either have the complex or you’re repressing it. It is usually at this point that the conversation reaches a natural endpoint.

The reason I dislike the infallible argument is that I don’t think it progresses questioning and deeper understanding. It is a barrier rather than a way to advance thinking. Often, to say that we do not understand God’s plan is used to rationalize the observation that suffering happens for no seeming reason at all.

The second locus of comfort is the one that one’s faith is one’s personal relationship with God. I often read the debates in the comments section regarding fundamentalist conflicts, many of which resonate something like this: “These people are not true Christians/Muslims, the Bible/Koran clearly teaches that killing is wrong. True [insert religion here] is about your own personal relationship with God.”

I like this view, I really do. I have many close friends for whom this is the foundation of their value system. I myself though am not satisfied with it, and here’s why:

a) To say that someone’s actions in the name of religion should be discounted as a “true” interpretation of that religion is a little bit like cherry picking data. Religion is a mixed bag — it has been a pillar of human civilization for centuries, often the muse behind much of art, philosophy, and morality in human history. Many of those who make tremendous sacrifices and do social work to help the less fortunate of this world believe they are doing God’s work. Yet religion can also be a precipitant to destruction. Wars have been fought in the name of religion that have killed millions. And that soldier, whether from the Crusade or in Al-Qaeda, also believes that he is doing God’s work. And that belief is equally intense and pure in its rationale as the nun who is caring for a sick child, only the expression of that belief is different. If it is the expression itself that matters, then the belief in God has no inherent value other than in the quality of the actions that manifest themselves from that belief.

b) To define one’s faith as a personal relationship with God is, again, an infallible argument — it cannot be challenged or questioned because it is only between that individual and God, as neither you nor I have any business there. It is a comfortable position to be in. I do understand the appeal of that logic, but for myself I find it somewhat insular.

So this brings me to the third locus of comfort. Like Goldilocks, there is a place where I too feel comfortable in my own faith — which is rather a utilitarian view of religion.

That is, the value of one’s faith is a function where f(x) = expression of that faith as judged by those who are impacted by that faith.

In other words, whatever is the foundation of your faith — in God, in humanity, in yourself — it is the expression of that faith upon others that matters. What makes you a good person is the impact your faith has as judged by the other human beings who are touched by it.

I say judged by other human beings, because I personally dislike “no one except God can judge me.” That could be fine if you lived in a world where it’s just you and God. But we all live with other human beings, so we should count them in our moral math.

Besides, truly understanding your own impact is a complicated process — it forces you to continuously ask questions and challenge your own motives, it makes you empathize. It asks you to confront the best and the worst within yourself. Chekov once wrote that “Man will become better when you show him what he truly is.” I think that is wonderful.

When I examine my own faith — and mine comes from humanity, in case you’re wondering — I use a few tricks to keep me on track to becoming the person I’d like to be (which, like this post, is an ever-changing draft that hopefully makes some sense at the end):

a) Ask questions. Challenge your own answers. This does not mean don’t have an opinion, it means recognize that most opinions are simply moving targets to practice reflection on. You’ll notice that the ones you consistently hit eventually become core values. If I have children one day, I will ask them what questions they asked in school, not just what they learned. Curiosity is what slowly pushes the boundaries of human knowledge, whether it’s about the universe or about ourselves. As long as you’re curious, life will always be full of possibilities.

b) Never stop improving your self-awareness. Learn to think the best and worst thoughts about yourselves. Understand the wide range of who you can be. Humans are astonishingly complex creatures — and I have seen in myself insecurities, ulterior motives, manipulative tendencies and general shittiness as much as I have surprised myself in thoughtfulness, kindness, gratitude. Self-awareness is what keeps me humble and gives me empathy.

The more I can understand my own impact on others and see it from their eyes, the more I see how difficult it is to be a good person. But faith — faith is what keeps me trying. It allows me to be more authentic to my own imperfections.

I don’t believe in a higher power the way a lot of those around me do, and I believe that some things are more likely than others (like evolution versus creationism, for example). I believe that humans are made of the same stuff as stars, which is pretty freaking cool if you think about it. I like science because as a discipline it continues to try to disprove its own truth and acknowledges what it does not know. I like disciplines where it is customary to raise an eyebrow and question.

Writing this post was terrifying, because I could be completely wrong. But I’m okay with that. That’s what makes fallible arguments interesting. They keep the conversation, and the desire for knowledge, going.