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What is faith to you?

Skwim

Veteran Member
I see faith as having complete uncontestable confidence for which in one's mind, something will, as opposed to just maybe, meet expectations.

I don't have faith crossing intersections, for which each and every time I do so, will be regarded as being completely incident free every single time.

Rather, it's a conditional trust with a realisation that nothing at all is guaranteed, as I do so, for which a cautionary approach is taken as opposed to a blind sense of confidence that nothing will happen.
And pretty much I agree. I regard faith as trust in a belief.

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McBell

Resident Sourpuss
Faith is believing something your intellect would otherwise reject—otherwise there would be no need for faith.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
Faith is believing something your intellect would otherwise reject—otherwise there would be no need for faith.

I kept reading this over again.

If I only have faith that X is true because, by default, my mind rejected it then isn't that saying that those who don't have faith, accept everything? Is there a limitation on what the mind can accept (that is logical) while not calling it faith?

Another example/question

"I know my sister loves me. She loves me by her actions and how she interacts with me." I say I know not because of intellect. My sister could hate my guts, I am not her, so I won't know. However, I do have a high level of trust that she does love me. That trust is built on many factors that it "feels like" it is fact itself. (Intellectually, it is not). Yet, my mind does not reject it and I have trust in her love for me because her love doesn't have to be real (literally-say I am her) but how she shows it etc is the closest I can get to her love without being her. So that level of trust is soo strong that my intellect could not reject it unless she did something that makes me question the bond not her personality we have together..an so forth.

I can only go on intellect but so long. My mind doesn't reject what it doesn't understands or knows-that fact is, it doesn't understand or knows. We have to be comfortable with that "not knowing." We have to be comfortable with it so when things (pun intended) happen to us, we know what to do even if it's not perfect.

So faith/trust/intellect go hand in hand.

My sister has supported me throughout my life (and so on) + she verbally showed her love (without saying "I love you") so that =means= intellectually, emotionally, and all the above, I know she loves me. It becomes personal.

How can my intellect reject that love for faith to exist?
If I had faith in something my intellect rejected, what is the point of having faith?​
 

rusra02

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I am in a state of, "I don't know if I believe in God".

Do you feel it, so you believe? Do you have rational reasons for believing? Do you believe in all the stories in your books, if you have them, and why?

Do you ever doubt that God may exist? How often do you think about God?
Faith, according to the Bible, "is the assured expectation of what is hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities that are not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) The Greek words translated "assured expectation" and "evident demonstration" refer to legal guarantees and evidence based realities. Certainly the wonders of Creation give evidence of a master Designer and Builder. And I believe the Bible gives evidence of inspiration by a superhuman Author. To have faith, one must put in the necessary effort to examine the evidence for themselves. One lawyer who did this wrote: "Bible prophecies are . . . so numerous as to make accidental fulfillment almost infinitely improbable.”—A LAWYER EXAMINES THE BIBLE, BY IRWIN H. LINTON
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
I am in a state of, "I don't know if I believe in God".

Do you feel it, so you believe? Do you have rational reasons for believing? Do you believe in all the stories in your books, if you have them, and why?

Do you ever doubt that God may exist? How often do you think about God?
I have no doubt....none at all....

I like science and believe in God because of science.

there is also the rational of likelihood
nothing Greater than ourselves?
7billion people and we go nowhere after the last breath?
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
I have no doubt....none at all....

I like science and believe in God because of science.

there is also the rational of likelihood
nothing Greater than ourselves?
7billion people and we go nowhere after the last breath?

If you believe god of the Bible, how does science show you it is that particular god and no other without the Bible and any other reference to go by but yourself?

@rusra02 Oh. I wanted to ask you this as well.
 

jeager106

Learning more about Jehovah.
Premium Member
I'm and will be in recovery from addiction. (booze)
There are millions of us that believe in a Power greater than ourselves.
This is ESSENTIAL to recovery.
I attend at least 5 recovery group meetings a week to save my life.
And perhaps the life of another.
EVERYONE prays at the end of every meeting.
Everyone.
If there are atheists there I don't know of them.
There are atheists that come into recovery but they seldom remain so.
This goes for ALL addictions, not just booze.
Meetings are made up of men, women, religious, not religious, heterosexual and
homosexual, all are loved.
 

jeager106

Learning more about Jehovah.
Premium Member
If you believe god of the Bible, how does science show you it is that particular god and no other without the Bible and any other reference to go by but yourself?

@rusra02 Oh. I wanted to ask you this as well.

Science can't demonstrate faith.
Science DEMANDS proof.
Faith can neither be proven nor dis-proven.
So it is with faith.
I happen to have two science degrees and have faith in a Power greater than man.
 

Orbit

I'm a planet
Your description of faith here comes off as a transitive verb (accepting), which doesn't square at all with your claim that "Faith is belief . . . . " Belief being a noun (proposition) as you indicate here . Just saying.


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Belief is a noun. "To believe" is a verb. They are closely related. I don't see the point of your post.
 

Acim

Revelation all the time
I am in a state of, "I don't know if I believe in God".

Do you feel it, so you believe? Do you have rational reasons for believing? Do you believe in all the stories in your books, if you have them, and why?

Do you ever doubt that God may exist? How often do you think about God?

A) Faith is full confidence or trust in something or someone. Full stop.

B) God is existence itself. More than this, but helps to have an intellectual premise when addressing an intellectual concern.

C) Reason exists to support full faith in God / Reality (or actual existence). Not really necessary though when full faith is found. Reason can help if mind (or faith) is split between illusionary existence and actual existence, trying to discern which is which and which will provide guidance in a situation

D) I believe revelation from God happens essentially all the time. I believe stories are allegories pointing to deeper truths, but I do not take them literally. Sometimes a song will contain the answer I am seeking (in say recent days) more than re-referencing a spiritual text.

E) Yes, I do at times doubt the existence of God or downplay such existence in my daily affairs. Less now than I used to.

F) I think of Spirit / God daily. On average, I would say about 30 times a day, or more than once an hour. I do find myself at times being what I consider 'too spiritual' but more like in an intellectual grasp of ideas that are better served, from my experience, to flow freely, creatively rather than through analysis and scrutiny.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
Science can't demonstrate faith.
Science DEMANDS proof.
Faith can neither be proven nor dis-proven.
So it is with faith.
I happen to have two science degrees and have faith in a Power greater than man.

What is your opinion about "believing in god because of science"? and having faith means "examining the evidence" of sacred text?

I don't have a concrete definition of science because the natural world is everything. There is no supernatural. So, science maybe the testing, investigation, and observation of what we can feel with our five senses and science can be said as the field of psychology where not everything is observable by our five senses just the reactions or behaviors of our emotions (or, say feelings of the holy spirit).

Faith just means trust. I have trust in The Buddha and the nature of The Buddha within me because I know it is real and true. I have trust that the spirits of my ancestors, family, past and present and my family today take care of me because I know it is true. Maybe science has to do with knowledge (certainty?) and faith has to do with belief (guessing?).

I don't use the word faith/trust because it would be common sense for me to put trust into something or someone I know is true and helps me inside and out. Faith becomes invisible not because there is no proof; there is proof, you just have to trust/have faith in it. Faith is there because we know we have truth.

So if it is true that there is a greater power than yourself, like I asked Thief, without sacred text, by your observation, and so forth, how did you come to that conclusion and if it's based on science, how did science be limited to showing a Christian one truth and the same person sees something different in science to bring him to another?

It goes beyond science. People are attached to what they can't take with them. Faith is trust. Some people live by trust others don't. I notice people who live by trust have more gratitude for life. Not because they believe what they feel is true, it's because they know they don't need science/certainty to live and believe (whatever belief, practice, or moral it may be).
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
If you believe god of the Bible, how does science show you it is that particular god and no other without the Bible and any other reference to go by but yourself?

@rusra02 Oh. I wanted to ask you this as well.
I believe the creation is a reflection of it's Creator

God of the bible could well be the same Fellow
I don't think God reserves Himself for just one group of people

it may have started that way......you gotta start somewhere
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
I believe the creation is a reflection of it's Creator

God of the bible could well be the same Fellow
I don't think God reserves Himself for just one group of people

it may have started that way......you gotta start somewhere

:shrug: Do we have to start somewhere or can we be some day happy that we just don't know (even that is stretching a ring of doubt-grasping at an origin where "life" doesn't talk to us to say 'hey you're right' type of thing) I assume it could be a hunch?
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
:shrug: Do we have to start somewhere or can we be some day happy that we just don't know (even that is stretching a ring of doubt-grasping at an origin where "life" doesn't talk to us to say 'hey you're right' type of thing) I assume it could be a hunch?
well....everything seems to be moving in a linear fashion.....one event following another

so there had to be a beginning

and I believe God is the Source of that beginning

realizing of Himself to be the First.....He then moved on to not being solitary

so here we are

can we be happy?.....oh yeah
I say count your tears and then watch them disappear

they will
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
well....everything seems to be moving in a linear fashion.....one event following another

so there had to be a beginning

and I believe God is the Source of that beginning

realizing of Himself to be the First.....He then moved on to not being solitary

so here we are

can we be happy?.....oh yeah
I say count your tears and then watch them disappear

they will

I don't know. I personally find that odd referring to everything as creation and deciding, by conclusion it needs a creator. More confusing than that, calling the creator by he (or a pronoun). I mean for comfort, I can see why people believe it. Logically, beyond psychological reasons, I don't see the connection.
 

Chickie17

Member
I can believe in a beginning. I can believe in something eternal from which we sprang.

But who is to say that thing is "conscious"? Who is to say that thing knowingly created us with intention? Who is to say that thing is personal, omniscient, and, though I am not trying to be disrespectful and I think it's great that people believe them, that all the stories and details and people in books like the Vedas, Bible, Torah, and Quran are true?

I would love to believe in God. I do not think it is illogical to disbelieve. But with how I was raised, my background, I don't know if I can ever have such strong convictions about such intricate, specific things.

I think I can come to a point in my life where I picture God with me, but even that is not the same thing as firm, unflinching belief.
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
I don't know. I personally find that odd referring to everything as creation and deciding, by conclusion it needs a creator. More confusing than that, calling the creator by he (or a pronoun). I mean for comfort, I can see why people believe it. Logically, beyond psychological reasons, I don't see the connection.
I lean to cause and effect
according to science ...ALL of this reality came from one location
and....science also claims nothing moves without something to move it

so.....Spirit first
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
I can believe in a beginning. I can believe in something eternal from which we sprang.

But who is to say that thing is "conscious"? Who is to say that thing knowingly created us with intention? Who is to say that thing is personal, omniscient.......

and Moses did ask.....what shall I say to the people when they ask whose law this is?
and the Lord said.....tell the people, I AM!....and they with understanding will know
 

Chickie17

Member
Can't something create a law without realizing it? Can something's very existence not sustain its creation through its own processes, regardless of its own awareness?

If we came from something that did not intend to create us, our laws as unintentionally decreed by it would not change unless it did. If it is untouched and eternal, perhaps it would never change, and neither would our laws.
 
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