i once heard a psychiatrist explain suicide as the ultimate act of self-preservation.
sound weird?.
counter-intuitive as that sounds, he went on to explain why.. when all you value in life is threatened you do whatever desperate act that will preserve that value.. destruction of self stops the ......process.....of consciously losing.
Faith requires action to back up belief
I don't see why it should. Action in the real world helps to convince believers that their faith has a basis in reality but action has no real conection with faith. The driven Paul of the bible may have stated that faith without works is dead but that was just his opinion.
Faith may require that we take no action. For example; put faith in God and wait for him/her to solve a problem instead of taking action ourselves.
i once heard a psychiatrist explain suicide as the ultimate act of self-preservation.
sound weird?.
counter-intuitive as that sounds, he went on to explain why.. when all you value in life is threatened you do whatever desperate act that will preserve that value.. destruction of self stops the ......process.....of consciously losing.
If belief in nothing is your faith...
How can belief in nothing be faith?
Faith requires belief in a concept. The absence of that belief can never amount to faith.
To say that it can, is to say that faith itself is nothing; a negative.
i once heard a psychiatrist explain suicide as the ultimate act of self-preservation.
sound weird?.
counter-intuitive as that sounds, he went on to explain why.. when all you value in life is threatened you do whatever desperate act that will preserve that value.. destruction of self stops the ......process.....of consciously losing.
Faith is not be a form of suicide if God really existes. Rather it is a wise move to align ourselves with this super being and ensure our survival into heaven instead of certain death.
Alas peoples opinion about the existence of a God varies, mainly because we are told this silent, slippery super being is totally invisible. The idea of God is one thing. Coming to a conclusion that God exists and then seeking to appease God, is a declaration of acceptance. To the believer, God has become a reality not just a concept.
Once this happens, rationality has been rejected and replace with faith. I think that Terry uses the extreme word 'suicide' to make a point. Faith is perhaps just an impairment to our rational process which paves the way for acceptance of other concepts that no require rationality.
Ultimately it is a path that robs us of the ability to make useful decisions in the real world - unless there is a God, in which case the believer has gambled an won. Heads or tails - you choose!
hey,.
i'm hoping some on here, maybe realizing that what the bible really teaches, no church or religion has it.
your learning and working hard to uncover it's true message.
Why limit your examination of prophetic texts to the bible when there are so many other attempts at predicting the future?
Nostradamus, H G Wells, Judge Rutherford, Muhammad, Orson Wells, Joseph Smith, Watchtower Society.
Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Robert Schuller, Marilyn Hickey, Paul and Jan Crouch, Rod Parsley, R.W. Shambach, Carlton Pearson, John Avanzinni, Kenneth & Gloria Copeland, John Hagee, Jessie Duplantis, Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Kenneth Hagin.
Sr., Kenneth Hagin Jr., Frederick Price, Creflo Dollar, Rodney Howard Browne, Jack Van Impe, Rinehard Bonnke, Joyce Meyer, Morris Cerullo, John Kilpatrick, Clarence McClendon, Rick Joyner, Hal Lindsey, Charles Capps, Robert Tilton.
Ellen G. White, Kim Clement, Mark Charonna, Juanita Bynum, Brigham Young, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Jack Van Impe, John Kilpatrick.
The list is as endless as imagination itself!
this is a serious question, trying to decide the right thing to do.........i do believe in god, i am sorting out what i believe and true from lie and such.
have question on how atheist and just ones belief in god would respond to this.. .
if you have a grandparent, (or even some relative) who spent their entire life as a jw.
Both you and your grandfather believe in God. That is your insurance policy that promises you will avoid death. Which religion you have joined to obtain this insurance is irrelevant. Either the policies are genuine or bogus.
Why try to swap your grandfathers policy for yours so late in the day? What possible difference can it make? He has lived his life and found a feeling of security in his belief. That feeling is all he has left now. Why try to take it away, so late in the day?
Perhaps you should question your own beliefs, in the living years, rather than your grandfathers and avoid finding yourself in his position many years from now?
what jehovah's witnesses get right is that the basis for christianity rests on scripture and the bible itself.. but, they only go just so far.
they stop at making you suspicious of bad things which have crept in to the bible through centuries of corruption.. the jw's unpack and deconstruct christianity j-u-s-t e-n-o-u-g-h for you to see the rats and spiders and cockroaches.
they quickly squeeze it all back together again repackaged.
Terry: Faith in God is greed.
I can see how faith could be seen as greed but personally see it more as an attempt at survival.
Greedy Tiger woods enjoyed something that was real, although illicit for a married man. Sex with beautiful women is real and possible, not an illusion. It always costs, one way or another. He did get what he paid for and it did what it said on the tin, or whatever these women came in! Of course the sex drive is so strong because it is natures way of ensuring the survival of our species.
I think that people believe in God because they are driven by the same natural instinct - survival or self preservation. Animals do their best to survive but do not ponder the meaning of life or death. Thinking humans suffer from the anxiety that comes with the knowledge that they will die. I have empathy for the plight that we as humans find ourselves in.
Driven by the need to survive, the thinking mind, thinks up a way of avoiding really dying. If this life is just a shadow of the true reality, then death where is your sting? Religious men and those that have declared certain books Holy, claiming they will lead to everlasting life, make a good living selling this bogus insurance policy.
Humans are vulnerable to exploitation by anyone who offers a service that satisfies that most basic need - survival.
what jehovah's witnesses get right is that the basis for christianity rests on scripture and the bible itself.. but, they only go just so far.
they stop at making you suspicious of bad things which have crept in to the bible through centuries of corruption.. the jw's unpack and deconstruct christianity j-u-s-t e-n-o-u-g-h for you to see the rats and spiders and cockroaches.
they quickly squeeze it all back together again repackaged.
Terry: BUILD YOUR OWN DAMNED LIFE and do a fine job of it by using your MIND!
Ah, there's the rub! What concerns many people is not the now, but fear of death. What good is a life well lived if it ends in our demise?
Religion has offered an escape from death, a way to cheat the hangman. Our mind is capable of performing many tricks in order to achieve comfort and assurance.
Intellectually honesty through the application of logic, may be nobler in the mind but most humans prefer to avoid the slings and arrows that destroy faith.
Illusion is generally more comforting than reality and often the preferred choice. Cognitive dissonance is king.
for me, it's the pm system.. sylvia.
I am trained to achieve the impossible, Sylvia.
for me, it's the pm system.. sylvia.
People with weird avatars pretending to be something their not.
We should only be allowed to post as ourselves.
Why - on earth, would God quote from anyone?
With such a rich pedigree of creating a perfect world, managing a perfect flood and ******* up the lives of hundred of Isralites, would He need input from mere humans?
Get a life - or wait for God to reward you with one.
