by AlmostAtheist 79 Replies latest jw friends
AuldSoul:
FunkyDerek, please objectively define love.
A strong positive emotion of regard and affection.
If you agree with my definition, please explain why it is unfalsifiable.
If you disagree, please state what my definition is missing. (I understand this will be difficult for you, as you yourself have no definition of the word.)
i don't think it's possible to completely dismiss "faith" in a certain facet of life until you understand the facet's various mechanisms which allow it to operate.
i have "faith" that my TV will turn on when i press the POWER button (oh, god, please let it turn on...). the only reason i would classify that as faith is because i have no understanding of the steps that make pressing the POWER button turn the picture tube on. if i were to be interested enough to learn the mechanics of a TV, i would cease to have faith in my button press; i would have knowledge of how it works. (like flushing the toilet. i have no faith there, since i know exactly how pressing the lever causes the tank to empty into the bowl and overflow down the pipe in the back. OTOH, as far as whether it will take me 1 or 2 flushes...that's another matter entirely...)
with religion, cars, electronics, or anything else, faith exists where knowledge is absent.
FunkyDerek, for starters using subjectives to objectively define anything seems a bit off. "Emotion of regard" is entirely subjective, as is "emotion of regard...affection."
Since neither of the two subjectives in your definition are themselves proven, it is impossible to objectively define anything using them. Sorry. I understand what you are trying to do, and why, but "love" is not objectively definable and is not proven to exist.
AuldSoul
AuldSoul:
FunkyDerek, for starters using subjectives to objectively define anything seems a bit off. "Emotion of regard" is entirely subjective, as is "emotion of regard...affection."
You're confusing the experience with the definition. The experience of love (and indeed "regard" and "affection") may be subjective, but the definition is perfectly objective.
I feel spiritually raped and hollow. I don't know if I am willing to engage again; maybe at some point.
I believe in God and I hope he understands. Whatever the outcome is, I know it's not all the WTS crap I was fed for years. I feel like I escaped but feel scarred and confused.
Faith is the assured expectation of things to come.
Growing up I was assured that Armageddon was coming and that only God's true worshippers would survive. They were wrong. Other religions assure their followers of things to come and for the most part, they've been wrong. I haven't studied every single religion in the world so I can't say they're all wrong, but the ones I know anything about have been.
Seeing that there are no assurances coming from any religion that I've looked at, I have no faith in any of them.
Throw God into the equation and it gets murkier. Is there a God? Was there a God? Does he care? Is he alive? Where is he? My simple philosophy on this is: If there is an Almighty God who requires our devotion and obedience and we need his protection and blessing, don't you think he would make more of a presence so that we would all know that we need to worship him? To put faith in a centuries old book that has been translated and re-translated is not a very good system of proving a god exists, especially one who has the power that religious people want to give him. He can't even show himself to the doubters, how can he be so powerful so as to eradicate non-worshippers?
The only thing that I have faith in these days, is that there is no god. I can't prove there is no god. so it is faith. I doubt that I ever really had any faith to begin with since I was raised a witness and never got baptized. What I do have is a strong sense of right and wrong, I suppose it is almost a code that I live by, primarily based on respect for others and my own sense of natural justice.
I believe that people have a responsibility for their own life and a responsibility to act on more than just their own desires.
i have "faith" that my TV will turn on when i press the POWER button (oh, god, please let it turn on...). the only reason i would classify that as faith is because i have no understanding of the steps that make pressing the POWER button turn the picture tube on.
Your basis for that faith is experience. You've pressed the button numerous times and it always caused things to happen that you expected. If sometimes you pressed the button and nothing happened at all, you'd switch from faith to hope. If sometimes the lights came on, sometimes the TV came on, sometimes your mother called... you might conclude that all those things would've happened anyway and your pushing the button was just a coincidence.
I rejected faith because it seems to be a negative factor in my life. I don't want to push a button and not know what it will do. I currently believe that things that appear random are not caused by anything. When I had faith, I wondered if "god" set this up, or "satan" set that up. I very much prefer the comfort of knowing that whatever happens, it just happens. And I also like the feeling that there's nothing on the other side of my actions, influencing them invisibly. I don't want god's help, since he only helped some times anyway, and I could never tell when he was helping, resisting, watching, whatever.
No God, Know Peace. Know God, No Peace.
Dave
To have faith and belief in a God, or to believe and have faith there is no God, is simply two sides of the same spinning concoction within the mind.
So what is real? What is true?
What is here when all belief, all faith, all "isms" are absent? What is here when all conceptual interpretations and explanations are silent? What is here when the entire mental story of an individual "me" (and it's relationship to the universe) is omitted?
Perhaps rejecting all forms of faith, is a good thing; but unfortunately this is generally in reference only to some external idea of God. Significant understanding unfolds when all idea's regarding one self are also abandoned. Rejections of all forms of faith, requires a quantum leap outside the box. A leap void of movement.
Free of all facade, all imagining, who/what are you, really? What, really looks out these eyes?
j
Why have you rejected all forms of faith?Simply? Because faith is not know(ledge). It's merely belief. Which means, there is always a shadow of a doubt.
sKally
