Faith is Dangerous

[Nakosis]

Faith that God or the universe has some benevolent plan for you.

Thousands are killed daily, go hungry are homeless. There are no guarantees in the universe. No reason to believe the the universe is going to take your best interest into consideration. No reason to believe your future is bright.

My son believes the universe/God has a special plan for him. That he just needs to wait for the universe/God to reveal it.

Who has been watching out for him are his mom and dad. Parents who sacrifice so he has a place to live and food to eat. Not everyone has parents who are able or wiling.

Is it not folly to assume that someone or something exists that will watch out for your best interests? Or that tomorrow you will have a place to sleep. Food to eat. A family to rely on?

I think about the thousands on families in Ukraine who have lost their homes, parents who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents. Who are now homeless.

Faith is a luxury no one can afford.

 

[stanberger]

Faith that God or the universe has some benevolent plan for you.

Thousands are killed daily, go hungry are homeless. There are no guarantees in the universe. No reason to believe the the universe is going to take your best interest into consideration. No reason to believe your future is bright.

My son believes the universe/God has a special plan for him. That he just needs to wait for the universe/God to reveal it.

Who has been watching out for him are his mom and dad. Parents who sacrifice so he has a place to live and food to eat. Not everyone has parents who are able or wiling.

Is it not folly to assume that someone or something exists that will watch out for your best interests? Or that tomorrow you will have a place to sleep. Food to eat. A family to rely on?

I think about the thousands on families in Ukraine who have lost their homes, parents who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents. Who are now homeless.

Faith is a luxury no one can afford.

weisel lost his faith do to the holocaust ....most folks with strong faith increase their faith in times of trouble

 

[RestlessSoul]

On the contrary, I would suggest that faith is a necessity no one can afford to be without; for the alternative to faith, given all the problems that currently beset the world, is surely despair.

That doesn't have to mean faith in God, btw. But one must have faith in something, or else how does one stay sane?

 

[Augustus]

Faith that God or the universe has some benevolent plan for you.

Thousands are killed daily, go hungry are homeless. There are no guarantees in the universe. No reason to believe the the universe is going to take your best interest into consideration. No reason to believe your future is bright.

My son believes the universe/God has a special plan for him. That he just needs to wait for the universe/God to reveal it.

Who has been watching out for him are his mom and dad. Parents who sacrifice so he has a place to live and food to eat. Not everyone has parents who are able or wiling.

Is it not folly to assume that someone or something exists that will watch out for your best interests? Or that tomorrow you will have a place to sleep. Food to eat. A family to rely on?

I think about the thousands on families in Ukraine who have lost their homes, parents who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents. Who are now homeless.

Faith is a luxury no one can afford.

Meh, most irreligious Westerners believe in some form of The Idea of Progress which is the core tenet of the Enlightenment and is basically divine providence ("End of History", Better angels of our nature type stuff) .

Bring back the tragic view of human nature I say...

 

[stanberger]

On the contrary, I would suggest that faith is a necessity no one can afford to be without; for the alternative to faith, given all the problems that currently beset the world, is surely despair.

That doesn't have to mean faith in God, btw. But one must have faith in something, or else how does one stay sane?

dont fo

On the contrary, I would suggest that faith is a necessity no one can afford to be without; for the alternative to faith, given all the problems that currently beset the world, is surely despair.

That doesn't have to mean faith in God, btw. But one must have faith in something, or else how does one stay sane?

despair ...yes but also Xanax and alcohol. the prescriptions of antidepressants skyrocket after god was removed from the classrooms and from society

 

[Nakosis]

On the contrary, I would suggest that faith is a necessity no one can afford to be without; for the alternative to faith, given all the problems that currently beset the world, is surely despair.

That doesn't have to mean faith in God, btw. But one must have faith in something, or else how does one stay sane?

How do you stay sane. Good question.
IMO, accepting the reality that there are no guarantees.

I accept that I might die tomorrow or find myself homeless or something worse.
So what? If I can deal with it great. If not, too bad.

 

[exchemist]

Faith that God or the universe has some benevolent plan for you.

Thousands are killed daily, go hungry are homeless. There are no guarantees in the universe. No reason to believe the the universe is going to take your best interest into consideration. No reason to believe your future is bright.

My son believes the universe/God has a special plan for him. That he just needs to wait for the universe/God to reveal it.

Who has been watching out for him are his mom and dad. Parents who sacrifice so he has a place to live and food to eat. Not everyone has parents who are able or wiling.

Is it not folly to assume that someone or something exists that will watch out for your best interests? Or that tomorrow you will have a place to sleep. Food to eat. A family to rely on?

I think about the thousands on families in Ukraine who have lost their homes, parents who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents. Who are now homeless.

Faith is a luxury no one can afford.

Faith is something we all rely on, all the time, every day. If we did not have faith in others or our knowledge of the world, we would go mad, as it is impractical to prove everything to ourselves all the time. An engineer has faith in his calculations for the bridge he is designing. I have faith in the brakes on my car.

So it's pretty silly to think we can do without faith. The question then becomes a matter of what things we should have faith in.

Wiesel seems to say one should not have faith in a benevolent God. That is certainly an arguable proposition.

 

[74x12]

Faith that God or the universe has some benevolent plan for you.

Thousands are killed daily, go hungry are homeless. There are no guarantees in the universe. No reason to believe the the universe is going to take your best interest into consideration. No reason to believe your future is bright.

My son believes the universe/God has a special plan for him. That he just needs to wait for the universe/God to reveal it.

Who has been watching out for him are his mom and dad. Parents who sacrifice so he has a place to live and food to eat. Not everyone has parents who are able or wiling.

Is it not folly to assume that someone or something exists that will watch out for your best interests? Or that tomorrow you will have a place to sleep. Food to eat. A family to rely on?

I think about the thousands on families in Ukraine who have lost their homes, parents who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents. Who are now homeless.

Faith is a luxury no one can afford.

Faith in God is only dangerous if people tempt God and try to put him to the test.

But if you say faith is false then you make it false. So if you listen to doubt and unbelief that itself is what you're choosing to believe.

 

[The Hammer]

Faith is a luxury no one can afford.

Wrong.

We all have faith on some level. Even if not spiritual

 

[Nakosis]

Wrong.

We all have faith on some level. Even if not spiritual

That doesn't mean having it is not dangerous.

 

[The Hammer]

That doesn't mean having it is not dangerous.

If it were not advantageous. It would have been evolutionarily selected against.

 

[Nakosis]

Faith is something we all rely on, all the time, every day. If we did not have faith in others or our knowledge of the world, we would go mad, as it is impractical to prove everything to ourselves all the time. An engineer has faith in his calculations for the bridge he is designing. I have faith in the brakes on my car.

So it's pretty silly to think we can do without faith. The question then becomes a matter of what things we should have faith in.

Wiesel seems to say one should not have faith in a benevolent God. That is certainly an arguable proposition.

All faith has inherent risk. Faith is as likely to let you down as support you.
Certainly the ideal is to reduce the reliance on faith as much as possible.

The more one relies on faith the more likely something will go wrong.
Validate whenever possible. Faith as a last resort.

 

[Trailblazer]

Faith that God or the universe has some benevolent plan for you.

My son believes the universe/God has a special plan for him. That he just needs to wait for the universe/God to reveal it.

Who has been watching out for him are his mom and dad. Parents who sacrifice so he has a place to live and food to eat. Not everyone has parents who are able or wiling.

My husband has faith, so he does not care if he dies because he believes he will no longer be in pain because he will go to heaven.

My husband is slowly starving himself to death because he does not want to live. Who has been watching out for him is me, since he has nobody else, but I cannot force him to eat. He is so dangerously underweight that if he does not start eating soon I am going to have to put him in a psych hospital.

How do you make a person want to live when they want to die? I try to get him help but he does not want help. I am not equipped to deal with this but he does not care. He does not care one iota about me and how I feel or what this is doing to me, all he cares about is himself. He knows I won't abandon him so he takes advantage of me. I am at a point where I think he would be better off dead.

He keeps saying he won't eat because he is in pain physically but he is not rational. He is pushing 80 but this is not cognitive decline, because his memory is fine. It is an emotional problem, although it is also cognitive distortion, and I am not equipped to deal with it.

He is afraid to eat because then he will have to go to the bathroom. He has prostate and urinary problems but the urologist has already run the gamut of tests and there is nothing seriously wrong. He has another appointment next week so we will know more.

Faith is dangerous because it allows people to 'believe' that there is a God who is going to look out for them, a heaven they are going to. I believe there is a heaven but we are not supposed to go there until our appointed time. I do not believe that God is going to look after us, only humans look out for humans. Do you see God anywhere? I believe God exists but God is not doing jack squat.

 

[Nakosis]

If it were not advantageous. It would have been evolutionarily selected against.

Because it is a necessity does not make it an advantage.
It is a mistake imo to see evolution as a selection process.
Evolution is a non-selection process were sometimes mistakes turn out to be beneficial to a species survival.

 

[The Hammer]

beneficial to a species survival.

This is the only part that really matters.

Life must go on.

 

[Trailblazer]

Who has been watching out for him are his mom and dad. Parents who sacrifice so he has a place to live and food to eat. Not everyone has parents who are able or wiling.

Not everyone has a wife who is able and willing either.
I live in the real world so my husband can live in his fantasy world.
This is unjust.

 

[Yazata]

Faith is dangerous

One first needs to clarify what they take 'faith' to be. My definition would be something like this:

Faith is trust and confidence in propositions whose truth isn't absolutely certain.

Understood that way, all of human life, including science, is an expression of faith. We are demonstrating faith in physical principles that few of us fully understand every time we board an airplane. Scientism is an expression of faith.

Faith that God or the universe has some benevolent plan for you.

That's the idea that the events of reality have a plot so to speak, that they have meaning and purpose and point towards some end. The tendency to read events as narrative, as story, is basic to what it means to be human.

It's what scientists are doing. They place the one-damn-thing-after-another parade of physical events that animals like dogs react to as they come into a story of mathematical equations and causation extending through time.

But science tells such an austere and abstract story that many/most people feel the need for something more... humane. People need something that speaks to their heart, not just their head.

Thousands are killed daily, go hungry are homeless. There are no guarantees in the universe. No reason to believe the the universe is going to take your best interest into consideration. No reason to believe your future is bright.

Suicide is always an option. But most people do try to find some source of hope in life.

The existence of suffering doesn't contradict that, it justifies it psychologically.

Faith is a luxury no one can afford.

Faith is a necessity that no one can do without.

 

[Trailblazer]

Faith is a necessity that no one can do without.

I agree, but faith in what? Faith in who?

 

[Audie]

Faith that God or the universe has some benevolent plan for you.

Thousands are killed daily, go hungry are homeless. There are no guarantees in the universe. No reason to believe the the universe is going to take your best interest into consideration. No reason to believe your future is bright.

My son believes the universe/God has a special plan for him. That he just needs to wait for the universe/God to reveal it.

Who has been watching out for him are his mom and dad. Parents who sacrifice so he has a place to live and food to eat. Not everyone has parents who are able or wiling.

Is it not folly to assume that someone or something exists that will watch out for your best interests? Or that tomorrow you will have a place to sleep. Food to eat. A family to rely on?

I think about the thousands on families in Ukraine who have lost their homes, parents who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents. Who are now homeless.

Faith is a luxury no one can afford.

Its gotten a lot of people killed

 

[The Hammer]

I agree, but faith in what? Faith in who?

Self. Life. Love. Freedom. Community. Trust. Friendship. Honesty. Hospitality. Wisdom.