My Thoughts on the Subject of Faith

by Saethydd 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Saethydd

  I've had several discussion about the basis for faith in an all powerful creator for the universe, and it seems as if the conversation often comes back to, "Well, either way, you have to have faith either in a creator or in the process of evolution because you can't observe that either." Setting aside the issue of creation and evolution (where I currently sit at undecided), I was also troubled by the tendency to treat faith as a static or absolute concept when in reality it is far more complex.

  To begin with, faith isn't just about belief, it combines the concepts of belief and trust. For the purposes of this discussion, I will be focusing primarily on the second attribute. Trust is an interesting thing because it is not an absolute value (not for me anyway), instead, it is relative, in that I can trust two people but not necessarily to the same degree. Furthermore, my trust is not all-encompassing, for example, I might be willing to trust someone with my life, but that doesn't mean I'm going to trust their views on quantum mechanics to be accurate.

  So in my view, it is perfectly all right, even wise to have "faith" in biologists to explain biology, and in historians to explain history. That "faith" however should not be absolute, but it can certainly be to a higher degree of trust than is given to a theologian. Logical reasoning (for whatever that is worth to a religious person) can certainly be used to grant such professionals a higher credibility, and this argument has nothing with education, but rather motive.

  The fact of the matter is, that the processes that scientists use to prove their ideas are not at all impacted by whether or not the Bible is true, for if the methodology is really flawed then it will be discovered one way or another. The same principle proves true for archeologists and others who study history. So when these groups of people tell us that something in the Bible is not supported by their findings, what possible motive would they have for lying? (I'm referring to the communities as a whole, not individuals) Theologians on the other have a vested interest in the Bible being true, which will often cause them to simultaneously use historical evidence to verify their belief in the Bible, meanwhile, any evidence that contradicts the Bible must be wrong, based nothing other than the fact that it contradicts the Bible.

  Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the nature of faith. Anyone else have thoughts they would like to share, or critiques of the logic I used? After all, I don't claim infallibility.
  
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  Simon

  All theological arguments for the trust and confidence in religious belief, or "faith", apply equally to investors of Bernie Madoff, Enron and a whole host of other scams.

  In fact, those people had more reason to trust - there was a physical company paying out dividends. What does theology have? Men in frocks and funny hats.

  God hasn't performed one verifiable act. Zilch. But some want you to invest not just your life savings (which they will happily help with) but your one and only life.
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  StarTrekAngel

  Faith requires works as a foundation to stand ground. Don't get me wrong. I am not necessarily talking about work of the like of preaching or feeding the poor. We are usually told the Jews for example, were of little faith because despite all the things they had seen, the could not quit complaining when they felt trapped in between the Egyptian army and the red sea. If you ask most modern christians what they would have done in such situation they would tell you that unlike the jews, they would have trusted in God absolutely.

  This is based in a misunderstanding of what faith is. The faith the Jews had was being solidified as their relationship with God went on. They accepted their God could bring about the plagues but may be, just may be, saving them from the Egyptian army in a situation where they did not have weapons themselves was too much for this new God they had just discovered. Every other work that this God did for them increased their understanding of how powerful and capable this God was. Some, like Moises, were a little more impressionable than the others and were able to "trust" sooner. There are plenty of examples in the bible of people who were commanded to carry out a task that seemed impossible. Where the odds were against them. Unlike the religions of today, God did not demand that the blindly trusted. They asked for proof that God would bless their mission and only then they had "faith".

  Just as when you go to a bank to ask for a loan, the bank bases their decision on your credit history, faith is a credit report for God, not humans. Some humans would need more or less information in order to submit to the said deity, but none the less, the faith that religion promotes today is blind faith. It demands everything from you but shows nothing from their claimed authority.
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  Crazyguy

  A friend of mines daughter just died do to some wired infection she just got two weeks ago, she was only 30. My daughter has been dealing with the most painful disease on earth and someone else I know is dying of bone cancer, when she moves her bones break. I have faith that god is useless!!!!
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  OnTheWayOut

  I no longer allow the thoughts on "faith in people" that leads to trust to enter into the debate with me on "religious faith."

  They are just not the same thing. Faith is confidence or trust in someone or something.

  Faith in your spouse or your mother, faith in your best friend- all based on a track record. You don't have faith in your spouse if you know they are a lying cheater. Faith that (from our point of view) the sun will rise tomorrow is based on knowing a bit about how that happens everyday so the odds on it happening again tomorrow are pretty strong.

  Religion has stolen that word, faith, and made it a virtue when applying it their way. Their way is not based on a track record. Religious faith is "pretending to know what you do not know." Or to put it milder, religious faith is believing something in the absence of, or even in contradiction to evidence, while non-religious faith is built upon evidence.

  Most religious faith is a pretending in the existence of a convenient and satisfying version of the universe which suits the faithful one's desire to live forever in one way or another.
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  Crazyguy

  I also read somewhere that the word in Greek that we use to mean faith really didn't mean that at all, not sure?
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  scratchme1010

  Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the nature of faith. Anyone else have thoughts they would like to share, or critiques of the logic I used? After all, I don't claim infallibility.
  

  My thoughts on something you typed:

  Logical reasoning (for whatever that is worth to a religious person) can certainly be used to grant such professionals a higher credibility, and this argument has nothing with education, but rather motive.
  

  I wonder where did you get that. How do you back that up? It's juts curiosity. How do you conclude that? I am honestly inquiring, not confronting.

  Then my thoughts on the faith thing is that some people don't have the capacity nor interest in looking too far for answers. Again, many people of faith have absolutely no interest in learning truths, science, logic, nor in anything other than what makes the feel right, whatever that feeling is, hope, certainty about the future, guidance, release from fear, sense of safety, a sense of belonging, a sense of direction in life, healing from past bad experiences, a sense of safety from hanging with the wrong crowd.
  

  When you talk to people "of faith", high chances are that they are more into the faith thing for what they get that gives them comfort, than for anything scientific or logical. That explains many people who are literally scientifically educated, people with degrees in many sciences, and still go to church. Some don't don't know it, some do and don't care because it's about what they get in return for their faith.

  Personally, I just don't see why people have to choose one or the other. I have my own believes, but don't feel like I need to express them, share them, and certainly, I don't need to prove them to anyone. So is my attitude towards other people's faiths. I draw the line only when others come imposing or trying to prove their faiths as a mean to indicate that they and only they are the ones with the real saying about the topic.
  
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  tepidpoultry

  
  
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  tepidpoultry

  Which level of faith would you suggest we have for the murderer of 70000 INNOCENT men (just so we have the magnitude right start counting 0- 70000 let me know when you're done) INNOCENT because David sinned, Can you hear the screams of women throughout the land and their children, WHERE'S DADDY?! JEHOVAH KILLED HIM!! WHY? WAS DADDY BAD! NAH JEHOVAH MUST'VE BEEN HAVING A BAD DAY, Such a loving kind wonderful God we have! LET'S SING PRAISES TO JEHOVAH!!

  LET'S HAVE FAITH IN OUR WONDERFUL GOD, But let's see, what LEVEL of faith should we have in this WONDEROUS THING?
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  Saethydd

  Logical reasoning (for whatever that is worth to a religious person) can certainly be used to grant such professionals a higher credibility, and this argument has nothing with education, but rather motive.
  

  I wonder where did you get that. How do you back that up? It's juts curiosity. How do you conclude that? I am honestly inquiring, not confronting.

  With regards to my comment implying that religious people don't value logic, I suppose it is based primarily on my own somewhat extensive experience dealing with them, seeing that I live in the South Eastern United States I deal with many more religious people than just JWs. Though perhaps they are not all like that, it's just how most of my experiences go with them. Additionally, I personally have not been able to find a logical reason to believe in a personal creator when this individual has not deigned to speak directly with a large group of people in 3,500 years. (And that event is only recorded in a single source and may have been written long after the day it is supposed to have happened, so who knows if it really even did happen at all?) I recognize that personal experience isn't the strongest basis on which to build an argument, but it is all I have in this case.

  If you meant, "How did I conclude that professionals deserve a higher regard in terms of credibility?" That was the topic of the paragraph following that sentence. I'll try and clarify my point though. What does the scientific community as a whole have to gain by purposefully skewing evidence against the Bible? As far as I can tell they would gain nothing by doing that. In fact they would be setting themselves up for a tremendous failure when they were proved wrong. On the other hand, the religious community as a whole does have a motive to only point out the evidence that supports their view. It allows them to appear open-minded, when in fact anything that conflicts with the beliefs they already hold is simply discarded, no matter how much evidence there is or how large the consensus view of that evidence.