Alonzo Tanner
Member
You either have it or you don't. I am not here to argue religion. I am trying to understand why it's so easy for many to believe and I don't.
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Isn't The Bottom Line Of All Faith A Matter Of Belief?
- Thread starter Alonzo Tanner
- Start date
lostwanderingsoul
Well-Known Member
God calls those He wants to follow Him just as Jesus called the deciples to follow him. Some are not called.
You may not believe now but you had to believe in others, in books, in language, in math, in science or else you never would have learned anything. Belief is the key to knowledge if you don't believe in something you will never learn about it.
When we are young we tend to believe more and have less knowledge, as we learn we lose those childish beliefs and rely on our experiences more. Some of us abandon beliefs altogether some of us retain our childish beliefs forever, it really up to you.
Welcome to RF, sit back and enjoy a pittite gaueaux or few while waiting for staff to arrange a party in your honour
As for faith, people may believe whatever makes them happy, personally i need evidence and i have never seen any real evidence to justify core god religious beliefs
As for faith, people may believe whatever makes them happy, personally i need evidence and i have never seen any real evidence to justify core god religious beliefs
Skwim
Veteran Member
Yup. Faith is nothing more than a trust in belief.
Their personal needs exceed what they believe to be the importance of reason and logic.
And ain't they lucky. They get to go to hell for all eternity. Pretty darn nice god if you ask me.
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Some friends and I went from non-belief to belief. Another went the other way. Others are today the way they were when they became adults. The human mind is a very complex beast.
stvdv
Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
When speaking for myself from personal experience:
When I was young my opinion and feelings did not matter, heck, was not even allowed. I was allergic to water, but my father threw me in the water telling me "be a man". I was forced to eat, even when it made me sick. Even as a joke they fed me poop.
So I learned to not have an opinion at all, but all the time this suppressed irritation was building and resulting in me not trusting others, as my opinion and feelings were not trusted nor taken serious by my parents. So over the years I trusted others less and less. And trusted even not myself.
I did not even believe in my own feelings anymore. Total lack of confidence in my own feelings, and quite unable to feel. Took me a long time to rediscover my feelings again. Luckily I met a Master who never belittled my feelings, and accepted me completely. I needed not change anything, he was just loving me unconditionally. I think "this unconditional love" slowly, over time, cured my suppressed emotions and lack of trust.
Blind believing is still difficult for me. So I went to extremes to get "proof" from "God" by having personal experiences. The personal experiences made it much easier for me to believe. Now it's very easy for me to believe, but don't ask me "what or who God is". This I still don't know. But I do know that if I really need help, that help comes to me. This, to me, is an amazing thing in this universe, the interaction between me and "the Great Unknown" granting me glimpses of "Being there", without me understanding anything about IT.
lostwanderingsoul
Well-Known Member
Hell is a place of destruction, not everlasting torture.IMOYup. Faith is nothing more than a trust in belief.
Their personal needs exceed what they believe to be the importance of reason and logic.
And ain't they lucky. They get to go to hell for all eternity. Pretty darn nice god if you ask me.
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I've come to the conclusion true belief is based on experience alone. Unless you have an experience, you really have no understanding of it, or concept of it. For example, I have 3 young friends (aged 9, 5, and 3) who are so looking forward to our first snowfall. They arrived from a tropical country, and want to know snow. They will, within a few months, and it will be a joy to watch.
So I see religion and belief like that. No experience of it, and why would their be a belief in it?
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The basics of a culture's mythology are inculcated in children long before they develop any capacity for critical analysis. They become part of the child's ROM.
Critically analyzing a belief can have negative social consequences, it can create internal conflicts and even get you kicked out of the club. Most people choose not to make waves.
Critically analyzing a belief can have negative social consequences, it can create internal conflicts and even get you kicked out of the club. Most people choose not to make waves.
Not sure exactly what we're discussing with regard to belief, but I'll assume beliefs of a spiritual or religious nature. I struggle a bit with the word 'belief' myself, as I'm a bit of a skeptic by nature. That said, I prefer to refer to my worldview as 'probabilities based on knowledge gained through experiential evidence.'
Oh, and welcome to RF.
Most people believe growing up in the sense of belonging and identity they were raised in many diverse conflicting and contradictory beliefs, 95%+. Some chose not to and rationalize a different path, and most often choose a different belief for a sense of belonging and identity of a different religion or belief system.. A few simply refuse to believe anything. This is the nature of being human.
Heyo
Veteran Member
That's a question that's bugging me ever since I learned that people believe in things that are obviously (for me at least) unbelievable. I have a hypothesis that the ability to belief is innate. (Which can't be true always as people go from belief to unbelief and some even claim to have gone the other route. But as a principle concept it seems right.) I hope that neurology one day confirms or disproves that hypothesis.
Isn't The Bottom Line Of All Faith A Matter Of Belief?
Well, the answer then by definition is 'Yes'.
But I would argue that I and many others came to their spiritual beliefs by reason and not faith.
Well, the answer then by definition is 'Yes'.
But I would argue that I and many others came to their spiritual beliefs by reason and not faith.
steveb1
Member
I don't think that faith or having faith is the bottom line.
I suspect that the bottom line is experience - mystical experience of communion or union with the divine.
Experience trumps faith and premasticated religioius dogma. Faith is a received notion, an intellectual assent to a doctrinal proposition. Unmediated knowledge of God, on the other hand, is a raw, undomesticated, living, loving, and sometimes fearsome experience.
In my view, the experience comes first. Faith only enters in later, as an interpretation or "exegesis" of the original wordless, ineffable experience.
shmogie
Well-Known Member
My friend Rival makes a superb point. The Bible says ¨ faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word of God".
So, have an open mind, and just begin to read the Bible. I would suggest you begin with the Gospels, read slowly and think about what you read.
You may never have faith, but this is the only way to find it.
So says many many other believers of diverse, conflicting, and contradictory other religions and belief systems
Not...really. Belief is something you accept that someone tells you. Faith is something that you are a part of causing to happen.
Take for example a quote where Jesus says "If you have even a tiny amount of faith you can move a mountain." That is true, because you can move a mountain a little at a time. Suppose you want to dig a tunnel out of prison. You don't have to dig the entire tunnel all at once. Belief is of course involved, because you have to believe that you can eventually move that mountain with your spoon. Yes belief is involved, but that's not faith. Faith is digging and believing you can get the tunnel finished. You're making it happen, and therefore the tunnel is real even though you can't see it yet.
Alonzo Tanner
Member
I can't believe that what I read in the Bible is truth.