An important secret to understanding spirituality and religion

For someone who spends most of his professional and personal time in the psychology and religion world, I think I've discovered a secret that I want to share with you. Listening to so many people from all spiritual and religious perspectives as well as those who are non-religious or atheists, it seems clear to me that people are looking for religious answers or argue over differences of opinion regarding religious answers in the hope of confirming their beliefs. The debates about creationism and evolution, paths to salvation, if God exist, how one should think about God and so forth are all arguments about what one believes or what one religious tradition holds to be true. Psychologically, perhaps the more unconsciously uncertain someone is, the more consciously firm their beliefs appear. I'm reminded of the Shakespeare quote from Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much."
These religious questions include typical hot topics ones such as:

Is there a God?

Does God listen to and answer prayer?

If there is a God, why do bad things happen to good people?

Which religion is the "right" or "true" one?

Was Jesus the messiah?

Was Jesus born of a virgin and did he bodily rise from the dead?

Were the Jews slaves in Egypt?

Did God promise certain lands to the Jews? The Muslims? Other groups?

Do miracles happen (now and in the past)?

Do religious beliefs contradict evolution?

Does God answer prayer?

And on and on.

Somehow I think that we believe or should believe that religion ought to be able to well articulate clear answers to these and many other questions. Too often we fight over the answers that we think must or should be true.

So, what is my secret?

I think that a religious and spiritual life results in more questions than answers. A thoughtful, informed, humble study of spirituality and religion leads to many more questions (not so many answers). My secret is that perhaps we are too often missing the point trying to secure answers where there are so few to be confirmed. Maybe searching for definitive answers actually misses the boat!

Harvey Cox, the well known and respected Harvard University professor, recently wrote a bestselling (and wonderful in my view) book [The future of faith. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2009] discussing the differences between belief and faith. He well articulates that while we may have particular beliefs about the questions listed above and more it isn't the same thing as faith (and that's a good thing).

I think that doing the right thing in spiritual and religious dialogue includes accepting that there are many more questions than answers and that we can have faith that might be quite separate from belief. If we approach spiritual and religious questions with sincerity and respect for others as well as an acceptance that many questions may not have satisfactory answers, we might get along better and enjoy more fruitful conversations. Rather than convincing each other that our views from our particular tradition are correct, maybe we should focus on the various approaches to the questions. Perhaps then might we see ourselves and others from different traditions all on the same journey that have taken different roads? Might it be possible that these different roads lead to the same location? Might it be possible that some roads might be preferable to others but that no road is the one with all the right answers? Can we be okay with more questions than answers?

If we embrace the mystery and the questions working at being at peace without all the answers that we desire we may make progress on interfaith relationships. That would go a long way in my book towards mutual respect, concern, and solidarity with others.