What is Faith?

[james]

In the past I always felt that the meaning of faith was the unconditional acceptance of entrusting God to know what is best for mankind even if at times people believe that God works in very mysterious ways.

In more recent times, although I still accept my earlier understanding I have an updated interpretation based on personal experiences and those of people close to me.

Many will say "what a load of rubbish!" and I understand... So here goes :

For me "Faith" is the awareness of every thought and movement made by every person being planned and controlled by God to keep everything running smoothly with mankind evolving in a timely manner according to the master plan, and being OK about it. In one hand knowing it, in the other switching off from it and just living life with a free, open mind.

If my interpretation is correct, it would be nice for it to be noted, even if it is 100yrs later!

How do you see it?

James, 14th Nov 2009 (just in case!)

[p-cha]

i just wanna eat carrots in society..,and i hate stick so much..

[james]

So you don't care how it's done. You just want to have your cake and eat it!

[indigl]

What is Faith?

Good question. I ask myself the same question sometimes. Faith seems to be more than just belief. It's more like trust combined with knowing. Like how you can just know that someone is not capable of murder, even without proof. Faith is something that you can only have in a person, not an institution and not in a belief system.


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Faith in God is trusting God and knowing that he is real and that he is fair and that he is good, even without proof.

[QuosVadis]

Faith is not something that you get from religion... Although religions are tryng to register trade mark it...
I can have faith in my children. My job, my boss, my country, my country leader, my partner and the list is endless... Way Faith has to be religious?... My dog is faithful to me.. The name for dog Fido means in Latin Faith..
Faith=trust...that is all it means.
I can have faith if someone is going down to the shop for me and buy me something and I have faith that He/she want cheat me and brings me back the rite change..
Regarding faith again.. An Evangelist the other day went to jail and was sentence 175 Years.. Lots of people had faith in him....
Faith and religion is a bad mix... That is way religion wants you to have faith so they can easily manipulate you…

---------- Post added at 06:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:13 PM ----------

Spiritual faith??? That is personal..
I have faith in my messenger and my experience..
Religion will never get my faith...Ever...
My experience is far more important then anyone else beliefs..

[Sylvester]

I like this verse (Hebrews 11:1) - "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

It really hit me one day. Faith is evidence, faith is substance. It's real.

[james]

Thank you for your input guys. My main perspective in this thread is one of spiritual faith.

[existencebeyondexperience]

the definition of faith, as like the definitions of 'conservative', 'liberal', 'good' and 'evil' changes depending on a given period of history.

in the modern usage, i see either faith as wishful or hopeful thinking (fail, imho); or the proud "faith" espoused by people whose bible is at a middle school reading level. that kind of "faith" is actually just ignorant pride, masquerading as the cornerstone of belief that makes any given believer or follower somehow better than another in spiritual haggling.

my glass is always 2/3 full, but it's not faith that occupies the vessel. faith for me seems totally unrewarded, or the persistent insistence upon repetition until perhaps something different occurs (hint).

[p-cha]

So you don't care how it's done. You just want to have your cake and eat it!

yup u got me

[Indigo Dog]

My concept of faith has definitely evolved and softened over the years.

I know when I apply it. When I'm moving forward because there is a sense of rightness about the situation and trust in the outcome.

Faith is a spiritual muscle I've developed that I can flex and lean on when "reality" is no longer supporting my perception.

[srky2121420]

Good question !
Faith for me is when I fight my battles the best way I can, and loos, but something makes me feel like it's going to be all right. I guess Faith is a concept of life , when you instinctively know that all of this is for you'r own good and that the management is on top of things.

[QuosVadis]

Thank you for your input guys. My main perspective in this thread is one of spiritual faith.

Already answer that... My spiritual faith is important, not someone else faith that was written 5000 years ago and proved wrong... Biblical faith has been manipulated and that is a fake faith..
Mine is real, not over rated...

[Sephish]

Just found this particularly amusing.

[QuosVadis]

Just found this particularly amusing.

For you to get faith you must belong to a faith... BUT ITS NOT YOURS..!!! Cant get too see your thumbnails Sap..dont know way...
But I have a feeling that you agree with my opinion.....

---------- Post added at 07:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:33 PM ----------

I like this verse (Hebrews 11:1) - "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

It really hit me one day. Faith is evidence, faith is substance. It's real.

I like better Quos Vadis paragraph 1: 100000000000000000

[tmt]

Faith is knowing on every level of understanding that God is in charge. If you reach for His hand, it is always readily available. It is a rest to worry and an embrace with joyfilled love.

[QuosVadis]

Faith is knowing on every level of understanding that God is in charge. If you reach for His hand, it is always readily available. It is a rest to worry and an embrace with joyfilled love.

So were do you learn this faith from???

[tmt]

By stepping through your fears without worry for what is on the other side. God is your shield, you do not need a sword. Blind Fear is, truly, the mindkiller. Blind faith is dark night of soul, in some respects. It only happens once, the first time you embrace faith in Almighty God in heart's center. After that, faith learns to discern with eyes open.

[QuosVadis]

Blind faith is dark night of soul, in some respects. .

Correct.....
So how strong is your faith??? Do you believe that you have inherited the kingdom of God?/

[existencebeyondexperience]

i wrote this piece about a year ago, but i recently shut down that blog to concentrate on this site more. thankfully, my tf/bff/sm/we had it quoted on her old blog.

"an open letter to the world at large.

so if we are to believe the people who claim to run things and whose influence somehow pervades our minds, then the following is an utter truth, backed by history and scripture, and the words of the Son of God Himself.

1 corinthians 13:13

'13 But now we still have faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.'

this is from the bible in basic english translation. to my mind, the least ambiguously worded version i could find at a glance.

the last half is applicable. it has been proven again and again.

i have opined on love before, and i know now that love is an emotion, simply. a concept that we have grown out of familiarity and successful survival to define how we should act.

and yet we don't. faith seems to be the big one lately, and it seems to me that a person trying to reconfigure the message in his or her holy scripture is committing blasphemy and sin right there, by their own belief system. and then they try to justify it.

the point is, love is not a rational or irrational emotion. it is an emotion experienced by both rational and irrational beings whose brains, bodies, minds and souls are merely a cognicent interpretation as to the meaning or purpose behind what our inner selves have thus far experienced. we are built for the purpose of survival and reproduction. we have been given enough time and the right tools through nature to be aware of this fact. seeking deeper meaning to this is unnecessary because there is no further concrete idea of our function in existence other than to survive and reproduce, and now we can think about it while we do it.

at that level, why is not as meaningful as we perceive. how seems to be, but asking why and how at the same time yields an inaccurate and irrational answer.

the greatest of these virtues as proposed by a group of people thousands of years ago who thought a change would be nice. love is the greatest, and as the beatles said, love is all you need. hope and faith can be within the bounds of love, though faith is actually the very thing that will destroy religion or us all if they aren't checked.

so why is it so important to abandon reason for faith and then marginalize hope and love, which always provide a better alternative to wishing for something and not knowing why it does or does not happen like you wanted it to.

faith in the senses is all the faith we can have, and i am a personal witness to the ambiguous nature of our sensory perceptions and our interpretations thereof.

hope is a wish for the future to improve, but with only faith as a foundation, stagnation and stalemate will occur. hope for the future and the faith in humanity is all well and good, but without love to fuel the passion behind it, we are slovenly and ignorant. true love is not just a romantic notion. compassion, honesty, charity. these are all rooted in love, given the right intentions. the right intentions are sculpted from faith and hope as well.

for some reason, a reasonable thinker can call this like it's nothing, but it would seem to be the most utterly foreign concept to the masses.

and therein lies the problem. how do you impress the importance of rational thought on someone who is caught up in irrational thought? how do you change minds? it may not be possible on that level, and i accept that.

however, if you spread a good idea and make it available, in years or decades, there is a chance that, if anyone else who sees the same things i see also makes a positive statement, then there is an ever-increasing chance of a younger person who is searching for knowledge and understanding happening upon just one piece of it, understanding the idea that faith is not more powerful than love unless you're not thinking clearly. this person could then act accordingly and lead by example as well.

this is already at work in our art and philosophy areas of society, but commerce (an arbitrary construct relative to art and philosophy) and religion have lost sight of the overall goal of survival and reproduction and the meaning is almost entirely lost in the deluge of supercilious details.

the point is, love is supposed to conquer all, and it does. but we have to practice it unconditionally toward each and every person in the world. if not, things like everything we take as just being 'the world today' happen and peoples' lives are squandered and lost in the vain pursuit of an ignorant and invalid goal, faith conquering all. love is greater and faith can never overcome that.

faith, hope, and live remain, but the greatest of these is love.

if you believe that is the sacred word of God, then you had better examine your entire life and all your thoughts and actions. do you practice unconditional love for one another? i doubt it. it's hard. i still get upset a lot. but i know the point is to remember that we are all lost souls in a sea of lost souls, almost totally unaware that we and the sea are one and the same.

only the sea is self-aware and self-conscious. it should be more aware of its surroundings as well, and take it all into account. our perspective is not a definition of reality, merely an opinion on it. everything in the world and the universe is there, like it or not. we'd be better off to accept that fact and move on to how it works and understand what we are truly capable of, learning from history's mistakes that technology and science are neutral ideals. it's the people who have them and use them that bend and pervert them for ill gains or destruction. but the same science and technology can help others and it even makes it possible for me to talk about this and hope that others will read it and think about it.

this is all my opinion; you must judge what to agree or disagree with. but make sure you think long and hard about these things i write before jumping to a conclusion or assuming i'm off somehow. we're all off. that's my point. if we want to know what 'on it' is, we had better figure out how to get on it before it leaves without us.

later."

not the same entity, to be sure, but i still agree. i just didn't want to come off in the last post as an ass, which i think i may have. just not willing to wear kid-gloves because some people are oversensitive or use their 'faith' as an excuse not to even discuss differing opinions.

---------- Post added at 06:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:45 AM ----------

Correct.....
So how strong is your faith??? Do you believe that you have inherited the kingdom of God?/

i've inherited a soon-to-be-reanimated corpse. and nobody ever mentions the corpse is a 'she'.

[tmt]

Correct.....
So how strong is your faith??? Do you believe that you have inherited the kingdom of God?/

I believe I have inherited the nothing in this world not related to familial ties. Whether I am weighed worthy of consideration as a devout servant of the Light of the Heights is not a question I could answer. A person is measured by the fullness of their life.