What is faith?

by Seraphim23 22 Replies latest jw friends

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  cofty

  Faith is about the balance between evidence and confidence.

  At one end of the spectrum it's hardly appropriate to use the word at all.

  Do you have "faith" that the sun will rise tomorrow? Technically I suppose we do but there is so many reasons to have confidence that it will rise it debases the word to call it faith.

  At the other end of the spectrum some people have confidence in the existence of a spirit world ruled by a deity who knows our every thought. This is so out of proportion with the available evidence that it relies on the religious meme that makes a virtue out of disproportionate confidence.

  The word "rational" may preserve the idea of ratio or proportion, I'm not sure.

  We are only a partly rational species.
• 

  THE GLADIATOR

  Faith usually starts out as excited expectation. People tend to have faith in things they want to happen or be. They want and need until their desire becomes expectation and then they have ‘something,’ an abstract noun called faith.

  In time faith becomes belief, ‘something’ to value. What we value we attach emotion to and protect with all our heart. We then love our faith and others that share it. Now our faith is our reality, purpose in life and reason for living. We become suspicious of those that do not see or hear what we do. They are not our brothers and sisters, comrades, fellow believers.

  Ah the great divide!
• 

  Terry

  Something weird going on with this page!

  I posted on the (what is to me) 1st page and none of that is visible.

  The last page is marked Page 1.

  Where is Page 1?
• 

  notjustyet

  In my opinion, the Dr has a grasp on what faith is, and how it differs from hope.

  Cant seem to get the insert video working here,..

  Possibly the link works.

  NJY

  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qp4WUFXvCFQ
• 

  notjustyet

  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qp4WUFXvCFQ
• 

  Fernando

  My personal experience of faith on my spiritual journey of discovery has thus far taught me:

  • faith is a "free gift" given by our heavenly father to ordinary persons
  • faith is not available to us while we remain in the spiritually blind and unregenerate state of the "ruling religious clergy class"
  • faith is impeded when we accept a human or a religious organisation as our "spiritual covering" or mediator, instead of Jesus
  • faith is a wide opening of our spiritual eyes, allowing us to see (discern) truths that the "ruling religious clergy class" cannot
  • faith is not religion/s
  • faithS is not a scriptural concept (there is only "one faith" in scripture, namely that of Abraham, which is directly related to the "gospel ABOUT Jesus", Eph 4:5)
  • faith is granted to those hearing, pursuing, yielding to, and obeying the full or "unabridged gospel" message ABOUT Jesus (Rom 10:16,17)
  • faith is not (religious) belief (belief is not one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Gal 5:22)
  • faith emanates from God, belief emanates from man
  • faith is knowing what God knows, or seeing what God sees, or understanding what God understands (Watchman Nee)
  • faith and spirituality are the key targets stolen from us by religion/ists
  • faith, spirituality and the full or "unabridged gospel" message are the baby (keep)
  • religion (legalism, moralism, Nicaean ethnocentrism, and supremacist "knowledge") are the bathwater (discard)
• 

  Jomavrick

  Terry, Have faith that page one will show up again.
• 

  Phizzy

  NJY thanks for the vid ! that's given me a succinct definition of Faith "Pretending to know things you don't know".

  Faith in that sense deserves no respect, just ridicule.
• 

  Vanderhoven7

  None of us could function in the world without faith. You might want to specify the kind of faith worth ridicule. In some cases we might agree, in others we might be at opposite ends. Certainly faith is only as valid as it's object.
• 

  notjustyet

  When my wife watched the video she had an "aha" moment. She kept repeating "pretending to know things you don't know" and that is what it really is isn't it?

  It's a crutch to get a person past a "mental crevice" or gap in evidence, as it were.(lol) Having Faith allows the person to create a "bridge" in their thinking.

  To me it's a mental "work around" that a person needs to use when confronted with this gap in evidence. It's the easier of 2 choices to reduce the "cognitive dissonance" they may be experiencing. You can either face the facts as to the lack of evidence, or insert the Faith. Inserting Faith is the easier of the tow to do.

  It's something that people should REALLY be ashamed of having, using, encouraging other people to increase their "FAITH"

  NJY