Mental Hammocks and Safety Nets

I was discussing the nature of faith with another LDS member and they were quite horrified to hear my take on religion (in particular LDS) and we batted around the ideas a lot but one really interesting thought caught my attention:

For faith to have 'power' it must be in something real (e.g. faith may motivate you to flip a lightswitch but it's wasted if there isn't any power to the house) ergo the search of religion / faith / philosophy must be for real things in which to have faith in (so we don't end up blowing ourselves up in crowded market places or praying to the duvet) however, we are constantly stopped from finding truth by our mental hammocks and safety nets that will not let us find solid mental ground. Let me re-phrase that now so it makes a little bit of sense (and cut to the chase) - in order to believe in God (have faith) you must be able to find out if God exists and it is impossible to do that if you are sitting in a mental framework that already has God at its centre and bends the facts to point back at that single (proofless) dogma. To truly find something out you must accept and confront the potential crisis that your core self-defining beliefs are wrong. In other words with evidence comes faith not the other way round (pretending that your 1 in a 100 answered prayers is proof of God is actually proof of statistical coincidence and the capacity to self-delude.)

We discussed this around the idea of the flood and my stance was if God exists but teh flood was merely a catastrophic local occurence then why would he care if we held tenaciously to an incorrect interpretation (i.e. that it was global) that was found in the OT? In act any enlightened God would want us to correct that erroneous assumption. My friend then illustrated the mental hammock principle by suggesting that

a/ If the bible says one thing but the evidence says another that the bible is true (I pointed out that we know the bible is riddled with interpolations by later scribes / direct cultural borrowings / myth and mistake.)
b/ Modern day (LDS)prophets have confirmed it was global and we have to trust them (I argued prophets throughout all christian scriptures/history have been very fallible - ours included)
c/ It doesn't matter what is wrong in the bible the important thing is that we believe in God.

I suggested that all his points were mental safety nets that merely stopped his thinking reaching a rational conclusion or at least allowing him to contemplate the alternatives which led to his logically weak arguments that all rested upon his a priori assumption of God. Take God out of the picture and the way becomes clear to see such stories as the flood as a legend from an actual cataclysmic event but almost certainly not a global deluge with several hundred spared animals having to undergo evolutionary change at a ferocious rate to account for current animal species etc.

Of course - on this mental ground it is still possible that there is a God and if I find him here rather than lazily swinging from my hammock then I'll have something concrete to believe in. If it is possible to walk on water I'm in the right place to find the answer as far as I'm concerned.

If any of you are still with me. What mental hammocks do you still have or did you have to let go off in your experiences?

I'm butting my head in the wrong conversation....

I believe there is a God. I believe he is loving. I think there is plenty of reason to believe in a loving creator who cares for our interest and is interested in having a relationship with us.

As far as faith goes, shouldn't the account of Jesus' ministry and the effect it had on his followers show you that there is much more to it than man made stories? How did a cowardice Peter deny Jesus three times and then become a Rock and eventually be willing to die on an upside down cross after watching his wife get crucified before him unless what he experienced was real? That Jesus did do all that was said, that he died for our sins, and was raised from the dead and lives today.

I believe it. My experience in life has proved to me that it is true. I think it bears good fruit and it produces a happy life. The essence being realize your sinfulness, put your trust and faith in Christ, love others and be a source of good in the world. Seems like a good life to me. It has changed mine!

Don't want to get all preachy, but I do believe it's truthfullness and power in my life so I had to put in my two cents.

Take care!

Ethan

Mental Hammocks and Safety Nets

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