The virtue in faith

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Poogle, Jan 21, 2006.

  1. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    the idea of faith in religion is absurd, the entire thing is based around the assumption that the writers of the bible were truthful, well informed and not mentally ill. It is impossible to discount those three factors, we are not being asked to believe in god, we are being asked to believe in men who we have never met,
     
  2. Poogle

    Poogle New Member

    I'm not talking about the way he made the world. I'm just asking if anyone here can tell me why God rewards faith. What is it about faith, that is, believing that the people on earth who have passed on God's message are trustworthy, not mistaken, and not attempting to deceive me, that is deserving of reward? If according to your religion, the virute in faith is a secret known only to God then please just say so, because that is a perfectly valid answer. I appreciate that the nature of religion means that according to religion, humans don't know everything about their God and why he does what he does.
    I am entertaining a thought without accepting it. Just because I do not know whether or not God exists, it does not necessarily mean God is in a quantum superposition to resolved into the existence eigenbasis upon my death. I realise that God may exist even though I do not know it. I am considering the possibility that he does, and that he is the God described by Christians.

    I am in a position to question, though not deny, what I have been told if I am unable to verify the source of the message. I do not know it is not a trick by humans intended (for example) to make the population easier to control/manipulate. If I were certain the message came from God, I would obey it.
    In this analogy, opening the box is analogous to dying. Reading (and choosing to follow) the Bible for oneself is equivalent to picking a box and waiting for the cue to open it.

    I will try another analogy. I receive an email from an unknown email address which says:

    Dear Poogle,

    I'm stranded at <insert very distant location here> and I've got no money to get home because I've lost my card. My friend Bob says he can draw out some money for me to buy a ticket, but doesn't have any money in his account. Sorry to have to ask by email (I had to make this email account on hotmail at an internet cafe - Bob showed me how), but it's a real emergency! Could you get Dad to transfer £800 into this account:

    <insert account details here>

    I'll pay him back as soon as I'm home!

    love
    Mum

    Now. Call me cynical, but I wouldn't just wire that money across. I do love my mother, and I do trust her. But it's not that I think my mum is on the other end of that email trying to swindle my Dad out of 800 quid. I think that a stranger is on the other end of that meail trying to swindle my family out of 800 quid.

    In this analogy, reading many texts, asking many questions, searching for answers in science - that's equivalent to picking up a phone and trying to call my mum to ask her to verify the email is from her.

    Tell my Dad about the email and about my doubts that it's from my mother, is equivalent to giving someone the Bible, saying 'make up your own mind'.

    Sending the money out of my own bank account is like following Christianity even though I don't believe it. Just in case it's genuine, you know. (Of course here the analogy falls down, because it's not enough just to follow Christianity, you have to BELIEVE. It's not enough to say 'ok God, if you're really there you obviously deserve to be praised etc so I'm going to do it, but I'm afraid I'm not convinced you exist.' I suppose the revelation thing is like Dad saying 'let's send her the money, then she'll phone to say thanks, and then we'll be sure it's her' and I'm sitting there thinking 'then why on Io didn't she answer the phone when I called her two minutes ago?')

    Telling my Dad that Mum really needs some money and please can he send some, and yes, the account definitely belongs to a friend of hers is like giving someone a Bible and saying 'this is verifiably true, I know it it true, you should follow it otherwise you'll burn in hell'.

    And reading the Bible is like replying to the email and saying 'are you really my mum?'

    (If you want to extend the analogy even further, we can say that the £800 my Dad has in his account is something he's saving up to buy mum something special (or maybe to pay for a family member's hospital treatment, I dunno, something important). This is analogous to Christians being wrong and the real God being hurt if Dad gives £800 to a stranger (devotes their life to worship of a false God) who was just a load of humans who'd got the wrong idea about God. Imagine how sad we'd be if when Mum finally got home we realised we'd sent her present (or hospital money) to someone who'd been lying to us, and not to her at all?)

    What if I keep trying to call and can't get through? How do I know whether I'm throwing away my parents money? I won't know until I've made a decision and either Mum never shows up back home cos she's still stranded, or Mum gets home and finds we've been swindled out of a load of money.
    See my previous answer (the analogy above). I am uncertain that the Bible is authentic. I can't necessarily solve that problem by reading it. I will read it nevertheless, just in case it should contain within it a proof of its authenticity that holds in the absence of the assumption that the Bible is the word of God.
    I think we have different ideas of faith. What I mean by faith is the belief in something when you can't prove it for yourself. Knowing something is when you can.
    I'm not questioning that according to Christianity, God rewards faith. It clearly says so in the Bible, and I acknowledge that soldiers are rewarded for following orders. I don't really understand why tho. In the army it's to make people obey orders. But rewarding faith isn't going to persuade people to have faith, because if they don't believe, then they don't think those rewards exist anyway.
    I don't think everyone thinks I look silly. I think I'm asking a perfectly reasonable question. The messenger has been heavily scrutinised. But not by me. I am certainly not closing my eyes. I have started reading the Bible, but it will take me a while to read it from cover to cover. It will take me even longer to get through the Greek version. I have started reading books that people have claimed 'prove' that Easter happened, and I am scrutinizing them. I am being very thorough. I am currently in the process of checking the reliability of the cited experts Lee Strobel spoke to. I was mildly perturbed by claim that one of them has been awarded a degree by what appears to be a fictional Oxford college. I can only assume that Emmanuel College is one of the old theological colleges that has since closed or been renamed. I am looking into it, and will most likely find there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. But that gives you an indication of how seriously I am taking this, and I feel demonstrates that my eyes are anything but closed. I have never stated that I think God does not exist, I have never dismissed God outright, I have stated only that I have been unable, thus far, to convince myself or be convinced by others that he exists.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2006
  3. aikiMac

    aikiMac aikido + boxing = very good Moderator Supporter

    This is "the way he made the world," and "why" is a secret known only to God.


    Call me crazy, but if I was going to write up something to control the populous, I wouldn't include bad stories about myself. :p


    No, reading the Bible with a commentary or two, is opening the box.


    Ahhh, okay. But prove in what way? Atheism and Christianity and every other religion have limitations. Philosophers write theses on these limits. Eventually you have to make peace with the residual uncertainty.


    :eek: You're awesome! Advice learned the hard way: the Bible makes more sense when you read the books in chronological order. For some stupid reason that baffles me, the books are not arranged in chronological order! Ack!
     
  4. Poogle

    Poogle New Member

    In chronological order of when they were written, or in chronological order of the events they describe?
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2006
  5. Poogle

    Poogle New Member

    It is a mystery. If that is all the answer God has told you, that is all the answer I was looking for. I can read books, study the Bible, go to Chapel, listen to sermons, discuss theology with all the scholars under the dreaming spires, but for the personal perspective, what people believe is the reason their God rewards faith, I can only obtain that from asking people who do have faith. It really is as simple as that.
    It is the residual uncertainty that I have problems with. You may see it as a small chance that God doesn't exist. I am finding it rather difficult to even place quantitative probabilities on the things we talk about. I see the residual probability as being potentially very large, and rather difficult to make peace with.
     
  6. Topher

    Topher allo!

    I think you missed the point there. God might not exist, and everything about him is totally fabricated?

    Opening the box is about truly discovering and one cannot truly discover until they die.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2006
  7. aikiMac

    aikiMac aikido + boxing = very good Moderator Supporter

    I think these two orders are the same. For the OT you want the events put in order. The order of events matter in the OT. For the NT, once you have Acts following the gospels, it's not such a big deal.

    (I can send you the order if you can't find your own list.)
     
  8. Poogle

    Poogle New Member

    It's ok, I live with a theology scholar, I'll ask her tomorrow. I'm headed for bed now anyway so I shan't do anymore reading until after labs tomorrow at the earliest. It's nearly midnight this side of the pond(!)

    Thanks for the suggestion. One last thing, before I disappear - which translation do you use? It'd be useful for future discussion if I've at least looked over your translation of choice.
     
  9. tekkengod

    tekkengod the MAP MP

    Oh no, thats not even an option, we're always wrong, remember that memo? :D

    I'll be sure to tell u wats in the box after i off myself. :)
     
  10. aikiMac

    aikiMac aikido + boxing = very good Moderator Supporter

    In some respects that's like asking what's your favorite ice cream flavor. I prefer New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) first, and New International Version (NIV) second. Other people have different preferences.
     
  11. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    I wonder...what makes the faith held by christians any different than the faith held by muslims???

    I'm guessing there isn't one, both have their holy texts, both holy texts were written by men, both holy texts claim to be the word of God, yet there are some key differences.

    So what makes Christian faith more valid than Muslim faith, and why will the muslims go to hell for not believing the christian message, when all they've done is had faith in their God?
     
  12. Socrastein

    Socrastein The Boxing Philosopher

    Faith is belief in something for which there isn't sufficient evidence or reason to justify belief.

    Nobody respects little kids who believe in Santa Claus with no viable reason, and nobody respects patients in the local insane asylum who think everyone around them is a robot or their pills are cleverly disguised spider eggs. At best we call the former "cute", and the latter "crazy", but never have I heard someone call either "admirable".
     

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