How can one have faith and have no clue and understanding what is written in the Bible?

by jam 49 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  jam

  Ziddina: Agree"knowledge is not only power, but also often

  an aid to one,s safety".

  When I was a JW, no one could tell me I didn,t know the bible.

  After that shock (cluess about the bible) my research begain.

  My family members had strong faith (JW,s and non-JW,s), how

  can I get the faith, by studying God,s word. As I progress in understanding

  God,s words I ask questions (things that didn,t make sense).

  The answer I receive, have faith. And at the same time I realize

  people of faith( most) are clueless about the bible.

  My original purpose in studying the bible, to have a strong faith not

  to find fault with the Bible. I told my sister, why do you think that

  membership in your church is declining. Young people know that

  Adam wasn,t the first man, a flood that covered the earth 4000 yrs

  ago and other fairy tales. I don,t need a minister to explain to me

  what the bible say. The words are as clear as the nose on your face.

  After discussing what the bible states they ask, are you using the JW

  Bible in your study because what you talking about is not in my

  bible. LOL
• 

  jam

  And one other thing, I told them what I have learn about

  the bible today, it,s no way in hell I would have became a

  JW. Knowledge is powerful.
• 

  Hortensia

  They do it because they are intellectually lazy. That's L-A-Z-Y.
• 

  steve2

  Faith flourishes among the ignorant. Faith fills holes in gaps. Faith welcomes lack of evidence. Faith puts up the flim-flam and shuts it up.

  Active brain cells are murder for faith. Curiosity drowns faith. Knowledge strangles faith.
• 

  jam

  steve2, so true. Did you come up with that or from a

  quote? You hit it on the head.
• 

  tec

  Some of you seem to be unable to distinguish between faith, and blind faith.

  Everyone has faith in things that have shown themselves to be true in your life. Whether that is a person, or a thing. That faith is built upon something.

  Some people might have blind faith when talking religion or God; but not all people, and neither is blind faith expected of anyone. There would be no call to 'test', if that were true.

  Peace,

  tammy
• 

  Phizzy

  Fair enough Tammy, we always seem to have this big problem with defining faith, Steve2 pretty much gave the definitive definition, I explain what I mean by faith this way :

  Faith is trusting that something is true with no satisfactory evidence.

  We then need to be clear what I mean by satisfactory evidence, I mean the kind of evidence that would satisfy a Jury made up of free minded sceptics qualified to examine the evidence forensically and scientifically.

  (So, any purely personal experience is simply no good, as evidence.)

  Any kind of faith that makes claims not testable in that way is not only a blind faith, it is a self delusion.
• 

  cofty

  Some of you seem to be unable to distinguish between faith, and blind faith.

  This distinction only exists in the minds of people who value faith.

  The greater claim and the more paltry the evidence the stronger the faith.

  Healthy skepticism and an enquring mind is a virtue - faith is the exact opposite.
• 

  steve2

  Hey thanks jam - my post above consists of my own words and are not a quote from another source.

  Tammy wrote:

  Some people might have blind faith when talking religion or God; but not all people, and neither is blind faith expected of anyone. There would be no call to 'test', if that were true.

  Each to their own is my view. If faith works for you, embrace it. I'd even roll around on the freshly mown grass with faith. And, at a pinch, I might raise a placard or two.

  For my part, I'm over any shape or form of faith that posits "God" as unchanging and our having to take "Him" at his word (which means having to agree to the latest "understanding" or "interpretation" of "His" word).

  I am so over the ancient practice of killing another creature to effect atonement or, in the case of the myriad Christs who have been nailed or obligingly nailed themselves to various objects over the millenia, no thank you. Take your religious bloodthirst elsewhere, please. No matter how professionally you package it - family Bible, rice-papered, leather bound and gold-edged - you cannot disguise the stinking blood festivals that soak its disgustingly torrid content). The occasional wispy psalm or line from the Song of Solomon can be diverting I suppose - like a McDonald's ad during a violent TV program. All that blood is making some people very hungry.

  Tammy reminds us that faith pervades our lives. Thank you for pointing out we need oxygen to survive. But waving goodbye to religious faith specifically does not deny the survival value of a more general need for "faith"; it goes deeper: If one has to explain one's faith (as believers of all shades endlessly and painstakingly do) or, as more intelligent believers prefer, nicely sidestep controversial issues altogether, that "faith" sounds more like a self-soothing delusion. I've got nothing personal against "faith"; I just prefer evidence.
• 

  Christ Alone

  I don't agree with blind faith at all. But Jesus taught this about faith:

  "Let the children come to Me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I assure you, anyone who doesn't have their kind of faith will never get into the Kingdom of God."
  - Mark 10:14-15 NLT

  Jesus praised child-like faith. God is moved by our faith, even if it is done on the behalf of others. Matthew 9:2 shows that a man was healed, not because of his OWN faith, but because of that of his friend.

  I think all that have the ability should know why they believe what they believe and be able to defend it. But there is something to be said about a child's faith. We all had it. But most lose it as they grow up. However, we still have that spark somewhere inside us. It reminds me of this quote from the AWESOME book "Boy's Life" by Robert McCammon.

  “See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.
  
  After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.
  
  That’s what I believe.
  
  The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens."