Excerpt from The Nameless Man Chapter 3
"Of what faith are you?" Aden said, rudely interjecting once again. He had begun to question the character of his company. By his manner he seemed to be addressing the whole group, as if wanting everyone to sound off before the discussion went any further.
"Wait," the nameless man interceded before any answers were given. "No," he said firmly. "No labels—no naming our religion. As soon as each person here declares his or her religion boundaries will be drawn between us and preconceived notions concerning followers of each faith shall be attached to their holders. If we are to speak, I suggest that we must all remain nameless in this respect."
"Why?" Aden asked again in an aggressive voice. "You are talking about having a debate about God. How can we have this if we don't know what faith everyone is?" he finished dully.
"I think it is necessary that we withhold our religion so as to remain free of judgment and be known for who we are, not what we are painted to be by public perception.
"I personally don't desire to know your religion," he added in a matter-of-fact tone, "only if you have faith."
"What's the difference?" Aden asked in an exasperated tone. "Semantics," he spat out condescendingly.
"It is not semantics," the man insisted. "Faith is the willful act of believing in that which, as of now, cannot fully be comprehended. Faith has to do with the individual; whereas religion concerns a movement. Religion is inherently political—complex; whereas faith is inherently personal.
"Today—in this circle, we shall speak of our personal beliefs. Every person seeking knowledge of the sacred knows the established paths of religion open to them but what we don't know are each other's personal conclusions—those truths we each have come to on our own.
"Following a religion will bring you to the values at the center of that religion—values that can bring us closer to our better selves or further away. Yet if we wish to find the divine each of us must make our own path to it—following not the blazed path of doctrine but choosing instead to venture through the wilderness of the unknown led by our heart, guided by the signs we perceived while in that heady altered state that is belief."
"I just don't understand how we can discuss God, without speaking of religion," Aden argued. "They are one in the same."
"Each religion is composed of the ideas of mankind concerning the divine; while God—the divine—exists separate, independent from what we might think it to be. In the end, my point is this: Do you wish to study what has been written or do you wish to know truth? For I have found that the two seldom align….
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