A question of faith

[Cyperium]

In this thread I want serious answers from someone that believes in the one God and Jesus, his son.

This post was originally meant as an attempt to get a answer from someone...but it turned out that I got the answer by explaining the question so the reason has changed and this post is now for the purpose of hope.

We don't need to find out if God exists, we allready know, it's just a long road behind us and a long road ahead and many of us have forgotten the reason why the road is there in the first place.

We are who we believe we are. Don't underestimate yourself or other's. You must have hope, then you can do anything. There is allways a way out, it can be hard to see, but it is there.

Find the way, don't loose your hope.

Be honest with yourself, inside and outside.

People might get you wrong, but others perceptions can be misleading, follow your own idea of the truth about you.

Have faith, but also actions of faith.

Live now, remember the past, think about the future later.

Don't let yourself be manipulated, and don't manipulate. Find someone like you, don't create someone like you. Sure at some level manipulations allways takes place, they are after all a part of our development, but see to it that it leads to good consequences.

Don't ignore what is happening for whatever reason, if there is a problem then you got to solve it or find why it isn't a problem.

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There is a reason for everything, whatever situation you find yourself in, remember the reason.

The body-language can be mis-interpreted, if you trust the body-language, then allways expect good things. People mostly have good purposes, but if you expect bad things then you see the bad things, and this leads to...yes, bad things.

You have more influence than you think, everything you do has a neverending consequence, we set our mark eternally. This also means that if you have a bad influence on anyone then that person is going to carry that bad influence to other people, for example, if you are the cause that a person is changed then he will carry on that change to his future children and everyone around him will be influenced by his change, so they will carry it on to their children and to the persons surrounding them. You have influenced everyone you've met in some way, their future wouldn't be the same if you hadn't met them, see to it that you influence others in a good way.

It isn't up to you to judge people. Find the good ways of dealing with others shortcomings.

You are alive, things exist, you can allways find comfort in that.

Remember when you were a child and thought you could change the world and live forever? Be the child you are. It's surprising that suddenly when people have turned eighteen they get a whole different personality like that day have changed them completly. We start to forget the meaning of developement and loose our way because we find things "childish", childish is not a reason to avoid anything. Why are we so concerned with how others look upon us? If we could just set us free...don't you have that longing? Don't let anyone turn off that light inside you.

Random doesn't exist, what we perceive as random is just speaking it's meaning in all languages.

 

[Cris]

Cyperium,

Looks a lot like a sermon. How about trying to add some support to those asertions? Facts are often useful.

For example can you demonstrate that religious faith is any different to someone simply choosing to believe something because they want to regardless of any facts for or against?

 

[Jenyar]

Originally posted by Cris
Cyperium,

Looks a lot like a sermon. How about trying to add some support to those asertions? Facts are often useful.

For example can you demonstrate that religious faith is any different to someone simply choosing to believe something because they want to regardless of any facts for or against?

It might not be quantitively different but it should be qualitatively different.

The characteristic of any faith is its object, which determines the nature of every relationship with it. If the object is anything other than a historical deity, the relationship will be essentially internally motivated and will become more so over time. A person believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy for example, has only the conviction of his own mind to motivate it, and the premises of the beliefs will eventually cause it to self destruct. Reality won't permit it to survive much beyond adolescence, even if it is artifically maintained by others (either because they know no better themselves, or are perpetuating a lie maliciously). After that, the premises of the faith will have to be modified and/or its original object will disintegrate.

But when the object of faith is historical, faith will be externally motivated. I presume this is the kind of faith you are questioning. The premises are already established and only interpretation and discovery is possible, not modification. Their foundations are considered authorative, however they came about, because they constitute divine inspiration from a reputable (biblically "righteous") source. Since you doubt all sources I won't go into that. The bottom line is that Judaism emphasized truthfulness and righteousness above all qualities, and that the records about Jesus' life were compiled with this mindset. Will a person who sincerely believes a liar will not enter the kingdom of God, lie about the object of his faith? And will he further take the chance of depending on earlier, verifyable sources as justification for his truthfulness?

Historical faith is not blind, it can't exist regardless of facts, since it depends on them. It defies artificial maintenance, which is why it is simultaneously so personal and dependent on scripture. But faith assumes a spiritual element, and that will always be a problem for naturalists. The only consolation is that the closer those spiritual truths resemble verifiable reality (which will always be a subjective valuation), the closer it is to objective "truth". You can't disprove God, but you can corroborate the truth of His representation, which is, for better or for worse, man himself. A faith that makes a person more human, glorifies and testifies to the validity of its object. This kind of glorification depends on fulfilment, which is why it often consider "prophetic". If you believe science will enable eternal life, you are placing a faith in it which will only be justified at its fulfilment. Judaism placed faith in God for salvation, which was justified in its fulfilment in Christ.

 

[Cyperium]

You said:

How about trying to add some support to those asertions? Facts are often useful.

I'll try my best to give the reasons why I believe what I believe, but I don't know if I have any "facts".

We are who we believe we are. Don't underestimate yourself or other's. You must have hope, then you can do anything. There is allways a way out, it can be hard to see, but it is there.

The brain analyzes everything that happens to you, and what it misses, while it happens, gets analyzed in dreams at night.

This means that the brain has a good potential to know just about anything about everything. I believe that we by underestimating ourself makes ourselves dumber.

Find the way, don't loose your hope.

Be honest with yourself, inside and outside.

I hope we can agree on that.

People might get you wrong, but others perceptions can be misleading, follow your own idea of the truth about you.

This I wrote because people often see you in their own reflection (they think they know something about you, but what they see is really themselves). If they assume that you are that way, then you might get manipulated to be that way. You should only trust what you think about yourself, cause you are the only one that really knows.

When you have a problem though, advice is good and can often (not allways) be trusted, since the ones that give the advice often recognize their own problems and what they had as a solution to them, remember though, that their problem may have different causes than your problem, and their solution to the problem doesn't allways fit your problem. One thing about advice is that you can learn the principle (what the person means by the advice) and then adjust the advice to fit your own problem.

Have faith, but also actions of faith.

If you are going to believe in something, then your life should reflect, in some way, that belief.

Live now, remember the past, think about the future later.

People worry too much about the future, the bible say something like this (freely translated) "don't worry about tomorrow, cause each day has enough of it's own problems".

Don't let yourself be manipulated, and don't manipulate. Find someone like you, don't create someone like you. Sure at some level manipulations allways takes place, they are after all a part of our development, but see to it that it leads to good consequences.

Some people manipulate for fun, playing with their and other minds with no respect, the one that manipulates others, get's manipulated automatically by themselves. Cause what goes out influences what goes in.

If you manipulate with respect for others, then you also manipulate with respect for yourself. You don't want your mind to go chaotic just because you don't have full knowledge of what you are doing.

Don't ignore what is happening for whatever reason, if there is a problem then you got to solve it or find why it isn't a problem.

I hope we can agree on that.

There is a reason for everything, whatever situation you find yourself in, remember the reason.

This, I believe because I believe in God, the test never goes above one's understanding, so there is allways a way out by simply believing in yourself. I believe that there is a (good) reason for everything and that you can, by thinking about what you can learn in different situations, learn something that let's you handle the situation better later (if you couldn't handle it before).

The body-language can be mis-interpreted, if you trust the body-language, then allways expect good things. People mostly have good purposes, but if you expect bad things then you see the bad things, and this leads to...yes, bad things.

The body-language is a powerful tool to get yourself understood, but some people use it as a tool for manipulating other's, but you can only be manipulated in a bad way, if you expect to. You get what you ask for.

You have more influence than you think, everything you do has a neverending consequence, we set our mark eternally. This also means that if you have a bad influence on anyone then that person is going to carry that bad influence to other people, for example, if you are the cause that a person is changed then he will carry on that change to his future children and everyone around him will be influenced by his change, so they will carry it on to their children and to the persons surrounding them. You have influenced everyone you've met in some way, their future wouldn't be the same if you hadn't met them, see to it that you influence others in a good way.

This is like the butterfly effect, every happening has a consequence that never ends. Children get's affected by their parents, so if you change the parent then you change the child (and the children that the child has when it get's older). Every person also changes the ones in their surrounding. This is why we need to be conscious of how we affect others.

It isn't up to you to judge people. Find the good ways of dealing with others shortcomings.

Judging often leads back to yourself, often when people judge eachother, they see the problem because they recognize themselves. So when you judge someone, you could as easily judge yourself (sometimes even without knowing it). Another thing, is that what you do outside gets taught inside. So if you judge others at the outside, then you start to judge yourself at the inside.

You are alive, things exist, you can allways find comfort in that.

I hope you agree on this.

Remember when you were a child and thought you could change the world and live forever? Be the child you are. It's surprising that suddenly when people have turned eighteen they get a whole different personality like that day have changed them completly. We start to forget the meaning of developement and loose our way because we find things "childish", childish is not a reason to avoid anything. Why are we so concerned with how others look upon us? If we could just set us free...don't you have that longing? Don't let anyone turn off that light inside you.

People use a reason for changing, even though they haven't learned enough at the road they are currently at, they suddenly change road because of certain day (when you get 18 for example), be the one you are allways. The change should come naturally. (it's another thing if you must change because of something though (something else than a day), but allways remember who you were). Remember also when you were a child, and saw the possibilities in everything. There's alot of good things about children that we can learn by simply remembering.

Random doesn't exist, what we perceive as random is just speaking it's meaning in all languages.

Just a possibility that I think shows how the truth could look like.

You said:

For example can you demonstrate that religious faith is any different to someone simply choosing to believe something because they want to regardless of any facts for or against?

Actually, I don't see anything wrong with believing in something that is good for you. I just believe that my way is the best way for me.

 

[Cris]

Jenyar,

But when the object of faith is historical, faith will be externally motivated.

Yes I understand. This doesn’t make it any more valid, but rather indicates the irrationality of generational reinforcement. The idea that because my parents said it was true then there is no need for me to think about it.

I presume this is the kind of faith you are questioning.

No. To me religious faith is the conviction that something is true without any factual basis. How the believer reached that stage is largely unimportant, if facts are absent then they have always been absent or have been lost. That something may have been handed down for thousands of years doesn’t make it any more valid.

The premises are already established and only interpretation and discovery is possible, not modification.

The premises are not established as being valid since the roots of the major religions are significantly controversial and highly questionable. And they are indeed open to modification.

Their foundations are considered authorative, however they came about, because they constitute divine inspiration from a reputable (biblically "righteous") source.

But only considered authoritative by the believers who can offer no rational basis. And I am sure you are aware that the bible is not considered reputable by the majority of the world population. And divine inspiration is yet again an unsupported claim.

The bottom line is that Judaism emphasized truthfulness and righteousness above all qualities, and that the records about Jesus' life were compiled with this mindset.

Yet we have quotes from the church fathers that information was deliberately invented because it furthered the Christian cause and that lying under such circumstances was justifiable. This is fraud and a basis for much of Christianity that has been handed down through the generations as unquestionable truth.

You should also be aware that in those times there was little to no concept of objective reporting. The major form of entertainment was verbal story-telling, i.e. myth-making. And stories of gods and kings and heroes were among the favorites whether true or not. This is the real environment in which your religion originated and where superstitions were widespread.

Historical faith is not blind, it can't exist regardless of facts, since it depends on them.

But this is patently false. For most of man’s existence he has believed the world was flat. It is only recently we discovered the facts. History is rife with people believing anything they wanted especially regardless of factual support.

It is again only recently that we have discovered the existence of bacteria and viruses. Before then the common belief for the source of disease was evil spirits or the wishes of the gods. I.e. superstitions about such things were widespread.

When something cannot be easily disproved, e.g. fantasies, and there are no other fact based explanations for a given phenomenon then we observe that man has an overwhelming tendency to believe the fantasy as if it is truth, i.e. faith.

It defies artificial maintenance, which is why it is simultaneously so personal and dependent on scripture.

And fully consistent with personalized and individual imaginary fantasies, and where scriptures appear to be the written form.

But faith assumes a spiritual element, and that will always be a problem for naturalists.

Naturally since naturalists rely on facts and claims for spirits have no factual basis.

The only consolation is that the closer those spiritual truths resemble verifiable reality (which will always be a subjective valuation), the closer it is to objective "truth".

You cannot claim any truths since you have no facts to support your claims. You only have unsupported claims remember. And you can make no claims about being close to truth unless you know what the truth is.

You can't disprove God, but you can corroborate the truth of His representation, which is, for better or for worse, man himself.

Why? The evidence so far indicates that God is the creation of man. How gods are represented depends on the particular fantasies that man has devised over the millennia, they are large in number and vary widely.

A faith that makes a person more human, glorifies and testifies to the validity of its object.

Faith seems to generate a false hope for something incredible and that I guess makes some people comfortable with their short lives. But it adds no validity to their beliefs.

This kind of glorification depends on fulfilment, which is why it often consider "prophetic".

What fulfillment? People still die and often in terrible and painful circumstances.

If you believe science will enable eternal life, you are placing a faith in it which will only be justified at its fulfilment.

We can hope that science will help but there is no need for blind faith. Science may not solve our problems. But science has proven itself in many ways through technology and medical science with many cures for many diseases. Religious faith has yet to fulfill anything meaningful in comparison.

Judaism placed faith in God for salvation, which was justified in its fulfilment in Christ.

Yet there is no factual basis for that claim. Even the very existence of a Jesus is now hotly disputed, in ways that had not been considered before.

 

[Jenyar]

But this is patently false. For most of man’s existence he has believed the world was flat. It is only recently we discovered the facts. History is rife with people believing anything they wanted especially regardless of factual support.

It is again only recently that we have discovered the existence of bacteria and viruses. Before then the common belief for the source of disease was evil spirits or the wishes of the gods. I.e. superstitions about such things were widespread.

When something cannot be easily disproved, e.g. fantasies, and there are no other fact based explanations for a given phenomenon then we observe that man has an overwhelming tendency to believe the fantasy as if it is truth, i.e. faith.

None of these beliefs distorted reality. They were just distorted interpretations of the evidence available. But your claim is that faith - and I can only speak of Christian faith - not only believes in a distorted reality, but has distorted reality itself! I.e. basically created a lie in the face of all contrary evidence so that it can believe it as the truth.

Distorted interpretations can give rise to misdirected choices, such as drilling holes in the brain or letting blood to let 'evil spirits' out. But what about a faith that discourages superstition and demands a sober and truthful approach to reality as the highest virtue?

No, Cris. Fact-based (historical) beliefs are by definition just that: fact-based. If you are looking for other facts, then one must wonder who is really trying to create the fantasy. On the other hand, if you think they distorted facts, that's your prerogative - but impossible to prove.

Yet there is no factual basis for that claim. Even the very existence of a Jesus is now hotly disputed, in ways that had not been considered before.

You mean it's a challenge to prove someone who existed didn't exist? I wonder how many undiscovered ways there are to prove Plato or Caesar didn't exist either... But if Jesus didn't exist, why would anybody stake their lives on the fact during a period where it could easily have been disproved. And why did the Jews, who had to have been the people most offended by such a claim, expend so much energy denouncing him instead of proving he didn't exist, which would have been easy?