Faith is base of a religion

[leov]

Christian perspective.
Christ Jesus explained:
23“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

What is spirit and truth? It is "faith" - "pistis" ?
From Strong's:
"Faith (4102/pistis) is always a gift from God, and never something that can be produced by people. In short, 4102/pistis ("faith") for the believer is "God's divine persuasion" – and therefore distinct from human belief (confidence), yet involving it. The Lord continuously births faith in the yielded believer so they can know what He prefers, i.e. the persuasion of His will (1 Jn 5:4). "
God's divine persuasion taken as REALITY (truth).
And now from St. Paul:
Faith-based
1"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." Heb. 11.
So, "faith" is God's action to persuade that things that are not visible , i.e. spirit world, non material world, is ttue, real.
Faith is a beginning of initiation (growing mature, perfect) process, that goes through three basic stages, Faith, Hope, Agape, through literal murky understanding to clear knowledge (1 Cor.13).

 

[icehorse]

"Faith (4102/pistis) is always a gift from God, and never something that can be produced by people.

As an atheist, this leads me to think that theists must be okay with their god being hugely sadistic. Because I do not have faith, and I cannot produce it, therefore I will be tormented in hell forever. Seems sadistic to me.

 

[leov]

As an atheist, this leads me to think that theists must be okay with their god being hugely sadistic. Because I do not have faith, and I cannot produce it, therefore I will be tormented in hell forever. Seems sadistic to me.

It may look this way to modern consciousness, but to bicameral types of then OT HAD to speak that type of language to address their wrongs to fix that type of consciousness.

 

[icehorse]

But now it's 2019. Were you doing an historical analysis? I'm concerned about how these religious ideas are affecting people today.

 

[leov]

But now it's 2019. Were you doing an historical analysis? I'm concerned about how these religious ideas are affecting people today.

It all depends where religious individual is on Faith - Hope - Agape ladder..

 

[icehorse]

@leov I must admit I'm confused. Do you agree with what you quoted in the OP?

 

[leov]

@leov I must admit I'm confused. Do you agree with what you quoted in the OP?

OP is my thought on the matter. What confuses you?

 

[icehorse]

OP is my thought on the matter. What confuses you?

So you agree with the definitions in the OP? If so, then do you agree that your god is extremely sadistic?

 

[leov]

So you agree with the definitions in the OP? If so, then do you agree that your god is extremely sadistic?

My OP? You need to explain me how "extremely sadistic" is derived from my OP? OP explains my take of what 'faith' is.

 

[icehorse]

My OP? You need to explain me how "extremely sadistic" is derived from my OP?

In your OP was the sentence:

"Faith (4102/pistis) is always a gift from God, and never something that can be produced by people.

That coupled with the idea that those without faith go to hell, leads to the conclusion that your god created some people to be without faith, made sure that they could not "produce" faith, and will proceed to damn them to hell.

sounds extremely sadistic to me.

 

[leov]

In your OP was the sentence:



That coupled with the idea that those without faith go to hell, leads to the conclusion that your god created some people to be without faith, made sure that they could not "produce" faith, and will proceed to damn them to hell.

sounds extremely sadistic to me.

Hell? Was it mentioned in my OP? 'hell' is state of mind.

 

[icehorse]

Perhaps I jumped to conclusions, but I'd say my jump was quite reasonable.

Now it seems that you're engaged in cherry picking scripture? The rest of us cannot know which parts of scripture you agree with and which parts you do not.

 

[leov]

Perhaps I jumped to conclusions, but I'd say my jump was quite reasonable.

Now it seems that you're engaged in cherry picking scripture? The rest of us cannot know which parts of scripture you agree with and which parts you do not.

Cherry? Most people who understand from literal reading and preaching of literal take -dogma- do not understand what 'faith' is. There cannot be any cherries here.

 

[icehorse]

Cherry? Most people who understand from literal reading and preaching of literal take -dogma- do not understand what 'faith' is. There cannot be any cherries here.

Okay, let's try it from a different angle - if you're not cherry picking, then which bits of scripture do you hold to be totally correct?

 

[leov]

Okay, let's try it from a different angle - if you're not cherry picking, then which bits of scripture do you hold to be totally correct?

It may be all may be very little. Old rabbis had concept of 50 gates of understanding, your current understanding is product of your spiritual development it would change with your growth. Here us an example:
18"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit," Does this verse talk about bodily resurrection?

 

[icehorse]

Old rabbis had concept of 50 gates of understanding, your current understanding is product of your spiritual development it would change with your growth.

It seems to me that you're conflating "knowledge of scripture" with "spiritual development".

That said, I don't give much credence to a religious person assessing my spiritual development.

I don't think that spiritualness is particularly well implemented through religion.

 

[leov]

It seems to me that you're conflating "knowledge of scripture" with "spiritual development".

That said, I don't give much credence to a religious person assessing my spiritual development.

I don't think that spiritualness is particularly well implemented through religion.

scripture is fluid, it is means of spiritual development , not cast in stone, dogma is harmful. literal understanding is the lowest point of spirituality. full knowledge is the highest point if spirituality. OP mentions spirit and truth which excludes scripture as indoctrination source but implies direct know!edge.

 

[icehorse]

scripture is fluid, it is means of spiritual development , not cast in stone, dogma is harmful. literal understanding is the lowest point of spirituality. full knowledge is the highest point if spirituality. OP mentions spirit and truth which excludes scripture as indoctrination source but implies direct know!edge.

Which - I'm pretty sure - gets us back to some form of cherry picking.

I believe that you came to the scripture with a certain set of morals and ethics, and you then cherry picked the scripture to support what you already knew.

 

[leov]

Which - I'm pretty sure - gets us back to some form of cherry picking.

I believe that you came to the scripture with a certain set of morals and ethics, and you then cherry picked the scripture to support what you already knew.

Well, my understanding is that when OT was written morals were very different, most people had different type of consciousness, respect for human life was very low, no compassion, kind of bicameral minds, OT is continuation of the effort to improve level human consciousness.

 

[icehorse]

feels like we're going around in circles here. I'm happy to keep discussing this if you want to, if not, thanks for your posts.