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Goodbye Jesus

Faith is Impossible


Vigile

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I have been just toying around with this idea recently and thought I would post it to see if anyone can point out the error(s) in this hypothesis.

 

I argue that faith is a meaningless concept. No one has it and no one ever will. That is, faith defined in mainstream fundamentalist christian belief.

 

To have faith by this definition you essentially take on the posture that "god said it, I believe it" (if I'm accused of building a strawman here, I'm only repeating what I heard in church during the first 24 years of my life). They "know" that god said it because its in the bible. Why do they believe the bible? I submit that it's not because the bible told them to, but because someone told them that the bible is true; someone that they believed. Why did they believe that someone? A lot of reasons. The person(s) appealed to their emotions. The person had already established personal trust, such as being their friend or family member. The point is though, if a they can be honest with themselves, a christian has to have a first cause reason for believing otherwise "why the bible and not any other of the millions of books piled up in the library of congress?"

 

Ask yourselves, when you were a christian (if you were) why did you believe? I'm sure you were asked this question at one point in your life. I used to answer that it was because jesus had established a personal relationship with me. How did I know apart from the bible? Oh, I just knew, but it was too hard to put to words.

 

The reason it was so hard to put to words was because faith is a nonsensical concept. I believed because I was raised in a society where christianity was established as part of the culture. I believed because people I trusted believed. These are real reasons to believe (perhaps they are not really good ways to find truth, but are certainly verifiable reasons for belief development). It doesn't make sense to just "believe" because belief does not develop in a vacuum.

 

Put another way, belief comes because you have a reason to believe (valid or not). Faith just is, which doesn't make any sense.

 

I'm sorry if this was not as clearly presented as it could be. These are thoughts in the process of development.

 

What am I missing?

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I just thought of a better way to summarize this argument.

 

Belief requires the establishment of trust. Faith cannot make this requirement and therefore it makes no sense.

 

No one believes without the establishment of trust.

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makes alot of sense

 

it reminds me of a debate i had with a christian once, where i told him that if he would have been born in afghanistan or iraq he would be a staunch muslim, god didnt plan anything, he became a christian because he WANTED to and the culture he existed in was friendly towards, hence if he would have been born in the middle east, islam would have been the dominating choice..

 

behaviorlism (sp?) works

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I think you have a pretty good point. It always has to start out with someone you trust convincing you. But the other thing that causes faith is the initial experience when one starts out. The Mormons call it a "burning in the bosom", Christians often testify that the Bible made no sense to them before they accepted Christ, but then afterwards, their eyes were opened and they began to understand the scriptures..

 

The skeptical part comes in when you realize that all religions have this subjective, "I just know it's true", mentality. JW's, 7th day Adventists, Mo's, Muslims, Pentecostals, all of em. They can't all be true.

 

I'm not educated in psychology, but I'm sure the answers can be found in the workings of the mind, and the desire to belong.

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You're absolutely right. I realized too that faith is based on a decision, and in turn based on trust.

 

A believer (of any kind) put their trust in someone or something, without checking the background.

 

And unfortunately you can say that even for my belief today, that evolution is the force that created life. I can't personally prove evolution, and I never went to the different archeological sites and inspected the skeletons, and I didn't learn how to do tests for age of it.

 

So, what I'm saying is that as humans, we build our opinions/beliefs on trust a lot more than we think. We accept things without check all the background.

 

Now when it comes to evolution, after reasoning and looking at the arguments, it does make sense, which is different from religion. With religion you trust, but you have to believe contrary to experience and reasoning. You can't rationalize religion, which you can do with science. But it all starts with trust.

 

So who do you trust? (Just a rhetorical remark)

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I definitely think that relationships play a big part in what we 'believe'. Although I would tend to think that this is true of everything - and is not just a religious phenomena.

 

When I'm listening to someone I admire - as opposed to someone I do not respect I can sometimes actually 'feel' the different way I filter what they are saying. Its as if - when I trust someone I'm inclined to relax all the usual checks and warrants and just let the information straight into the 'this is true and reliable' box.

 

I really can't work out what I used to 'believe' - if having faith in something means believing in something without having arrived at the thought rationally - then maybe I did believe things in 'faith' - because looking back now I think I was only able to 'believe' by not really thinking - as though I 'suspended' thought in order to 'believe' and my motivation was very much a need to belong 'this is what it takes to be a believer'.

 

And I would agree that it's other people's apparent faith that I put my trust in - I have also had spiritual experiences that at the time went onto confirm this for me -but only because other trusted people told me this was confirmation.

 

I know other people are angry with the church and with being mislead - the main person I get cross with is me - because I became part of this pattern. I'm so glad I was mainly crap at evangelism but a couple of my friends followed me in (and are still there) and I know I was 'instrumental' in their 'conversions' - and I definitely did things to 'build up the faith' of others. I'd really like to say - well that's because I was completely convinced of my beliefs - but at the moment I don't feel I can say that because I'm not sure I ever really truly believed any of it (however much I wanted to believe it)

 

Another brick in the wall!

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I definitely think that relationships play a big part in what we 'believe'.  Although I would tend to think that this is true of everything - and is not just a religious phenomena.

 

When I'm listening to someone I admire - as opposed to someone I do not respect I can sometimes actually 'feel' the different way I filter what they are saying. Its as if - when I trust someone I'm inclined to relax all the usual checks and warrants and just let the information straight into the 'this is true and reliable' box.

 

This, I heard the other day on radio, is somewhat controlled by pheromones. I don’t remember what it was called, but a person who release these pheromones get more trust from people around him/her. And of course body language, rapport and relationship, as you said, play a very important role.

 

I have an experience where one person told me one thing, but did it in a rude way, and I got upset and didn’t accept his statement. But next day another person told me, unknowingly of what the first person said, the same thing, but in a mild and gentle way, and I took it to heart. How it is said, makes a big difference.

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You're absolutely right. I realized too that faith is based on a decision, and in turn based on trust.

 

 

So who do you trust? (Just a rhetorical remark)

 

Nicely put. I spent 4 or 5 paragraphs trying to say what you just did in once sentance, :scratch:

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Nicely put.  I spent 4 or 5 paragraphs trying to say what you just did in once sentance,  :scratch:

 

Thanx! :thanks:

 

I only rationalized what you wrote, sometimes it only takes another pair of eyes. (Unless someone just poked your eye with a pen!)

:grin:

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People's beliefs effective the way they reason. "Faith" is a just a method of reasoning for people who believe the unreasonable.

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The word and concept, "Faith," has become so prettified, as well. We're not going to see any baby girls being named, "Emotional Reasoning."

 

Yes, the root of faith would seem to be trust in the source. Add "need for" (as in parents, teachers, friends, lovers. community) to "trust in" and you've got a powerful mental log-jam against independent rationality.

 

I think you've got some good thinking going on here, Vigile.

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Guest vanesa

(Learned Mouse Song)

 

Faith is impossible since it inverts logic and places diluted and inappropriate emotions over reason and consciousness.

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Of course faith is impossible. It's like telling a colorblind person to believe you that something is blue, when he's never seen blue before in his entire life. For all he knows, it could be red, or green, or purple. But you're asking him to trust you that it's blue. How does he know you're not colorblind as well? You could be lying to him, for all he knows. You expect him to take you at your word that it's blue, and that you know exactly what blue is. I think faith is like that.

 

Most Christians believe because the person who told them it was blue was also colorblind, but they didn't realize that. How could they? The colorblind preacher was likewise told to believe it by another colorblind person, and so on and so forth. (Not literally, but you see my analogy?)

 

Christians don't think to question it because they are afraid to. They're afraid that if blue is really green, or purple, or even yellow, their entire world will come to an end. Everything they believed will all have been for nothing, so how can they be expected to go on if they have nothing left? The thing is, they don't know or care that hundreds of people a day are starting their lives over and going on after they leave the church.

 

What if the entire world was colorblind and a few people had contacts or corrective lenses, but the colorblind people didn't want to get those contacts, because they thought they'd burn in hell forever? This is what Christianity does to people. I find it very sad.

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....What if the entire world was colorblind and a few people had contacts or corrective lenses, but the colorblind people didn't want to get those contacts, because they thought they'd burn in hell forever? This is what Christianity does to people. I find it very sad.
Yes.... sad, but true:
We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides.

 

To the fundie, the "source" of "faith" is defined in an external dogmatic framework established and promulgated by the prelates of the religionist hierocracy. The home-made "commandments", doctrinal lunacy, conflicts and violence among the myriad sects demonstrate that it is impossible for these individuals to Grow in Truth, and that they are in fact, totally clueless.

 

IMO, The Light of Truth is absolute certainty established via repeatably verifiable empirical Scientific observation made in accordance with the Scientific Method, and/or the valid corroborative testimony of the personal experiences of witnesses, and the application of Reason thereto.

 

In The Power of Gnosis, Internal Vibratory At-Onement with TheAllThatIsConveyed, Love/Life/Light and.....MySelf, I place my unquestioning belief ("Faith")

 

K

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To paraphrase NT Paul, "faith is belief in that which is hoped for", i.e., it's wishfull thinking.

 

Faith is an attempt at self deception aimed at satisfying an emotional need. Can you honestly and truly believe what you want to believe if you work hard enough at doing so? Probably. The human mind is not immune to being brainwashed.

 

But faith is a form of insanity really. Whenever I get the chance, I attack faith on its own level as being an invalid form, rather than attacking that which is believed. We only use faith in those aspects of our lives that have perceived importance, but not actual importance, such as religion and politics. In areas that have actual importance, we can not afford the luxury of blind belief.

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Faith is an attempt at self deception aimed at satisfying an emotional need.  Can you honestly and truly believe what you want to believe if you work hard enough at doing so?  Probably.  The human mind is not immune to being brainwashed.

 

 

 

This is the point I was originally trying to get at. Can the concept of faith actually be achieved? By anyone? Christians say they believe because, as Zoe pointed out, the holy ghost caused it. However, as she also pointed out, the holy ghost is not first cause, cultural conditioning and other influence is first cause. In other words there is a reason to the belief and if there is a reason for it, it cannot be faith, which is "blind belief" or "belief in a vacuum," but rather just simply "belief," which has different connotations.

 

You point out that yes, blind belief can be achieved through brainwashing. And perhaps it is possible for a christian to exercise a state of blind belief by willing it so to the point of overcoming all forms of sense and reason. You make a good point here. I can conceive of someone convincing themselves that they could fly or walk on water to the point that they actually jump from a window or wade into the sea. To overcome natural sense and reason at this level implies a high level of self deception, but it does poke a hole in my original argument.

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