Some thoughts on doubt and "True Belief"

The longer I've operated around True Believers of any faith basis, the more and more I have found one of the most prevalent, and frankly confusing, lines of reasoning I've encountered, and it goes something like this: A rational theist, like myself, will express heavy doubts or skepticism about such things as a physical or spiritual afterlife, or of a personal Resurrection at the "End Times", and will be immediately be treated at best like we are "back-slidden" and in need of help, or, in more extreme cases, "unfaithful" and even "atheistic", and our doubts will be taken as firm, unyielding evidence that we no longer believe at all.

Well, of course I'm going to be skeptical about many of the central supernatural claims in any religious text. This has to be the case. Holding everything I understand about physics and cosmology to be true, there is not much room of physical possibility for such things as the Resurrection to happen, regardless of my desire for such things to happen or not. I have to grant that if such things were to be able to happen, they would lie outside of the realm of scientific testability, or even more dramatically, fly openly in the face of known physical laws, which, given their historic infallibility, requires a good deal of belief and a willingness to throw logic and reason out the window when it suits the occasion.

Herein lies the nature of what I'm talking about. True Believers hold that science is wrong about fundamental things in the world because these facts don't agree with their faith, and when faced with overwhelming evidence for something that contradicts what they believe, they will either abandon reason and science entirely, or lose faith because there is no reason in believing in something there is no evidence for.

What they fail to understand is that Science deals with the testable, the corporeal, and the repeatable. Miraculous occurrences fall outside all three of these criteria almost 100% of the time. If they don't, then they aren't miracles. They're data. They don't have to agree with Science because they fundamentally duck or subvert the criteria for being able to even be observed by it in almost every case. Scientific inquiry into miracles will always be short-handed, because such inquiries have to obey scientific methods of inquiry, a rule miracles don't play by.

Also, interestingly enough, isn't belief in something for which there is no proof or concrete evidence whatsoever the central definition of faith? Wouldn't such believers be stating by not believing without proof that they have no faith, or at least, a faith that cannot stand on its own?
The "True Believer" should be able to have faith regardless of evidence. Isn't that the point of belief?

Now, here's where I come to my point about doubt. Doubt is simply Faith and Reason working in tandem for a cohesive view of reality. Both are not mutually exclusive. I firmly reject Gould's notion of Non-Overlapping Magisteria in this case, and here's why. Faith is the belief in, or the desiring to be true of, things for which there can be no evidence, only inference. When there is evidence for it, it ceases to be Faith, and becomes Reason. Reason is the acceptance of things that can be examined, can be tested for, and can be supported by proof or evidence.
When I, as a rational theist, profess that I believe in such things as Heaven, I am making a faith statement. I cannot state that Heaven does exist, nor can I provide any evidence whatsoever for it. The reasonable side of me asserts that it probably does not, based on cosmology and dimensionality, and that is where my doubt is sourced. However, to assert that my belief is in any way shaken by this is a very faulty assumption. A Skeptical Believer such as myself can easily hold onto such beliefs, because we recognize them as beliefs, not realities. I have to grant that when I die, and nothing happens, then I was wrong. I have to grant that when a loved one dies, I can believe and hope that I will see them again, but I have to accept the fact that it's very likely that I never will.. If reality comes along in such a way to make such a belief untenable, faith-based or otherwise, then it must be discarded. But that does not mean that faith is misguided, and it does not mean it is wrong. Faith is only misguided when thought of as reason-based reality, and is treated as such in the Believer's interactions with himself and others.

Doubt seems so dangerous to True Believers because to them, their faith views are their reason and reality, and any hint that those beliefs might be faulty threatens their entire existence. Doubt throws into question the fundamental principles on which they run their lives. But for a Skeptical Believer, such as myself, Doubt is the only way for me to believe, because it is what challenges my faith, forces me to grow spiritually, forces me to constantly reevaluate what I believe and why I believe it, and drives me to continue to seek truth, regardless of it's source. True Believers, they've already found their truth. Me, whether I've already found it or not, I'm never going to stop looking.