Lack of faith

water said:
Define "lack of faith".
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I remember Alan Watts had an interesting interpretation of 'faith' that's always stayed with me. for instance say you are learning surfin on the waves. the board is all wobbly. in order to say balanced you HAVe to have faith, which alan translates as 'letting go'--letting go of your resitance to the irregular movements of the board sea and wind

i love that cause it includes body mind and environment

but, fiath in some 'God' which doing so creates division, and feeling ASHAMEd of the body and sexuality, and no deep cpncern for Nature cause you are gonn a heaven or it's gonna get 'improved'...well that kind of faith it is BETTEr to have a lack of!
 
The definition of "faith" has changed throughout the centuries. Back when Jesus said to have faith, faith doesn't mean "believe without prove" back then because everyone thought that God was so obvious, and not only believe but believe a lot. The definition of faith back then in Jewish society was to fear God and obey God's commandments.

Today extremely few Christians have any faith. Jesus said you cannot be his disciples unless you sell all your possessions. You cannot love those who love you more than strangers. You cannot pursuit God and wealth simultaneously. Christians know what he talks about but nobody thinks about doing them. Instead they go for the incredibly easy version of salvation through grace or divine election - in that case no "works" is required. Most Christians today trust Paul on their salvation more than they trust Jesus.
 
"Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge. "

-Ayn Rand
G.
 
water said:
Define "lack of faith".
Click to expand...

'Faith' is to things Spiritual as 'Confidence' is to ordinary living.

If a person is simply not taking the necessary spiritual actions in order to attain spiritual progress because of fear of failure or loss, then it is called "lack of faith". It is similar to how being too timid can impede a person's ordinary life -- being too shy with people to establish relationships, or doubting one's skill or intelligence so that good schools or jobs are avoided. One cannot really be successful in life unless there is a certain baseline of confidence in oneself. Likewise, spiritual progess is not possible without the same kind of 'faith' in Things Divine.
 
Good question.

Faith can be refereed to as belief.

Faith can also be seen as confidence in that belief.

So someone of little faith has belief in God but lacks confidence in God.



All Praise The Ancient Of Days
 
water said:
Define "lack of faith".
Click to expand...

Lack of faith:

The conscious basis for skepticism.

No consciousness would also lack faith, or be equivalent to complete faith.. so I suppose it's indeterminant excepting the case of consciousness, when it is the basis for skepticism.
 
Crunchy Cat said:
Absence of unconditional trust that 'God' will grant impossible or highly improbable expectations.
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This is only applicable if we define faith as "blind fanatic religious faith".

And please, the straw you are holding on to is covered with heaps of other straws ...
 
water said:
This is only applicable if we define faith as "blind fanatic religious faith".

And please, the straw you are holding on to is covered with heaps of other straws ...
Click to expand...

That's not how I am defining it. The definition I am using is based on
observations of the many ways Christians, Jews, and Muslims use it on
a daily basis.

Faith - Unconditional trust that something (usually a 'God') will cause an
impossible or improbable expectation to become true.

"I have faith that God will heal my cancer."
"I have faith that Allah will reward my submission with eternal
paradise."
"With faith I can move mountains (metaphorically or physically)
through Jesus."

Of course there is subjectivity bound to 'impossible' and 'improbable'. If
this is 'straw' then I would recommend voicing the concern amonst those
whom practice faith.
 
Faith: Believing in something you know aint so.

Lack of faith: Not believing in something you know aint so.
 
"Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, despite your changing moods." -- C.S. Lewis

And the lack of such faith: Letting your beliefs be dictated by moods, resentments and desires, and regarding any past or future that is different than the present as a miscarriage of ignorance.

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens." -- J.R.R. Tolkien
 
I agree mostly with these definitions;
Jenyar said:
And the lack of such faith: Letting your beliefs be dictated by moods, resentments and desires, and regarding any past or future that is different than the present as a miscarriage of ignorance.
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and
wesmorris said:
The conscious basis for skepticism.

No consciousness would also lack faith, or be equivalent to complete faith.. so I suppose it's indeterminant excepting the case of consciousness, when it is the basis for skepticism.
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and last and least :D
Cris said:
Lack of faith = skeptical.
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So even the skeptic has faith... am I correct Wes Morris?

I like to define faith as "the ability to believe". This makes anything concerning the lack there of moot. We all believe [in] something right? The relevant issue for me is lack of faith in what?
 
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duendy said:
I remember Alan Watts had an interesting interpretation of 'faith' that's always stayed with me. for instance say you are learning surfin on the waves. the board is all wobbly. in order to say balanced you HAVe to have faith, which alan translates as 'letting go'--letting go of your resitance to the irregular movements of the board sea and wind

i love that cause it includes body mind and environment

but, fiath in some 'God' which doing so creates division, and feeling ASHAMEd of the body and sexuality, and no deep cpncern for Nature cause you are gonn a heaven or it's gonna get 'improved'...well that kind of faith it is BETTEr to have a lack of!
Click to expand...
methinks the concept of "self confidence" and "faith" got misplaced. Srfing is a rational obswerved activity where the essentially elements are unambiguously available for scrutiny. Belief, or faith, in god is an ambiguous activity as the elements constitutiing faith are inconsistent from person to peson. Even arbitrarily limiting the "god" description to the bible is of no use. Alan Watts was not the quientessential hippy philosopher and surfing and god are not correspondingly equal, by any imaginative mind.

No, Duendy, it isn't faith you need for stability it is the observable practice to try to surf until you learn it. Surfing is an exercse that includes the element of learning. Comparing the educaional requirements of surfing and god there is no rational comparison.

Surfing can be learned and the learning exercise stuffed into the sub-conscious, just like drivinga car. God, if found through the act of "faith", like learning to surf, completes the process, god has been found, ergo search over. No need to look for god especially when tyou have her neatly packaged in a little book written, published and edited by many politicians and propagandists over the years. You say god is the force behind the bible? Well then god is a writing, publishing propagandist.

Why would anyone place the totality of his/her soul in a an instruction manual so pointedly biased as to define cryptology, esoteric secrets, ambiguity, contradiction, murder justification, slavery, sexism hatredand rote unfettered obediance and compliance? The bible requires intepretation as most folks do not read the bible, hence we are dealt an industry of preachers and priests and a ludicrous institutioanalized soul.


Mental sloth is the answer to the last question.
Geistkiesel
 
Marc,

Exactly. I have some other things in mind in regards to what you said -- will start a thread.
 
Marc,

Seems to me the wise man is both faithful and skeptical, depending on context.

Regardless I would agree that all people have faith in something to some extent.
 
Faith=commitment to an ideal.
Hence the phrase, "keep the faith"
Faith is not the same as belief. Keeping a belief, without being ignore-ant is not within your power if you are presented with enough ideas that seem to conflict with the truthfulness or usefulness of the ideal.
Doubt in the truthfulness or usefulness of the ideal is not lack of faith. Lack of faith is letting go of the commitment, or not making one.
 
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