In a religious context...what is "FAITH?"

AllanSwann wrote:

As always, I appreciate Frank's provocative (and many times, hilarious) posts.

If you think I can be provocative and hilarious here...you really gotta find time to share a few beers and a bone with me. Twisted Evil

Come on to the Big Apple and join the NYC crew in a bit of debauchery.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

AllanSwann wrote:
As always, I appreciate Frank's provocative (and many times, hilarious) posts.

If you think I can be provocative and hilarious here...you really gotta find time to share a few beers and a bone with me.

Come on to the Big Apple and join the NYC crew in a bit of debauchery.

It might be the rum or the long vacation weekend here, but I'm goin' through my own nostalgic travelogue and I remember your fair city as one of the most positively electrifying congregations I've ever seen, Frank. I was there for my one and only trip (so far) in mid-July 1996. My ex-wife and I drove down from Boston in our Ford Explorer and just rolled into Manhattan Isle like it was a mid-western burg. However, I soon found the middle USA country "ways of the road" to be obsolete and managed to bull my way down to some semi-luxury hotel next to Rockefeller Center without a modicum of politeness. We were escorted the following evening by my cousin who worked for the local ABC affiliate news department to a few watering holes and wandered past Lincoln Center that night to a curbside (of all things) bluegrass concert. After touring that day the usual tourist sites of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Greenwich Village, the Bowery (where I desperately tried to find the early day haunts of "The Talking Heads", Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix and even (then) the World Trade Center, we headed for our new digs near Central Park at some hotel that I wished I could remember the name but mustta been a gothic architecture apartment complex in an earlier life, only to be roundly awaken by the news and sirens of the TWA crash off Long Island. So we left your dear city the following day, but I always swore I'd make it back for a big long visit. I still subscribe to the notion that NYC is the City of the World, no matter how jingoistic that notion might seem today.

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AllanSwann wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
AllanSwann wrote:
As always, I appreciate Frank's provocative (and many times, hilarious) posts.

If you think I can be provocative and hilarious here...you really gotta find time to share a few beers and a bone with me.

Come on to the Big Apple and join the NYC crew in a bit of debauchery.

It might be the rum or the long vacation weekend here, but I'm goin' through my own nostalgic travelogue and I remember your fair city as one of the most positively electrifying congregations I've ever seen, Frank. I was there for my one and only trip (so far) in mid-July 1996. My ex-wife and I drove down from Boston in our Ford Explorer and just rolled into Manhattan Isle like it was a mid-western burg. However, I soon found the middle USA country "ways of the road" to be obsolete and managed to bull my way down to some semi-luxury hotel next to Rockefeller Center without a modicum of politeness. We were escorted the following evening by my cousin who worked for the local ABC affiliate news department to a few watering holes and wandered past Lincoln Center that night to a curbside (of all things) bluegrass concert. After touring that day the usual tourist sites of the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Greenwich Village, the Bowery (where I desperately tried to find the early day haunts of "The Talking Heads", Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix and even (then) the World Trade Center, we headed for our new digs near Central Park at some hotel that I wished I could remember the name but mustta been a gothic architecture apartment complex in an earlier life, only to be roundly awaken by the news and sirens of the TWA crash off Long Island. So we left your dear city the following day, but I always swore I'd make it back for a big long visit. I still subscribe to the notion that NYC is the City of the World, no matter how jingoistic that notion might seem today.

:wink:

I know I speak for all the NYC contingent when I say that we would all welcome a return visit by you.

Who knows!

It may appear on the horizon when you least expect it. Twisted Evil

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Frank said ....I understand that reasonable, intelligent people can find that to be an uncomfortable postion to adopt.

Sometimes I think about Einsteins theory of relativity,
E=mc2
He was looking to define life. Interesting that he found everything comes from energy (E). Interesting too that when you take something and reduce it to ts smallest component- the atom and then split the atom you get a release of energy that is well the atom bomb . Interesting that there are millions of these atoms. Kinda makes me wonder what this energy is.
The bible says.......Rom 11:36 for of him and through him and to him are all things.

Off topic.....What are all the red marks by the posts?

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At the risk of being ignored, I wonder what Ernest Hemmingway thought when he entered his bathroom carrying a shotgun and decided to eat the barrel and bullet.

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Any beilief, assumption, or guess about the past requires faith. Faith is not just picking something out of the air and believing it whole-heartedly (that is stupidity); it is gathering the facts, making the fairest judgements, and calling that your creed.

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thunder_runner32 wrote:

Any beilief, assumption, or guess about the past requires faith. Faith is not just picking something out of the air and believing it whole-heartedly (that is stupidity); it is gathering the facts, making the fairest judgements, and calling that your creed.

Often it is nothing more than picking something out of the air...and "believing it" whole-heartedly.

Fact is...almost all of religion does exactly that.

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What then do we choose to believe? A book? A rock? Either way you go, it requires faith, and something based in faith...is religious.

Personally, I will choose the one with the most evidence...

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thunder_runner32 wrote:

Personally, I will choose the one with the most evidence...

Aha, but does the most evidence equate to sufficient evidence?

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I dont know what faith is but it sure aint what it was

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

thunder_runner32 wrote:

Personally, I will choose the one with the most evidence...

Aha, but does the most evidence equate to sufficient evidence?

Sufficient enough for our existence...

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Quote:

Sufficient enough for our existence...

That is a matter that each of us must decide for ourselves.

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Exactly

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thunder_runner32 wrote:

What then do we choose to believe? A book? A rock? Either way you go, it requires faith, and something based in faith...is religious.

Personally, I will choose the one with the most evidence...

Some of us choose not to "believe" anything.

A "belief" is really just a statement....guess, speculation, estimate...of something unknown.

There really is no need to speculate or guess about whether or not there is a GOD involved in the reality of existence...so choosing not to guess is as reasonable and logical an option as making a guess.

Your comments here seem to indicate that you suppose a guess is necessary. Do you feel that way? If yes, why?

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The point you are missing, is that our beliefs are the structure of every desicion that we make. Though, some people, like you and partly myself, feel that our lives will continue in the same fashion, with or without a God...you and I for different reasons though.

Personally, I am happy with a life that follows in the teaching of Christ, and I know that the moral boundaries set in the bible all seem to have some reason behind them, and help to create a fulfilling life.

As far as guessing goes, the question pops in my mind of the difference between guessing and faith, and their signifigance to each other...I'm not sure. Your thoughts?

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

I dont know what faith is but it sure aint what it was

Interesting. What specifically are you referring to?

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Allan said.....At the risk of being ignored, I wonder what Ernest Hemmingway thought when he entered his bathroom carrying a shotgun and decided to eat the barrel and bullet.

Does anyone really know what happens when a person dies? Can anyone really explain what they are doing here? Life makes so little sense if life begins at birth and ends at death. Do we ever stop to consider that there might be something more? The bible says God is calling us to a higher life in Christ Jesus, a life beyond all of this.
There is a very celebrated book out now called "The Purposeful Life" that tries to make sense of life for christians and nonchristians alike. I like what I read and would recommend the book.

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thunder_runner32 wrote:

The point you are missing, is that our beliefs are the structure of every desicion that we make.

The point you are missing is that it is not correct to assert that "our beliefs are the structure of every desicion that we make."

I specifically do not have any beliefs. I make guesses, estimates, suppostions...but I do not have any "beliefs."

Quote:

Though, some people, like you and partly myself, feel that our lives will continue in the same fashion, with or without a God...you and I for different reasons though.

I'm not sure that we do have different reasons...but I am willing to hear what you suppose those differences are...and to discuss them. I think that would be worthwhile.

Quote:

Personally, I am happy with a life that follows in the teaching of Christ, and I know that the moral boundaries set in the bible all seem to have some reason behind them, and help to create a fulfilling life.

I am very taken with the non-theological teachings (humanitarian) teachings of Jesus...and as I have noted on hundreds of occasions, I have incorporated many of them into my personal philosophy of life.

Most of the moral boundaries set up in the Code of Hammurabi seem to have reasons behind them...and many help to create a fulfilling life.

So what?

Quote:

As far as guessing goes, the question pops in my mind of the difference between guessing and faith, and their signifigance to each other...I'm not sure. Your thoughts?

I've explained this many, many times...but allow me to do so again.

In a religious context, a "belief" is nothing more than a guess about the unknown...that is designated a "belief" rather than a guess by the person making it...in an attempt (consciously or unconsciously) to disguise the fact that it is nothing more than a guess.

"Faith" is simply INSISTING that the guess (called a belief) is correct.

If you would like to discuss that...let's do so.

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Let's put all that in the form of an example.

A belief:

Someone says: I believe there is a God...and that the Bible tells us what the God is like.

Unless the person asserting those items can show that they KNOW BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT both that there is a God...and that the Bible tells us what the God is like...

...it is a guess. (Guesses can also be called estimates, suppositions, and the like)

But in a religious context...nobody wants to say "I guess there is a God...and I guess that the Bible tells us what the God is like"...for very obvious reasons.

So...they disguise the fact that it is a guess (or if you will, estimate, suppostion)...and call it a "belief."

(This is the reason I say I do not have "beliefs." I refuse to disguise the fact that I am guessing when I am guessing.)

Further...when a person says "I have faith in the fact that I "believe" there is a God and I "believe" that the Bible tells us what the God is like...

...the person is INSISTING that the guess is correct.

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Which leads us to faith, faith is the trust you put into your beliefs.

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In a religious context...what is "FAITH?"

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