What does faith mean to you?

by exwhyzee 81 Replies latest jw friends

jgnat

I bought a pebble with a word inscribed, "TRUTH". Every time hubby says, "I have the Truth", I pick up the pebble and say, "I do, too." He moans. Truth is not something that can be owned. It just is. Like air.
Similarly, I don't think "FAITH" is something that the religious can claim to own.
For me faith is separate and apart from belief. Believing is the context in which we understand our surroundings; our worldview. Christians and a few other religions subscribe to a particular set of beliefs, and fear that those outside those beliefs are going to suffer a terrible fate. This prompts them to try and convert others, which I now feel is an unwarranted invasion in to others' minds.
HAH! Mr. Squirrel is going on his daily scamper through our rock bed. Now he is indulging in a thorough scolding of the ether.
Faith in the divine is something else. It is in the realm of the inexpressible, residing in our experiential side of the brain. It resides in six dimensions, so cannot be perfectly described in two-dimensional language. The visual that comes to mind is this:
Except instead of falling back in to the crowd, it is in to the sea of life.
Mixing up faith and belief lead believers to say things like "That person does not have the same faith as I do." Just like my husband's claim to have the truth, that cannot be. Because faith just is, there is no distinguishing one from another, and is not something that one person can install in another.
There is a mystery to life that is just beyond my grasp, just outside my window. Gosh, I love the mountains.
jgnat

Delight! I've just heard the drum of a woodpecker in my woods.
THE GLADIATOR

A good post jgnat
From my perspective, faith in unseen things is different to faith in things that are part of our physical world. To believe in unseen things requires a leap of faith, a letting go of what is certain and embracing a concept that is un-provable.
This inner faith is subjective, in as much as it cannot be demonstrated in the physical world. Those who believe it does not exist because they have not seen it demonstrated, wait for evidence. Those who have embraced their subjective experience are fully convinced. They attribute it to something they have sought and asked to communicate with them. How we interpret this inner experience is a personal matter.
Sharing these experiences on a public forum helps to strengthen the belief, or one’s faith. The downside is that it attracts a lot of attention from people who rightly feel a need to offer alternative suggestions as to what is responsible for these subjective experiences.
‘Never the twain shall meet.’
NewChapter

I have an inner voice. It is not audible. It is just a sense that I am receiving a message. Sometimes the message seems to come completely outside of myself. Something I'd never thought of before. It can even be intrusive and quite loud at times. There are words, but no sound. I actually call this-------thinking---------and voice is the metaphor to describe this particular process. This moment of enlightenment.
Where does it come from? I haven't deeply researched it specifically, but I have read a bit about the brain. We are conscious of only a fraction of what the brain is up to. Things are happening all the time. Information is being received and worked. By the time it reaches our conscious thought, it may already be old news to the rest of our brain.
When I had faith, if I was troubled about something, or praying about it, this voice would direct me. I knew it was God. Of course, this voice always talked to me, and when it was insignificant, I simply dismissed it. But when it was helping with a problem that I had been working on, it was God. All of the other chatter was just me. "I think I want to make Chicken Paprikash tonight"---Not God. "I think I should offer to buy her some groceries," --- God.
Same voice. Different understanding.
One time that voice spoke very loudly and distinctly. It was louder than any sound around me---metaphorically. There actually was no sound, but the thought was so consuming, I quie listening to the sounds around me. It said, "There is no God!"
This voice thing gets really dodgy when we break it down. If you had asked me then, I would have said, "No, it's different than the other thoughts of this type." But it wasn't. Thinking so was just my confirmation bias at work. I believed that God directed me, so when I would hear this voice say something that I thought God would say, then it was God. If it said something that I didn't think God would be particularly interested in, or told me something contrary to what I thought God would say, then it wasn't God.
So the question is: If the voice was God, did he tell me "There is no God?" Or was it my own voice that told me, "There is no God?" And if it was my own voice, then that put's all other instances of "God's Voice" under heavy scrutiny. It sounded exactly like every other time I thought I heard God's voice, but it was saying something I was pretty sure God wouldn't say.
My 'voice' sounds different at different times. Sometimes it is soft. Other times it is loud. Sometimes it is clearer and more distinct. Sometimes it feels like it is coming from the outside. Sometimes from deep within. The only criteria I had for distinguishing this voice from God's voice was context. And in that case, I must conclude that it was always just my own voice.
NC
NewChapter

Mixing up faith and belief lead believers to say things like "That person does not have the same faith as I do." Just like my husband's claim to have the truth, that cannot be. Because faith just is, there is no distinguishing one from another, and is not something that one person can install in another
Although J and I have come to different conclusions, this statement is perfect. Faith is a process---belief is what you do with that faith. We can all understand faith if we've ever had it. It does not matter what we put faith IN (belief) but that we experienced it. It is not a valid argument to question someone's faith on the basis of what they believed. They had or have faith just the same as anyone else. Only the details vary.
jgnat

Oh, New Chapter, how your comment warms the cockles of my heart. This is an example of what I crave...dialogue, a meeting of minds (though conclusions are different), in an open forum by people bearing different perspectives.
THE GLADIATOR

It would suit me to be highly sceptical of things outside of proven parameters. It would keep things simple and allow a sense of order in my mind. But alas, throughout my life, from my earliest years, I have had many uninvited vivid dreams and premonitions sometimes concerning myself, but more often, and more importantly, other people.
As I grew older, I started writing them down in detail and had other people witness them. They have always come true in startling detail for the people concerned who were not told. To do this could influence the outcome. Other times, I phoned people to check if what I had seen taking place many miles away had actually happened. They have always verified every detail. Over the years I have shared a few of these experiences on this forum under my real name. I now choose to no longer do so.
The point of my mentioning this is that my present understanding of the physical world offers no explanation for these occurrences. I would like to see it all as nonsense which has a simple explanation to do with brain activity. Yet, I cannot deny my own experiences that were shared and verified by independent witnesses. So I keep an open mind and wait to see what happens. Perhaps we will one day understand more of how the universe functions and what part we play in it.
scotoma

Faith is just an archaic prescientific word.
The scientific/mathematical equivalent to "faith" would be inductive reasoning.
You have a set of facts and based on those facts you form theories about possible outcomes.
That's why they speak of the LEAP of faith.
The Bible's definition is very interesting from a Christians point of view. Hebrews 11 gives examples of men of faith. Most of the examples had "visitations" of angels and witnessed miracles. Their faith if based upon actual angelic visitations would be quite different from what is called "blind" faith. Their expectations were based on their experiences with supernatural beings.
However, JW's can't point to a single event that could compare with the personal experiences those ancient men of faith allegedly had. In fact, the trend of JW predictions that haven't taken place suggests that you can have faith that JW's are going to continue to fail in their predictions.
Remember, those patriarchs weren't relying on second hand reports. Now its been close to 2,000 years since anyone has claimed divine guidance.
Faith is not stupid. Credulity is not the same as faith.
caliber

"Literally billions of ideas and beliefs can be suggested to be true. We can propose assumptions, and make eloquent arguments based on those
assumptions, which will send us off in any direction we might wish to go. Every day we see people who are certain of the absolute truth of their
beliefs, never realizing they have subconsciously talked themselves into accepting as fundamentally and absolutely true that which is, and must be,
based on their assumptions Yet even though "anything" may be true, we must not allow ourselves to become casual observers applying logical
arguments to first "prove", and then "disprove", fundamental beliefs about the nature and meaning of life. We should put aside all assumptions and
beliefs; take a journey into their heart, mind, and soul; and then decide what they want to believe is true."
http://www.lifenotes.org/Truth,%20belief,%20and%20faith.htm
"Faith is letting go of expected absolutes about life , it's source and meaning " ~~ Cal
Faith is a process---belief is what you do with that faith.
justmom

Hello Cofty......
When our Lord returns and ALL eyes see him as he truly is.....
He will not look like anything the world has ever depictedof Him. The "physical outward appearance" is what this world overly focuses on and it
is not the way of our heavenly father and his son. The physical is a distraction or the curtain that prevents us from seeing or entering into the
most holy realm in the spirit. That is why continually he reminds us to hear and follow His voice. It is the obeying of THAT voice and the love of
it is how we will know who it is when he plainly reveales himself to us.
justmom

What does faith mean to you?

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