Question regarding Faith...(adamah)

by tec 210 Replies latest jw friends

adamah

FAITH requires having NO DOUBT, or the promised event may not happen.
A promised event or prophecy comes to pass regardless of whether anyone believes it or not.
I wasn't speaking of prophecy, but thinking of the account where Jesus healed the child from a distance, based on the FATHER'S faith in Jesus' ability to heal his son. Jesus told the man his son was healed, and the father supposedly confirmed it later.
Of course, Jesus refused to perform miracles for those who LACKED faith, too, since WANTING something to happen seems to be a part of whether healing occurs.
BTW, did you ever attempt to answer the question if you believed the apostles had faith?
Perry said-

Faith rests on the realities, and trusts the object of that faith Jesus, in that - a.) he'll return for his own b.) will rule the world c.) will do all of his other promises.

Perry, do you know what the Greek word 'estin' means? 'Is'. NOT 'rests on'; 'estin' means "IS". FAITH IS ______.

Hebrews 11 tells readers that faith IS the FOUNDATION ('hupostasis') made out of one's HOPES and DESIRES; FAITH IS the TRUST upon which beliefs that promised future events will occur is resting.
That's what Paul was saying in Hebrews 11:1.

FAITH IS the foundation, and rests upon NOTHING BUT ITSELF, as if suspended in mid-air.
FAITH even DEMANDS that the faithful be CONFIDENT (i.e. not to have DOUBTS) in what a person HOPES will come to fruition, since FAITH is unsupported by ANY visible evidence (which ALSO support BELIEFS, but doesn't contribute to that BELIEF via FAITH, but by visible evidence/sensory perception). Faith requires a brash confidence in the promises as yet unseen, based on HOPE itself.

As The Living Bible renders Hebrews 11:1

"What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead".

The first part of the sentence tells believers they should be CONFIDENT in what they HOPE; the second part focuses on the visible evidence that believers show to OTHERS, to convince them that THEY TOO should adopt a similar belief.

('hupostasis' is translated by TLB as 'certainty' to make for easier reading, but it loses the sense more accurately conveyed by 'title deed', i.e. one's FAITH CAN be demonstrated to others in the form of perceptible evidence; however, 'title-deed' risks losing those readers who are confused by use of metaphors like "title-deeds', since many likely don't even know what a title-deed is.)
FAITH IS (Greek word, 'Estin') the ability to accept claims without seeing the supportive evidence, believing based only on faith. And as the account of Peter walking on the water shows, visible evidence (which leads to knowledge, which is processed via rational thought) can only UNDERMINE faith by contributing to DOUBTS, as he saw the waves being tossed by the winds and started to fall. Elsewhere, Jesus pointed out how witnessing miracles didn't build faith, but supported beliefs via experiential knowledge (and wasn't as effective in building FAITH, since his apostles witnessed MANY miracles, but they lacked faith, nevertheless).
That's why the Bible explains elsewhere that FAITH requires believers to plead, to beg for it, ASKING God to grant them the "gift" of gullibility, the ability to BRAVELY believe in the unseen, based on what one hopes will come to pass.

Building one's BELIEFS atop faith is irrational, since it DEMANDS one to accept a questionable premise to reach a flawed conclusion; it's putting the cart before the horse. A more rational approach is to verify the premises as valid BEFORE accepting them, and to base one's conclusion by relying on premises that are PROVEN to be valid, not based on one's hopes, dreams, wishes, wants, desires, etc.
The FINAL STEP of a rational approach is to place faith in one's BELIEFS, but AFTER a given belief has been proven as worthy of trust, NOT BEFORE.

BTW, I have faith in lots of things, eg I HAVE to trust the mechanic who replaced my brake pads did a competent repair job (hence why I've used the same mechanic for years after asking around for recommendations from friends, checking his rep via online services like Yelp; I could've checked with BBB and Bureau of Automotive Repair, if I felt the need, but I didn't). We all have to trust others, be it doctors, restaurants, etc, and that's WHY you need to perform a bit of due diligence. Most people exercise less due diligence in looking into their religious beliefs than their mechanic, preferring to go with the family religion, etc.

I can't help but wonder how many JW recruits actually bother to perform even the slightest amount of due diligence, perhaps searching the web to find sites like JWN! The problem is people who MOST NEED to look into the JWs background (or Christianity) are ALSO the ones LEAST LIKELY to do so, since they WANT to be able to trust others, and they see an organization that ENDORSES faith as a desirable trait (until they experience it's abusive potential first-hand).
Can you see how "Paul" is sending out a beacon call to the gullible trusting souls of the World, continuing a system of belief that is premised on adherents NOT questioning, but only going with the flow as all-trusting docile sheep? Calling someone a "sheep" is NOT a compliment or praise; believers may invert it in their minds to consider it as a good thing, but gullibility and blind trust is NOT a positive personality trait, in most people's book (unless someone is a scammer, looking for malleable victims to fall prey to their schemes). Don't get me wrong: it's great to find people in whom we CAN build and place trust, but to approach the World as a slack-jawed trusting yokel is just ASKING to be a victim.

Most believers don't even understand Hebrews 11 (and even better is if they DON'T bother to understand, since they are trusting: win-win!), but it's a beacon for the gullible (or those who see potential to abuse others gullibility?), drawing them in like moths to the flame.
It's target-marketing at it's best, where the key is knowing one's potential customers and determining the best way to tailor the message such as attract only those types.

Adam
tec

I think I might be repeating myself, but it's worth repeating. Your descriptions of how you know the Christ is truth - this faith you put in him, are descriptions that have the possibility of being simply human delusion. I have no doubt that you are not making any of this stuff up - I have no doubt that these are strong feelings you are having, but the most intense feelings and expereinces can be induced by the human brain. Looking at that God helmet video above also demonstrates this.
Humans are extremely susceptable to delusion.
It's really not good enough to say - well it's just a different feeling, it's different than just hearing voices in your head, it's not coming from me it's coming from Christ.
Nevermind about proving this to us - you can't possibly prove this to yourself. In a nutshell: internal experiences and feelings like this cannot be trusted and shouldn't be. There are perfectly good phsycological reasons to explain them.
Okay, i watched your video. Funny that they have Morgan Freeman (Bruce Almighty/Evan Almighty) narrating, lol.
I'm not talking about a feeling at all when I speak about having heard my Lord speak. Just to be clear. I have felt, along with hearing, at times, peace and calm or joy or love. Sometimes I just hear though... and having heard (being happy at what I heard) produces an emotional response. Same as if someone gave me good news, face to face. There have been times also where my Lord has given me peace, as well. But him speaking... is not contingent upon these things.
My question regarding the video though... their study and what they are showing is not enough to draw any conclusions. So far they have one possible fact... they can reproduce feelings that some describe by stimulating the brain. Can scientists not activate the parts of the brain that allow one to physically sense something also? (like smell, or hearing, or touch, etc?) That doesn't mean that those things do not really happen, or that those things are all in the mind. It means only that scientists are able to recreate the stimuli used to feel or sense those things.
I have read similar experiments, etc.
That really should be enough to disprove Christ talking to people in their heads, if he really wants be heard then he should do something SUPERNATURAL - not something that could easily attributed to an ordinary delusion that many people have regarding many different things -
It doesn't disprove anything though. It did not even touch on hearing Christ (and it cannot touch upon hearing in the spirit because it cannot yet measure something it has not 'discovered' by scientific means)... but what it did touch on, the most it says at this time is that the feeling can be recreated with manipulated stimuli. Well, science recreates real things all the time to study them under stable conditions.
So something supernatural... and leaving aside the miracles that others have attested to as written.... something like perhaps telling two people the same thing on the same day, when those two people don't even live in the same country? Or perhaps telling one person something that they did not know, but when checked, was true? Those are things that are 'outside' of one person.
the woman who drowned her children, she said CHRIST WAS TALKING TO HER - how can you possibly say she was not listening to THE CHRIST, her experience would have been similar to yours, perhaps even more intense.

Barring the possibility of her lying, or of her having a mental illness... I have no reason to doubt that she heard a voice telling her to do so. But it was not Christ. Not all spirits - or inspired expressions - come from God. (and Christ comes from God) One IS told to test the inspired expressions, to see if they come from God or not.
This one did not.

Christ hasn't said drown your children - but his father has said sacrifice your son (to abraham).
And stopped Abraham from doing so... and provided the sacrifice HIMSELF. People are so focused on Abraham in this lesson... that some forget the other lesson: God provides. He doesn't need us to provide for Him... HE provides for US. And He did NOT allow Abraham to harm his son.
If Christ told you tomorrow to do something that was out of the ordinary to what he usually says, would you then realise you're listening to the wrong Christ, or would you accept it?
You should check out that link that I gave you earlier. Adamah and I had this very conversation, and it answers this question. If I heard a voice telling me to kill my sons (or anything else that goes against Him and what HE teaches, especially in regard to harming others)... I would know that it is not the voice of my Lord. It goes against all that He has taught me... and it goes against love. If I wasn't sure, I would ask questions... because perhaps it is I who has misheard or misunderstood what I thought I heard from Him. Peace, tammy
jgnat

tec, your responses are a patchwork quilt. I'm not really sure if you are up or down. A while back you made a statement, using "should".
But WHY do you trust that God will catch you? Because that answer is (should be) [emphasis mine] the basis for your faith. - tec
Use of the word "should" means you are making value judgements on others. You have also mentioned that little faith can be negated with little doubt. See, here we have a fundamentally different view of faith. I say the size of faith doesn't matter. A mustard seed can move mountains. A little prayer by a small "c" Christian, with a little faith, may be answered. It has nothing to do with the size, quantity, quality, or frequency of faith. This is important to me because I see too many Christians discouraged by prayer, taking the the failure of an answer to be somehow a deficiency on their part, a lack of faith. So they try harder, and then harder. They may ask at some point, "when is it enough?" I say, it was always enough.
I'll put my question another way. Do you think your faith is invalidated by doubt?
tec

Jgnat, I was thinking about what you said, in how I always point to Christ when the subject of doubt comes up. And while I hadn't noticed doing it, you could well be right that I do.
It is not because I am feeling threatened. But I do recall, when I first started researching... and especially right out of the wts (because if anything is a challenge to one's faith, that place is, and has caused the ruination of many people's faith)... I would sometimes be afraid or uncertain or experience moments/times of doubt; and I would look to Christ, and be reassured. I would remember his teachings, and the truth in them, I would search for Him within me (asking things like... do I still believe, have I lost my faith?), and He would always still be there.
He reminded me of the account of the copper serpent. The Israelites, when bitten by 'snakes' in the desert, were told to put their gaze upon the copper serpent, and be healed.
Christ is the copper serpent we have been given to look upon. He is the foundation of faith. I was not even aware that I had been speaking as to this truth, but you noticed, and I remembered how I have done this, and He reminded me of this example from Moses and the copper serpent.
(side note: Some people look at other images... men, the bible, their religions, doctrines, the 'jesus' of the religion of christianity (and there are many different versions), etc... and when the 'snakes' come (or doubts and fears and things that contradict what their faith is IN - the venom of some of these things or falsehoods), that image is not enough. Because it is not the image that God gave us to look TO, to heal us from the "venom/sting")
Peace to you,
tammy
tec

B
ut WHY do you trust that God will catch you? Because that answer is (
should be
) [emphasis mine] the basis for your faith. - tec
Use of the word "should" means you are making value judgements on others... jgnat
No, I did not mean it that way, sorry.
Think of it more like a math equation.
If you figure out what 'x' equals, then that should give you the value of 'y'.
I started out saying "IS", (as in IS the value of y... y being the basis of your faith) and added "should be" in brackets, because there are variables that I may not know, especially since we often do not understand one another in our discussions.
I'll answer the new question that you asked in a minute, because i think it will be answered in my response coming, to Adamah, regarding faith, knowing, and doubt.
But yes, asking in faith (even if it is a little faith) is enough... but hearing the answer that you WILL receive if you have asked in faith (even just a little faith) might be harder if you doubt, or place limitations on the parameters of the answer. Because the Spirit is not going to answer with anything other than truth.
Peace,
tammy
jgnat

When you wrote, tec, about your examination after leaving the Witnesses, it came to me that David's psalms follow a similar pattern of despair, pleading and finally acknowledgement of God's power.
I don't have to remind you that the copper serpent had to be destroyed because it became an obstacle between men and God.
tec

BTW, did you ever attempt to answer the question if you believed the apostles had faith?
I did answer it, yes. On page one... and also on the top of page 6, in agreement with Nugget. (though whether Nugget meant what I thought or not seem to be in question, but what I thought is written there anyway) Did you answer the question?
The apostles KNEW Christ existed. (though they had faith that He WAS the Christ, faith in God and what they heard from God, because it was revealed by God, in spirit)
The apostles put their faith IN Christ. IN who He was even before seeing the evidence that He could rise from the dead; and they put their faith IN Christ when they put faith in the promises that He has made. Their faith is in Him, so they can put their faith in all that He has said, as truth.
Now the apostles feared, doubted, misunderstood at various times... and that hindered their ability to do (exercising a demon, walking on water, their fear during the storm, etc)... and at those times, Christ often said to them, ye of little faith... why did you doubt; why did you fear; do you still not understand, etc?
It is the same today. Fear and doubt can make us falter in our faith, can stop us from doing... can stop us from hearing or recognizing His voice, and following what He says. So that it might be said of us, 'ye of little faith'. Why did you doubt? Why did you fear? Do you still not understand?
He taught and trained his disciples through their fears and doubts and lack of understanding; He answered their questions; He showed them the truth. He still teaches and trains today, as the Spirit. Who we can KNOW today... and so put our faith in Him. Not in his existence (if we KNOW Him, then we KNOW that He is alive and exists)... but faith in all that He has said and promised, but that we do not yet have. But we know is true, because HE who promised these things IS True and faithful.
Peace,
tammy
tec

When you wrote, tec, about your examination after leaving the Witnesses, it came to me that David's psalms follow a similar pattern of despair, pleading and finally acknowledgement of God's power.
Interesting, thank you for that observation. Sounds exactly right.
I don't have to remind you that the copper serpent had to be destroyed because it became an obstacle between men and God.
No, thank you for that; I had forgotten. That is interesting in itself. That the Israelites had made the copper serpent into something other than what it had been, now turned into something false that they were worshipping (burning incense to it). Like taking something true... and building a lie around it and turning it into something else. Similar to what various religions have done with the Truth (Christ). Peace to you, tammy
adamah

TEC said-
Christ hasn't said drown your children - but his father has said sacrifice your son (to abraham).
And stopped Abraham from doing so... and provided the sacrifice HIMSELF. People are so focused on Abraham in this lesson... that some forget the other lesson: God provides. He doesn't need us to provide for Him... HE provides for US. And He did NOT allow Abraham to harm his son.
You're missing the forest for the trees, and entirely missing the POINT of FAITH as a result.
Hebrews 11 says that Abraham showed heroic faith by believing that "God will provide the sacrifice", EVEN IF Abraham HAD killed his son, Isaac. In fact, "Paul" specifically addressed the point that God stopping him from killing Isaac at the last minute was irrelevant, since "Paul" even adding the detail (not mentioned in the original account, so Christian eisegesis) that Abraham HAD faith in God's ability to resurrect Isaac whom he'd just murdered, EVEN IF Abraham HAD killed his own son.
Paul was saying that Abraham's FAITH had no limits or restrictions to it: his FAITH didn't block KILLING his own son, since FAITH is supposed to be UNLIMITED, UNCONDITIONAL, even violating the "no bloodshed law" handed to Noah in Genesis 9:5-6. "God will provide" and "With God, all things are possible" covers even KILLING, EVEN violating God's prior expressions of His Divine Will.
God was ORDERING Abraham to commit a sin (unlike the later claim in the Bible that God doesn't tempt men to sin, my arse!).
In fact, the entire account serves as the basis for Christianity's later addition, serving as foreshadowing of God's resurrection of Jesus who WAS killed at the hands of Romans but resurrected by God. That's the entire POINT of God voluntarily offering his son Jesus to be killed: God possessed the KNOWLEDGE that HE could resurrect His son, just as Abraham had FAITH that God could resurrect the son he had just murdered since God has power over DEATH, itself.
Do you believe God has power over death? Do you have FAITH?
The bigger question is, WHY didn't the voice of Jesus offer this knowledge to you, but it's coming from me, a faithless atheist? Is it that you misunderstood his voice, or might it be that the voice is NOT coming from Jesus, but is your image of Jesus coming from deep inside your own mind, and only being perceived as hearing his voice (an auditory hallucination, a very-common perception amongst humans)?
Adam
tec

First, Adamah, before we go further... there is NO reason at all that an atheist might not have insight (or even have heard, though they would give credit to themselves)... something that a person of faith did not hear, or did not YET hear. In fact, I know that it can happen that way, as my Lord recently showed me this. Some atheists (the ones who don't carry baggage and preconceived notions from previous religious beliefs) don't carry the baggage that people of faith do, who might have come out of a religion, and still have some of their teachings stuck to them, so that they are looking through glasses that are still a bit tinted by their former religion. So they may be able to have clearer insight, or they may even be able to hear what the Spirit is saying... though they might not think they were hearing from the Spirit (unless they ever did come to have faith, and then they would remember back to some of these things, and realize that Christ had been speaking to them all along)
I had not heard what you have said, regarding the foreshadowing of the resurrection... though I can see that now that you have brought it out.
I have, however, heard, the foreshadowing of God giving his son in sacrifice... not needing someone else to do that for him. Abraham was willing, but God did not actually need that. Abraham said, "God will provide the sacrfice." THAT was prophetic, and he might not even have known what he was saying, but he was speaking by the spirit.
God provided the sacrifice then and there (in the ram)... and another later fulfillment: God gave HIS son.
Regarding faith and belief - tricky words as we use them today; sometimes interchangeable and sometimes not.
People might ask today... 'do you believe in God?'
This usually means, do you believe in the existence of God.
When someone asks, do you have faith in God... that tends to mean (or the way I hear it anyway)... do you have faith IN God, that He will do all the things that He has said, that you will listen and follow. (the first thing being, "Listen to My Son"... which Son says that the Spirit will teach; that His sheep hear His voice and He has more to call... faith in Christ, includes faith in what He teaches, listening, believing, and doing)
The apostles KNEW Christ... and put their faith IN Him. (They knew Him because God revealed to them who Christ WAS... and they heard God, and believed)
That is why i asked you, Adamah, if you thought the apostles had faith or not.
You are getting hung up on one line, and you have built an entire theology around it, but this time it is you who are missing the forest through that single tree.
One can KNOW Christ today also (as the Spirit)... and put their faith IN Him.
(one can learn about Him and come to know some about Him by reading about Him... and exercise just a little bit of faith based on that... by going to Him, as He has invited, and then also recognize/hear Him)
Peace to you,
tammy

Question regarding Faith...(adamah)

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