Silas sat in his small cottage at the base of the cliff. His old bones ached from the damp cold, and for the first time in his life, a heavy seed of doubt pressed on his chest. He looked at his matchbox and then at the window. The rain was lashing against the glass. What is the point? a voice whispered in his mind.

If you say, "I believe this book is perfect and infallible," you will be ridiculed for your literalism. If you say, "I believe my country is the greatest on earth," you will be called a nationalist. If you say, "I believe my partner is the only one for me," you are accused of co-dependence.

For months, the Sector watched the old man. They watched him scavenge light-weight alloys from the scrap heaps and trade his meager rations for high-density batteries. They mocked him, calling him a dreamer whose head was already in the clouds he’d never reach.

"We couldn't see anything," Miller whispered. "But you were there."

As the writer Anne Lamott noted, "The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty." A mature is comfortable with doubt. In fact, doubt is the friction that strengthens the muscle of belief. A believer who has never asked "What if I am wrong?" is not a believer ; they are a hostage of ideology.

Believer

Silas sat in his small cottage at the base of the cliff. His old bones ached from the damp cold, and for the first time in his life, a heavy seed of doubt pressed on his chest. He looked at his matchbox and then at the window. The rain was lashing against the glass. What is the point? a voice whispered in his mind.

If you say, "I believe this book is perfect and infallible," you will be ridiculed for your literalism. If you say, "I believe my country is the greatest on earth," you will be called a nationalist. If you say, "I believe my partner is the only one for me," you are accused of co-dependence.

For months, the Sector watched the old man. They watched him scavenge light-weight alloys from the scrap heaps and trade his meager rations for high-density batteries. They mocked him, calling him a dreamer whose head was already in the clouds he’d never reach.

"We couldn't see anything," Miller whispered. "But you were there."

As the writer Anne Lamott noted, "The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty." A mature is comfortable with doubt. In fact, doubt is the friction that strengthens the muscle of belief. A believer who has never asked "What if I am wrong?" is not a believer ; they are a hostage of ideology.