Does faith = religion?

Re: perceptions

chris2a wrote:

John Jones wrote:
No one practices a religion because it is an integral part of culture, - fair enough... but then you go on to say that our culture 'employs' religion to change our perception or religious beliefs. That lot needs sorting out.

Also a perception cannot be said to be 'a belief'. You want to dump that idea too.
Ta.

Thanks for your insight and I would like to clarify the semantics of my observation. On a conceptual level, the term "perception" and "religious belief" are mutually exclusive and the "or" conjunctive is incorrect. The former relates to a cognitive process while the latter is a stored memory.

Faith is not confined to religious doctrine. When I turn on the water faucet, I have "faith" that it will fall into the glass below and not rise to the ceiling. I know this because I have always seen water fall. I subsequently acquire a perception of the phenomenon we call gravity. I believe that gravity exists based on my perceptual understanding of it which is in turn based on the information acquired through my senses.

The connotation of faith is that it is the acceptance of transcendental concepts such as life after death. Though not incorrect, this idea is incomplete. Ultimately, our "faith" or "belief" in transcendental phenomena is an extrapolation of the sum total of all our acquired perception of the world around us (we simply have no other substantive reference).

Welcome to the site where a 'thankyou for your insight' today is a 'may you die a thousand agonising deaths you backstabbing moron' tomorrow.

In order to say that you have faith that an event will occur, you must arbitrarily create objects of which you can say 'this and this will happen to that'. We do not do this except to communicate, so I would not, therefore, conclude that you 'have faith that water will fall in the glass'.

If perception is a sequence of defined objects we still need to say on what basis they are presumed as objects, so perception is prior to objects. Otherwise we are led to absurdities such as 'forest-dwellers unconsciously believe that gravity is curved four-dimensional space.'

Belief is commonly associated with religion, but whether it is or is not, belief refers to the operation or act of choosing one of two or more unprovable, mutually exclusive propositions as fact. Faith is the support, intuition or reason by which we choose a particular proposition against mutually exclusive alternatives.

(c) John Jones

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Wow, what a great topic - came in way too late!

I'm going to go so far as to say that faith and religion are so far separate from each other that one is a good thing and the other, not necessarily so. While faith, the belief in something that cannot be proven (such as God) may be a good thing due to its giving people a sense of purpose and hope even in seemingly hopeless situations, I feel that religion, the structured worship of a higher being, adds to life a hierarchal system of hypocrisy and half-truths. I'm exaggerating just a little, but I do feel that while faith may add to life, so does religion detract from it. This is, also, not true in all cases, just most.

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In some ways a symbolic physical component is necessary in addition to the pure abstraction of faith. Catholic Trinity takes care of this in the figure of Jesus. Although you could say that this places the justification for the religion within the religion itself, making it circular, the religon also contains the abstract ideal (Father) and the synthesis of the two (Holy Spirit), so Jesus is only justifying the corporeal component of a religion that alludes to more than just that. Jesus would justify a church but not the religion of the specific Church, which would have to be sought elsewhere. Faith justifies the Ideal construct, and our lives the Spirit.

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Re: perceptions

chris2a wrote:

No one really "practices" a particular religion. Religion is simply a reflection and an extension of culture.

If i may, to say that religion is "merely a reflection and extension of culture" is nothing but an overly objective and closed mind approach, wich indicates a lack of experience in the matter, or perhaps just unsatisfactory experience. There is more to religion than that. It involves personal development for people who choose to make it about that as well. It also can provide wisdom to the person who practices it.

I say practice, because, according to the dictionary, to practice means "to repeat an action in order to achieve skill" To achieve skill in a religion is to deepen ones comprehension of the texts, rituals and insights, and also to strengthen the habits of that religon.

Someone who was raised according to the standards of a particular nationality and culture can believe in, and practice a religion that is alien to that nationality and culture, and that is proven by the large following of American buddhists in Nova Scotia Canada.

I can only speak for my own experiences with buddhism, because I have only dabbled casually in other religions, and i have stuck with buddism for a little bit longer. I have experienced altered states of conciousness through meditation, i have awakened/developed kindness, acceptance, perceptiveness, awareness, and a greater understanding in general in what motivates people, and in some ways i seem to have a wider view of existence.

I would consider it a religion, because there are rituals, though they are not designed to bolster faith, and they have mind training results in the individual. in fact, if one puts blind faith into buddhism, he is missing the point.

Buddhism guides people, but towards their hearts, rather than towards spiritual perfection.

Perhaps it is not a cold and rational answer, however not everyone believes that one has to be objective to arrive at truth.

As for the difference between religion and faith:

look it up in the dictionary. it is a matter of linguistics, not philosophy.

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Religion is not Faith
I think a propblem of religions is that when many people reach the point where they begin to dis-beleive what they have been told, they assign themselves the moniker of 'athiest'.
It's fairly flacid thinking to do so. After all if you had a question and someone had given you the wrong answer, this wouldnt mean there was no question in the first place.
I think people have a problem separating religion (seen as easy answers) and the basic concept of god, or creation, or intentional design (which is a tough question, so tough it's hard even to define what the question is.)
To me athiesm is as empty and foolish as organised religion, because both view points assume some knowledge we really don't have. Both are answers, full stops in a sentance that should not finish before death. Therefore to have a viewpoint such as a religion or a stance of atheism is closing your self off to a central point of life, which is questioning without answers- a true blind faith that lies beyond concepts and in fact brings us closer to god.
Ansers lie in the brain alone, the questions are in the world and the closest we can get to objective life, or to god if you like is to be brave enough to leap blind into an unanserable question and not give in to fear and settle on an anser- which is a one way ticket away from the world and back to our minds.

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Buddhism is quite funny as a religion, because the original message was anti religious and anti ritualistic...Really more a philosophy borne from a thinker who would have balked at being diefed. But people just couldn't help turning it in an organised religion and start calling themselves buddists, buying little idols of buddha.
To me it's kind of like a man came along and said hey we dont need shops, we can grow our own food. And everyone says great lets do that! And we'll start a shop to raise proceeds to spread this great idea!..
funny

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Interesting subj!

Although, the diff between belief and faith has been discussed it does appear that there are elements of faith intertwined with any belief or set of such.

Example: Say one reads in a book or is enlightened by a professor/teacher that the moon revolves around the earth. How does this information become a belief? One either has faith (believes) that the info that he/she has collected is true or do some research involving a telescope to observe the moon and/or see some photos taken from the moon and etc. Walla we have a belief. Even if one goes to the moon and observes the moon rotating around the moon there is still an element of faith in ones ability to know what they have observed.

It appears that we hold a belief based upon faith in the method that we gather information and validate it. Through time philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant, and etc have shaped the methods used today to process information we collect and establish a belief based off such!!!

Food for thought, how do you know that you were actually born in the year in which your birth certificate states? I do not remember experiencing it but I have been told and seen documents that state that the latter is so. I have faith that what I have read and been told is true. How do we know that something is what we think it is, faith in the system from which we derive belief from non-belief (i.e. logic)? Based off of the definition in Webster's religion is a cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion. Religion could literally be considered an undeniable part of human life. Eating only vegetables is an activity that many "vegetarians" pursue with zeal; could be a religious activity based on the definition.

Strangely, It does appear that some aspect of faith may be an integral part of belief, but it does not appear that faith and religion are inseparable. I can believe that the sky is blue because energy (400nm l) scatters in the atmosphere as a result of energy at the 400nm l being interrupted by the earth atmosphere more than in any other area of the visible spectrum (the range of energy that our eyes can naturally detect). Just because I may think this is true does not mean I am religious about it. Maybe I should get excited, devote a lot of time to the belief, and form a club named The Sky Blue. Maybe then it could be classified as a religion (LOL).

By the way I am not religious! I suppose I fall in the agnostic category.

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Faith is the ability to trust without understanding.

It has nothing to do with religion...

...until religion is what faith is applied to.

Religions are frames in wich understanding of the world is fitted, same as any other scientific or philosophic model.

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faith, religion and cars.
Scientists do, of course, have to believe in things that aren't explained. Thats the basis of a theory, to come up with something that would kind of make sense and then build off of it. Faith is also just believing that the person driving that car will stop at the red light and not run you over. We even have faith that we will wake up in the morning. Faith and religion should be connected, and maybe even interchangeable, but usually are not.

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I know some people who would disagree with you regarding the scientists.

Your example with the red light shows what faith is, and is consistent with my post, (the one directly above yours), showing that faith and religion doesn't have anything to do with eachother until faith is applied to religion.

The thing is that while all religion is faith...
...not all faith is religion

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a form of faith
I think that religion is only one form of faith. Faith can be anything that a person really believes to be true. People may have faith in many things outside of religion. To have faith, I believe, is to have an extreme wish. However it is not extreme in the fact that it is unreasonable or pointless. It is a wish that you believe is absolutely true. It is a hope that you would be able to bet anything on it coming true. For example, I have faith that my life has meaning and that everything I do has some sort of consequence (positive or negative). People may have faith in many things (fate, life, friends, teams, etc.) Religion is just one common exmple that many people say they have faith in. However, many people say they have faith in religion but only the ones who truley believe in their religion and know it to be true really have faith in religion.

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does faith=religion
Faith is whatever you believe in. It does not have to be religion. I have faith in the fact that my school will win games sometimes, and it happens and sometimes it doesnt. the opposite of faith is doubt. The neutral position is just not caring. In conclusion, No faith does not have to equal religion.

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According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the word, "faith" has a number of meanings, according to the context in which it is being used.

Quote:

faith (fāth)
n.
1-Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

2-Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See
synonyms at belief, trust.

3-Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's
supporters.

4-often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.

5-The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
A set of principles or beliefs.

Often, people believe that definition 1 and definition 2 mean the same thing. They do not. When you are using the first definition, the word "confidence" could be substituted. In other words, if someone says, "My team has won nearly all of the games that they have played. I have "faith" that the team will win Saturday." What the person is saying, is that based on past performance, he can say with confidence that there is a high probability that the team will win the game on Saturday.

I would conclude that in that context, the person is using the word "faith" to make an educated guess, based on the team's track record.

In definition 2, "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence", which is usually applied to religious faith, the conclusion is based on no proof or evidence. The person here is also making a guess, but not an educated one.

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It takes faith to get out of bed in the morning. It takes faith to cross the street. It takes faith tgo succeed. Everything takes faith.

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I do agree that it takes faith to do everything because if you did not have faith then you wouldn't do anything because without faith you dont believe in yourself or anything else. A simple thing like moving your hand takes faith because you ave to believe that you can do it in order to try. To TRY you have to have faith in the fact that you can do whatever it is you want to do, whether you know it or not. In conclusion ladies and gentlemen, it takes faith to do everything, but faith still does not equal religion.

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Is Faith Everywhere?
I think those are very interesting points. I guess that I agree that people must have faith to do anything. I was thinking about the stupid things some people have done like jumping off of a building because you think you can fly. I realized that this takes more faith than anything. You must have a hell of alot of faithin your ability to fly if your willing to jump of a building to test it. I guess it's also true that you wouldn't attempt to do anything if you didn't have faith. What really would be the point in attempting even the smallest action if you didn't have faith that you could complete it. Nobody would attempt to walk if they thought they would trip and fall. Even a todler (who might trip and fall) would try to walk because even they have faith they will one day learn to. I guess faith is what allows people to do anything. It lets us live out our daily lives.

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Where is the line between belief and faith? I don't think it takes faith to get out of bed. I find this when looking for the definition:

Quote:

religion: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; "he lost his faith but not his morality"

complete confidence in a person or plan etc; "he cherished the faith of a good woman"; "the doctor-patient relationship is based on trust"

religion: an institution to express belief in a divine power; "he was raised in the Baptist religion"; "a member of his own faith contradicted him"

loyalty or allegiance to a cause or a person; "keep the faith"; "they broke faith with their investors"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

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hmm...
I never did enjoy these metaphysical discussions, but I suppose they are necessary (to a point). I will simply say that faith and religion are whatever they are perceived to be. Many people have said it, but it's just that simple. This should put an end to such discussions, all of these things are open to interpretation so there is no real need for debate.

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you have to have faith to believe in any religion. Every "religion" has aspects that must be faith based for lack of any real proof or evidence that they are true. However, faith is needed to believe in much more than just religion. It takes faith to believe in Santa Clause, but that doesn't necessarily make that belief a religion , does it?

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what is faith?
Faith does not equal religion. as we learned in class there is the small religion and Religion which is about like prayer and temple. Religion with the small "r" is about more spiritual and feelings about the world around them. Faith deals with the religion with the big "R" because its about believing in something like god and having faith in god. ALthough you can make the argument that faith can deal with whatever u believe in and whatever kind of religion you feel and perceieve. So to be honest i cant really answer this question and i dont think it matters.

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Does faith = religion?

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