Toronto Star has an interview with Elie Wiesel in which Elie offers some interesting, and perhaps entertaining, remarks on preserving his religious faith despite his suffering.
Q What is it like having strangers ask you if or why you believe in God?Of course his answers leave you wanting to ask more questions. For example, I'm not sure what it means to have reasons but not to use them, but it sounds borderline irrational if one doesn't have better reasons.A You know who asks me the most? It's children. Children ask, ``How can you still believe in God?'' In All the Rivers Run to the Sea, I speak about it. There are all the reasons in the world for me to give up on God. I have the same reasons to give up on man, and on culture and on education. And yet ... I don't give up on humanity, I don't give up on culture, I don't give up on journalism ... I don't give up on it. I have the reasons. I don't use them.
Q Why do you think people ask you these questions?
A It is for their sake. They want to understand. Look, a very religious person would not ask me this question; only if that religious person has some anxiety or some doubt, then that person wants to know how I deal with that anxiety and that doubt. And I say, `Look, I have faith. It's a wounded faith.'
