Faith.

Jan Ardena

Jan Ardena

OM!!!
Banned
What IS faith?.

To have faith in something means to use what you know, or a reasonably sure of, to account for something you DON'T know, or are not sure of.

If a reasonable person has faith in their ability to pass an exam, they are relieing on their past and present ability, to prove themselves capable of acheiving something. So there has to be belief, and there has to be hope, because the future is NOT known to them. So faith is believing in something that there can be no evidence of.

The notion of saying, ''I have faith that the sun will rise tomorow'' is not full faith as there is no need to invest belief or hope in a system which is by all accounts, predictable.

If we were made aware, by credible sources, that the sun wouldn't rise tomorow, those of us who have knowledge of the ''system'' may indeed develop real faith if they didn't want that event to occur.

Their faith would be based on the knowledge of the sun actually rising each and every day thus far, reasoning that the sources of the information could be wrong. Based on their knowledge (albeit unscientific), they would believe that it could still be possible. And their hope would be genuine because they know the consequences of the sun not rising tomorow.


The people that believe the credible sources, would do so, because they either have faith in their credentials and the whole system that surrounds that, or because they simply believe what they say, for the same reason.

Either way they would not KNOW that the sun won't rise tomorow.

So faith, deals with that which we can not know, but also,, but are lead to because of that which we do know, or are reasonably sure of, forming reason why we have faith.

Not that we choose to have faith. I think, to ''choose'' to have faith in something is not full faith as there is little or no connection to what you actually know, or are reasonably sure of. This could be described as ''Blind Faith''.

Blind faith isn't a bad situation, as long as we develop
our knowledge and understanding, which is why I believe we have science, philosopy, and art.
These genres tell us everything about the world we live in, who and what we re in relation to it, and allows us to truly express ourselves in ways that are beyonds the basic way we live life, expanding our awareness.


Faith without individual knowledge, or knowledge that is suppressed and replaced with something alien, is a dangerous thing. It means we are not in full control of our perceptions, or actions. It means our goals (hope) are
appeals to our sensibilities, which can be affected by day to day occurances.


Ultimately, for faith to be faith, one has to have belief and hope in that which is not known, using what they do know, or are reasonably sure of. Having faith in a predictable system, is not full faith, because although the outcome is not known, there is a very high probablility that one can predict the outcome without too much anxiety (no need of hope).


Having full faith in God, means that one MUST be situated in knowledge of oneself. I said ''situated'' as opposed to ''know'' because is where the experience lies.


What do you think faith is?
And why do we have it?


jan.
 
I think faith and hope are in direct opposition to one another (if not wholly contradictory) and confusing/conflating the two is the result of fear that one's so-called faith (or more accurately, hope) is misplaced.

A perfect example of this...
If we were made aware, by credible sources, that the sun wouldn't rise tomorow, those of us who have knowledge of the ''system'' may indeed develop real faith if they didn't want that event to occur.
Click to expand...

When I say I have faith something will happen, that means I have good reason to believe it will. When I say I hope something will happen, that means I lack faith that it will, but I still hope for the best.

I was having a conversation with a religious family member recently about "faith" in God. I explained to her that I don't see how faith in religion is faith in God at all, rather faith in man. With so many religions out there, how could one one come to the determination that this one is the right one? Her response was entirely about all the nice things that this particular religion teaches and how these things make her feel better.

Those who consider, "This is what I wish to be true" then profess that as faith or belief are, at best, deluding themselves. This is a big reason so many who are anti-religion discount religion as an adult security blanket. Many adherents wish away their worst fears (and call it faith) as they pretend their favorite fantasies are true (and call it faith).

That's not faith - it's hope against faith, fueled by fear.
 
Jan Ardena said:
What IS faith?.

To have faith in something means to use what you know, or a reasonably sure of, to account for something you DON'T know, or are not sure of.
Click to expand...

Personally, I would leave the cognitive element of faith mostly aside. I think this focus on the cognitive aspect of faith is secondary and mostly misleading, a result of trying to retroactively explain how come we have faith in something.


I think faith has to do primarily with
being faithful,
being loyal,
relying on,
appreciating.


I think we can mostly use the terms "faith" and "attachment" interchangeably.

It is simply natural for us to have attachments, it is natural for us to have faith.
We're born with attachments; sure, they may change over time, but the fact is that we have an inherent ability to become attached.
 
Jan Ardena said:
Ultimately, for faith to be faith, one has to have belief and hope in that which is not known, using what they do know, or are reasonably sure of.
Click to expand...

I resent this line of reasoning.


"I have faith that I will pass the exam."
"I have faith that it will rain tomorrow."
"I have faith that I will be able to keep my job."

Most people have a materialistic understanding of faith - ie. their faith is bound to specific materialistic goals. And I think this kind of faith cannot rightfully be used as a model for faith as such, regardless of its goal.



Check out this neat applet here: http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/gunas.htm

A person's functioning is generally defined by the constellation of the modes of material nature that he is under.
The qualities of a person, their character, how they act, etc., including their faith, are defined by the modes.


Let's look at a person's qualities, according to the modes:


Tamas:
Intolerant anger (krodhah), stinginess (lobhah), speaking without scriptural authority (false speech, anrtam), violent hatred (himsa), living as a parasite (begging, yacna), hypocrisy (dambhah), chronic fatigue (klamah), quarrel (kalih), lamentation and delusion (soka-mohau), depression (unhappiness and false humility, visada-arti), sleeping too much (nidra), false expectations (asa), fear (bhih), laziness (anudyamah) (SB 11.25.2-5)


Rajas:
Material desire (kamah), great endeavor (iha), audacity (madah), dissatisfaction even in gain (trsna), pride (stambhah), praying for material advancement (asih), considering oneself different and better than others (separatist mentality, bhida), sense gratification (sukham), rash eagerness to fight (courage based on intoxication, mada-utsahah), a fondness for hearing oneself praised (yasah-pritih), the tendency to ridicule others (hasyam), advertising one's own prowess (viryam), justifying one's actions by one's strength (bala-udyamah) (SB 11.25.2-5)


Sattva:
Mind and sense control (samah, damah), tolerance (titiksa), discrimination (iksa), sticking to one's prescribed duties (tapah), truthfulness (satyam), mercy (daya), careful study of the past and future (smrtih), satisfaction in any condition (tustih), generosity (tyaga), renunciation of sense gratification (asprha), faith in the spiritual master (sraddha), being embarrassed at improper action (hrih), charity, simplicity, humility and so on (daya-adhih), satisfaction within oneself (sva-nirvrtih) (SB 11.25.2-5)


Now combine this with how people think about what faith is:
For example, how often do they talk about their faith as a matter of advertising one's own prowess and justifying one's actions by one's strength?

"I have faith that I will pass the exam because I am a capable person."
"I have faith that I know the truth about God, because I have my senses under my control."
 
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Tough topic as not everybody thinks of faith in the same way. When ever someone uses the word faith, it calls in religious connotations. Hard for that not to be that way, given the way religion uses the term faith.

Everything we know about God is provided by humans. Religious bibles are all written by men with the claim they were divinely inspired. Then you are told you must have faith. In a court of law hearsay information is not allowed. So what do we call faith based on what other people have said? Technically it would have to be called hearsay faith.

Now I would like to know how much credibility does hearsay faith really have?
 
I found a very interesting link about.

Faith In Hearsay

By WizenedSage

Christian, your faith is not really in god and Jesus. Your faith is really in those men who wrote those ancient texts that now comprise the Bible. Now I’m not going to ask you to believe anything without providing evidence; I wouldn’t insult your intelligence that way. But let me show you the other side of this “faith” coin.

Let me repeat my thesis; your faith is really in those men who wrote those ancient texts. This is a very important point which, I’ll wager, you have never seriously analyzed. As you well know, you learned about god and Jesus from another human who told you about them. God and Jesus did not just appear to you. Someone told you about them, and you may have learned more by reading about them in the Bible and other books. This is what our courts call hearsay evidence, which can be defined as “evidence based not on a witness' personal knowledge but on another's statement.” It’s all about what other people have said or written. There’s nothing out in the world that we can all see together or test with instruments and come to the same conclusions about (this is why there have been so many gods claimed to exist). It is vitally important that you recognize that all anyone today really “knows” about god or Jesus is based on what was written by primitive people that you never met and know almost nothing about.

Neither god nor Jesus has ever shown himself to you directly in an unambiguous way. You may have had feelings, but feelings are just emotions and the only thing emotions can prove is that you’re human. When the Muslim says he has felt the presence of Mohamed, are you convinced? Couldn’t it just be a shot of adrenaline in his brain that caused his skin to tingle and the hairs on his neck to rise? Couldn’t that explain your feelings just as well? Could the Muslim suicide bomber blow himself up if he didn’t have convincing feelings? Yet, you know for certain that the Muslim is wrong about Allah and Mohamed.

You may argue that you have a “relationship” with Jesus. But how does one have a relationship with a being who has never acknowledged your existence? Have you actually seen him? Has he talked to you or left you a phone message? Is that really a relationship? Isn’t that pretty much the same kind of “relationship” I had with Marilyn Monroe when I was a teenage boy?

All you have learned about god and Jesus comes directly or indirectly from the Bible. Now how do you know these Biblical authors were telling the truth? How could you? They wrote about things that supposedly happened thousands of years ago; things that left little or no archaeological evidence, no confirmation by unbiased contemporary historians, and there are no photos, film, or DNA. And don’t just read apologist literature to prove I’m wrong here, read the other side too. You must know that the apologists only see what they want to see and ignore the rest.

And what do you really know about these Bible writers and the quality of their testimony? Can you be sure that they weren’t just drunk or eating mushrooms, or schizophrenic, prone to epileptic visions, delusional, or simply con men seeking power and influence? Do you really know for sure? How could you?

Yes, I’ve heard the story that Jesus’ disciples were willing to die for him, so that proves he was the real thing. This is really a silly argument. Jim Jones’ followers in Guyana were so convinced he was a genuine prophet that they drank the Kool-Aid. Does this make him a prophet? History is full of examples of people willing to die for things that weren’t true.

You are perfectly aware that these authors wrote some incredibly unlikely stories about things that you wouldn’t believe if you read about them in any other book. You would not believe that knowledge of good and evil could reside in a piece of fruit if you read it in any other book. And if you think those stories weren’t meant to be taken literally, then how do you know that for sure? The Bible itself never provides a clue except on those few occasions when Jesus announces he’s going to discuss a parable. And if those other wild Bible stories are just metaphors, then how can you be sure that the Resurrection was not also meant metaphorically – or heaven and hell, for that matter? Was Jesus just a metaphor? And what about god?

Obviously, everybody will draw the fact-fiction lines in different places if the Bible is full of metaphor. How could a god actually teach the facts, the truth that way? Isn’t that why there are so many different Christian sects, because everyone makes his own determination of what’s real and what’s metaphor, and what’s important and what’s not? Why would a god leave so much up for interpretation about stuff that’s vitally important, even life and death important? Wouldn’t that be rather careless for a god? Doesn’t all this suggest pretty strongly that men wrote this stuff all on their own? Wouldn’t a real god have done a much better, much clearer job of it?

If you take the Bible stories literally, then how do you hold down the doubts? Those writers wrote about talking animals and magical fruit trees and food falling from the sky and dragons and unicorns and 900 year-old men. How can you read of such things and not have serious doubts about the accuracy of those authors? Why do we never see any of these amazing things today? Did the world used to be full of magic and now it’s not? If god used these awesome signs to convince people in those ancient times, then why does he expect us to just take these writers at their word for them? If god thought he needed to show those primitive people signs, then wouldn’t it be pretty unfair of him to expect us much better educated, more skeptical people to just believe without any signs?

And surely you know that some of the things they wrote have been proven to be scientifically wrong or impossible. For example, they wrote that the world is flat (Daniel 4:10-11), but we now have pictures that prove it’s a sphere. They wrote that the earth is fixed, didn’t move (1 Chronicles 16:30), but we now know the earth moves very fast as it orbits the sun. The Bible authors wrote that all those tiny points of light called stars would someday fall to the earth, but they’re billions of objects which are all vastly bigger than the earth. They wrote that disease is caused by demons. We have since proven that disease is caused by microorganisms, congenital defects, or toxic chemicals. They wrote, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree (22 Matthew 13:31-32).” We now know many other plant’s seeds, such as orchids, are smaller, and shrubs do not grow into trees. They also wrote about 4-legged fowl (there never were any) and rusting gold and silver (they don’t rust – never have).

These writers were obviously very ignorant about how the world really works. Isn’t it likely that they made stuff up to fill the gaps in their knowledge? In fact, haven’t we just proven that they did so, given their theories of the flat, immovable earth, tiny stars, 4-legged birds, etc.?

Of course, the Bible says you just have to have faith. But, if someone says to you, “Just take my word for it,” aren’t you suspicious? Shouldn’t you be? Doesn’t that suggest pretty strongly that he can’t make a very good case for whatever he’s selling? Don’t you suspect that he might be hiding something? This is the same tactic used to fill the mosques and Hindu places of worship, you know; people are told, “You just have to have faith.” Does it really make sense to you that a god created human intelligence and curiosity, but wants you to just shut it off when it comes to religion?

Everything that has been said or written about god or Jesus in the past 2,000 years and more is based on the writings of these ancient, unknown primitives. EVERYTHING! You see, your faith ultimately depends on these writers, one-hundred percent. Your faith is not really in god and Jesus, your faith is in these anonymous scribes and the hope that they were telling you the facts, the real truth about things. If they were wrong, then so are you. How can you have so much faith in people you never knew, people who may have been utterly whacko or devious, people who have, in fact, been proven to be wrong about so much? That is a faith with a pretty shaky foundation, isn’t it? What did those writers do to deserve such trust from you? Shouldn’t you think about this some more?
Click to expand...

http://articles.exchristian.net/2010/02/faith-in-hearsay.html

I also liked the comments posted for this article.
 
@ KilljoyKlown: I LOVE it!

If you are not basing your spirituality on direct contact with the divine, you're basing your faith on the hope that some old fart from 2000 years ago got it right!
 
@chimpkin --

If you are not basing your spirituality on direct contact with the divine, you're basing your faith on the hope that some old fart from 2000 years ago got it right!
Click to expand...

Which is especially bad when we know that the blokes from two thousand years ago got so much wrong.
 
chimpkin said:
@ KilljoyKlown: I LOVE it!

If you are not basing your spirituality on direct contact with the divine, you're basing your faith on the hope that some old fart from 2000 years ago got it right!
Click to expand...

Yeah! I thought a few on this forum might enjoy a new angle on this subject. I didn't do my search until after my first post. I really did not expect to find that article. But it sure hit the spot with me, and I just had to share it.
 
Jan Ardena said:
What IS faith?.

To have faith in something means to use what you know, or a reasonably sure of, to account for something you DON'T know, or are not sure of.

If a reasonable person has faith in their ability to pass an exam, they are relieing on their past and present ability, to prove themselves capable of acheiving something. So there has to be belief, and there has to be hope, because the future is NOT known to them. So faith is believing in something that there can be no evidence of.
Click to expand...
But there is evidence to support future outcomes in this case.

The notion of saying, ''I have faith that the sun will rise tomorow'' is not full faith as there is no need to invest belief or hope in a system which is by all accounts, predictable.
Click to expand...
This situation is a difference in degree from the first one, not in kind. And it also includes a self-evaluation: I can decide what is predictable and what is not.
ISo faith, deals with that which we can not know, but also,, but are lead to because of that which we do know, or are reasonably sure of, forming reason why we have faith.
Click to expand...
So all beliefs based on scientific empiricism are faith based?

Faith without individual knowledge, or knowledge that is suppressed and replaced with something alien, is a dangerous thing. It means we are not in full control of our perceptions, or actions.
Click to expand...
Is anyone in full control of these things? What would it mean, also? If I am not in control of my actions, who is? Are there two of me, one perceiving and acting and another me controllling the perceiver/actor?

Having full faith in God, means that one MUST be situated in knowledge of oneself.
Click to expand...
This seems like a jump. Before if one had faith in something, it seemed like one had, according to you, knowledge of it. Here to have faith in God I must have knowledge of my self. This may work for solipsistic theisms or monisms with an immanent God, but otherwise this is problematic.
What do you think faith is?
Click to expand...
I think it is a poor word. I think it has been used by various churches to mystify and confuse people. I'm a theist who prefers to avoid that word.
 
@Jan --

Having full faith in God, means that one MUST be situated in knowledge of oneself.
Click to expand...

Too bad for you then as you do not have knowledge of god, or at least you haven't demonstrated this knowledge. Of course, if you could demonstrate this knowledge(meaning that it would actually be knowledge) then you'd probably win a Nobel Prize or something because you'd have been able to do what literally no other human in history has been able to do.
 
raven,

When I say I have faith something will happen, that means I have good reason to believe it will. When I say I hope something will happen, that means I lack faith that it will, but I still hope for the best.
Click to expand...


Is 'believing' something will happen necessarily having faith in that thing happening?


I was having a conversation with a religious family member recently about "faith" in God. I explained to her that I don't see how faith in religion is faith in God at all, rather faith in man.
Click to expand...


Is it possible to have faith in religion, and faith in God?


With so many religions out there, how could one one come to the determination that this one is the right one? Her response was entirely about all the nice things that this particular religion teaches and how these things make her feel better.
Click to expand...


That's seems like a reasonable answer.
There are different reasons why people asociate themselves with a particular religion.


Those who consider, "This is what I wish to be true" then profess that as faith or belief are, at best, deluding themselves.
Click to expand...


I covered this in the OP.


This is a big reason so many who are anti-religion discount religion as an adult security blanket. Many adherents wish away their worst fears (and call it faith) as they pretend their favorite fantasies are true (and call it faith).
Click to expand...


That's not faith - it's hope against faith, fueled by fear.
Click to expand...


Which is why I'm interested in ''what is faith?''.


jan.
 
Signal,

I think faith has to do primarily with
being faithful,
being loyal,
relying on,
appreciating.
Click to expand...


Why?

I think we can mostly use the terms "faith" and "attachment" interchangeably.

It is simply natural for us to have attachments, it is natural for us to have faith.
We're born with attachments; sure, they may change over time, but the fact is that we have an inherent ability to become attached.
Click to expand...

What does ''attachment'' have to do with faith?


jan.
 
"Faith is what is required to sustain a position that can not be rationally reasoned."
- Some bloke... somewhere... some time ago.
 
Signal,


"I have faith that I will pass the exam."
"I have faith that it will rain tomorrow."
"I have faith that I will be able to keep my job."
Click to expand...


Why would one have faith in these things?


Most people have a materialistic understanding of faith - ie. their faith is bound to specific materialistic goals. And I think this kind of faith cannot rightfully be used as a model for faith as such, regardless of its goal.
Click to expand...


It's faith if it has belief and hope in a goal or situation which cannot be known. Is it not?


Now combine this with how people think about what faith is:
For example, how often do they talk about their faith as a matter of advertising one's own prowess and justifying one's actions by one's strength?
Click to expand...


I'm not talking about faith we attest to, but real faith in which we have no choice but to have faith.

"I have faith that I will pass the exam because I am a capable person."
Click to expand...


It's quite possibel that this person really has faith in their own ability, to, and this is the reason, to pass the exam. There is no way of knowing so faith is the positive option. If the person knows what the answers are in advance, then there is no question of faith.

"I have faith that I know the truth about God, because I have my senses under my control."
Click to expand...

Why would someone have faith in, knowing the truth about God?

You have a strange idea of faith, unless I'm mistaken.

jan.
 
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