I’ve had the same wish for the past five years. My wish is that I’ll live forever. A lot of people don’t understand that… It’s a wish! Go big! I don’t wanna fucking die! How simple is that? I have no interest in dying… Out there? I don’t know what’s out there. It’s unknown. This is known. That’s unknown . I’m sticking with the known. “But Lewis, if you had faith,” my Christian friends say, “the angels will come and they will take you to heaven…” “Well,” I tell them, “until there are photographs, the legal system would say that’s hearsay.”

paraphrase of Lewis Black on his new album

A few weeks back, I had the distinct pleasure of getting to see David Bazan live at a house show here in Nashville. As many are well aware by this point, Bazan has made a major transformation from “leader of a Christian band” (Pedro the Lion) to “openly agnostic solo artist.” It would be easy to assume that someone who was that entrenched in the culture of western Christianity would be having quite an awkward adjustment — especially after “coming out” to the world via one of the best albums released in a long time. It was, essentially, his “breakup album with God,” for lack of a better description.

I was expecting to sit in a living room with a guy who was full of “umms” and “ahhs” that played his songs and mentally prepared himself for a barrage of questions about his departure from faith. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only did my fellow listeners treat him with the utmost respect, he was confident, bold, outspoken and, dare I say it, happier and more comfortable than I’ve ever heard of him being. It was as though he had finally settled into his right place.

Especially in North America, evangelical culture persists a lot of black-and-white mentality about what is truth and what is lie, what is to be believed and what is to be rejected. In the past few years, I’ve seen a growing population of Christians who debate and argue and divide themselves over nitpicky theology, which I find more than a little bit disconcerting. Over time, I realized that this mentality is rooted in a desire to prove their beliefs in a concrete fashion which, if you think about it, is kind of ridiculous.

An idea that’s been rolling around in my head for my long absence from blogging here — originally seeded in a growing and poorly-worded curiosity about the validity of the other major religions — boils down to this: faith is just that.

Faith, in the religious sense, means believing in something that cannot be proven. If, as Lewis Black wishes, we can prove that God and heaven and angels and an afterlife exist without a shadow of doubt, it wouldn’t be faith. It would be fact. In the same way, we can’t disprove the beliefs of others, especially when they are in agreement with millions of others.

Western Christianity has made a lot of effort in the past 50 years to prove why Christianity is “it” and everything else is not. It shows a supreme lack of confidence in the unknown and in being wrong. To truly have great faith, one must submit to the fact that, at some point, he has to stop proving, accept what he believes and live accordingly. Or stop believing it.

Certainly we need people who can read and interpret the Bible and the Koran and the holy scriptures of Hinduism in order to form a foundation of beliefs, but interpretation is not something for everyone. In fact, the more that get involved in interpretation, the less unity there seems to be, which completely throw the idea of a body of believers out the window. Our culture’s Jeffersonian push on education has somehow caused us to forget that faith and education are near-polar opposites. Christian culture’s desire to have concrete answers to the eternally unanswerable and ridiculously inane questions of life is causing it to crumble in on itself.

Perhaps if most of us dropped the habit of (mis)interpreting, debating and arguing ideas, submit to the philosophy that it’s not only okay but recommended to not know everything, then focused on practicing the undeniable core of our beliefs — to love and respect and ask everything in humility — we’d all be better off.

Perhaps Bazan’s confidence is seeded in knowing that he doesn’t need to know all the answers or ask all the question to live an inspired and beautiful life.

Required reading/listening:

• The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, by David Dark
• The Religion Episode, by the Grapes of Rad
• Curse Your Branches, by David Bazan

Here continues a series where I discuss the podcasts I like to listen to. Because I’m sure you all care a great deal what it is I’m grinning like a kid about while I’m driving down the freeway. Perhaps you’ll find something interesting to listen to that will help you explore the world around you, or maybe just make you laugh.

The Grapes of Rad is a podcast for smart asses. It’s for people who read weird news and FAIL Blog. It’s for people who wish that morning shows on the radio were funnier and had swears in them. Except it’s only once a week. And way better.

The Grapes of Rad are Ben Parsons and Aaron Mason, two dudes from Seattle who spend a lot of time on the internet but have somehow maintained their ability to speak clearly and intelligently and funnily. (Is that a word? Ben has a segment conveniently titled “Dude, That’s Not a Word” just for such situations.)

The other great thing about the Grapes is that they are very in touch with their audience. Being a listener makes you part of a small, excellent community. They play listeners’ voice mail on the show, they read listeners’ tweets and emails (which has gotten me mentioned on the show twice now) and have barbecues in Shelton, Washington with Grapes listeners.

The show is a bit longer than most, generally clocking in between 90 and 100 minutes each week. But it’s great for car rides, long visits to the gym, or perhaps at a boring job that lets you wear headphones. On a recent drive from Montgomery, Alabama, to Nashville, we went through two episodes and the whole car was laughing a good portion of the ride.

If you like a little sarcasm and laughter in your podcast queue, I highly suggest you subscribe to this one. I say this with complete honesty: it is my favorite podcast, and one I skip others to listen to whenever a new episode releases.