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This is the comment I wrote on another thread: Quote:Quote:Where else would an affirmation of lack of faith be greeted as a genuine cause for celebration?
At the risk of not saying this correctly, and playing my natural role of resident parser, I don’t think a lack of faith is a cause for celebration. I think it’s really sad when someone loses faith. Period. Full stop.
I would say a re-examination and re-structuring of faith is a cause for celebration -but only if it leads toward a personalization of faith.
After all, if faith is the substance of things hoped for, life without faith is misery.
Can’t remember who said it but the reason religion requires faith is because it is short on facts. Faith is a great tool to help you achieve great things. If I have faith in myself I can overcome obstacles. Faith as a instrument in securing knowledge of unseen things is IMHO a suspect way of finding truth. If it worked as everyone claimed then many more people would come to the same conclusions, not the multitude of different belief structures we have, unless it is not important which answer you get, but then what is the point of exercising faith if the answer is not important. I guess I don’t really see it as a “need” as if everyone should be expected to just have faith and if not then they are wrong to feel that way because sometimes people can’t really control what they believe. However, I do think faith is generally good for people as far as making them happier and healthier in this life in many cases compared to some of the alternatives like nihilism, apathy, etc. For me, it’s not so much a question of why should I have faith in God as much as a question of why not? I already know all the major arguments that skeptics typically put forward against the idea of God but to me they are less convincing than the arguments for God. Not feeling overly certain either way doesn’t really bother me anymore because that’s what faith is to me; it’s more of a guess based on speculation and trying to estimate probabilities rather than belief in something you can really expect everyone to agree on. If it was really important for people to feel absolute certainty then God should have given everyone an undeniable sign.
Cadence wrote:Can’t remember who said it but the reason religion requires faith is because it is short on facts. Faith is a great tool to help you achieve great things. If I have faith in myself I can overcome obstacles. Faith as a instrument in securing knowledge of unseen things is IMHO a suspect way of finding truth. If it worked as everyone claimed then many more people would come to the same conclusions, not the multitude of different belief structures we have, unless it is not important which answer you get, but then what is the point of exercising faith if the answer is not important.
Cadence:
My boss has been implementing a Strengths-based organization, so I’ve been studying various traits that individuals have. I think the Gallup Strength of Analytical describes you perfectly:
AnalyticalQuote:Your Analytical theme challenges other people: “Prove it. Show my what you are claiming is true.” In the face of this kind of questioning some will find that their brilliant theories wither and die. For you, this is precisely the point. You do not necessarily want to destroy other people’s ideas, but you insist that the theories be sound. You see yourself as objective and dispassionate. You like data because it is value free. Data has no agenda. You peel the layers back until gradually, the root cause or causes are revealed Others see you as logical and rigorous. Over time they will come to you in order to expose someone’s “wishful thinking” or “clumsy thinking” to your refining mind. It is hoped that your analysis is never delivered too harshly. Otherwise others may avoid you when that “wishful thinking” is their own.
This is considered a strength by the Gallup organization’s research — and is their own wording. The last two sentence have nothing to do with your posts here though — they aren’t directed at you by me, for example.
But, not to thread-jack. I honestly think that in the absence of facts to which we can apply logic, the next best thing we have are spiritual impressions. It didn’t take me long to figure out that reason is not a reliable means for determing the truth of the big questions about whether God exists. Any attempts at reason are likely to be observational, and not scientific or experimental.
Case in point — I took a philosophy course and we studied logic. We learned to recognize fallacies, to also also use sound patterns of reasoning. One day our professor came to class with an argument the logically proved the existence of God. We tried to poke holes in his reasoning by trying to find fallacies, to provide counter-arguments,. etcetera. He defended himself beautifully. I thought it was over — he had created a bullet-proof argument for the existence of God.
But then, he shot himself in the foot. He pulled out ANOTHER argument, this time AGAINST the existence of God. The class went at him again, trying to poke holes in this reasoning. He has a reasonable answer for every single premise and conclusion. Eventually the class stopped asking him questions.
I remember raising my hand saying “If we have two bullet-proof arguments based on standards of reasoning, which both prove, and disprove the existence of God (something that can’t be true and false at the same time), then perhaps reason is not the means we should be using to determine the existence of God”.
He looked hunted for a few seconds and then said “Reason is all we have”.
I disagree — we also have spiritual impressions which suddenly become a more viable means of discerning truth when you see how flawed reason can be in trying to arrive at truth when there is no data.
I would argue that many of us worship at the altar of reason, which in itself is flawed. It performs beautifully in a number of other circumstances, but on complex issues where there are no facts, no data, no re-test reliability, no reliability or validity studies to verify logic and reason as a truth-discerning instrument in the domain, then we need to consider other means of discerning truth.
Spiritual impressions are a viable alternative in my view, because they make a strong impression on the mind and the soul. I choose to use them so at least I can focus on DOING rather than constantly wondering what is true. I think we’ve established on this forum that reason isn’t going to lead us to an irrefutable, unanimous conclusion about whether God exists, the Church is true, etectera. So I would recommend relying on the next best thing — the spiritual impressions you’ve had (you mentioned you’ve had the body-shaking experience some time agao, which is a source of evidence).
SilentDawning wrote:I think we’ve established on this forum that reason isn’t going to lead us to an irrefutable, unanimous conclusion about whether God exists, the Church is true, etectera. So I would recommend relying on the next best thing — the spiritual impressions you’ve had (you mentioned you’ve had the body-shaking experience some time agao, which is a source of evidence).
In my experience, spiritual impressions are notoriously unreliable. If I had to pick one or the other, I’d definitely choose reason. I don’t know if anyone here has read Bruce Hafen’s “Staying Spiritually Anchored in Unsettled Times” (or something like that). He recommends a combination of experience, reason, and faith. Though parts of the book are annoying, there are some parts that I’m going to read for the third time.
Quote:In my experience, spiritual impressions are notoriously unreliable.
In my case they have been unreliable too, I find reason even less reliable on issues pertaining to the existence of God or the truthfulness of the Church, however. Your idea of a combination of methods for other kinds of decisions is value, however. I think we all do that.
Notice, I said nothing about faith in any particular thing or any particular perception of God or any eternal reward (or even the existence of such) or anything else that is quantifiable. I simply believe that, at a very fundamental level, we simply must have a “substance of things hoped for” – a personal “evidence of things not seen”. I think there is unimaginable power in believing more than can be seen (and terrible restraint in believing only what can be seen) – even while I admit that such power can be used in very different ways. It certainly can be abused and cause terrible horrors, but it also can be used to create beauty and hope and light. It’s a two-edged sword, and it must be wielded intentionally and thoughtfully, imo – but I simply believe it must be wielded if someone truly is to have joy and peace of any kind.
Cadence wrote:…but then what is the point of exercising faith if the answer is not important.
Could the point be the faith itself? If you look at faith as a positive emotion – like love or joy, isn’t that worth experiencing? Faith is the motive for action, without it no great accomplishments would be started.
One specific expectation of religious faith may be in error, but if we look at everything else that faith is we can value it for that. Finding value in the authentic use can prevent the tragedy of discarding it from an error in application.
I have very little faith in religion or the LDS church to be honest. Talking to my brother several years ago, he was more or less baring his testimony to me and I asked him, “How can you believe all this and that?”
His response was, “You just have to have faith.”
My response, “True. And even in your own scriptures is quite plain that ‘faith is a gift’ and not everyone has it.’ I don’t have that gift.”
I think there are some who really do have the gift of faith and can believe and have hope in the LDS church, and there are some who just got “short end of the stick” so to speak.
To echo Brain’s wise words — if god wanted me to believe and be a great, faithful Mormon, he shouldn’t have made me like this.
SilentDawning wrote:…I remember raising my hand saying “If we have two bullet-proof arguments based on standards of reasoning, which both prove, and disprove the existence of God (something that can’t be true and false at the same time), then perhaps reason is not the means we should be using to determine the existence of God”…He looked hunted for a few seconds and then said
“Reason is all we have”…I disagree — we also have spiritual impressions which suddenly become a more viable means of discerning truth when you see how flawed reason can be in trying to arrive at truth when there is no data.…I would argue that many of us worship at the altar of reason, which in itself is flawed. It performs beautifully in a number of other circumstances, but on complex issues where there are no facts, no data, no re-test reliability, no reliability or validity studies to verify logic and reason as a truth-discerning instrument in the domain, then we need to consider other means of discerning truth… Spiritual impressions are a viable alternative in my view, because they make a strong impression on the mind and the soul. I choose to use them so at least I can focus on DOING rather than constantly wondering what is true. I think we’ve established on this forum that reason isn’t going to lead us to an irrefutable, unanimous conclusion about whether God exists, the Church is true, etectera. If I had to choose between reason and feelings to try to determine the “truth” then I would feel much more confident about reason in most cases. Sure people can easily be wrong regardless of the approach they take to arrive at their conclusions but personally I don’t think reason will necessarily lead everyone away from continuing to have some faith as a general rule regardless of what die-hard skeptics say. As far as I’m concerned, it is reason that tells me that science cannot adequately explain everything we see at this point especially when it comes to some of the legitimate experiences people repeatedly have.
If atheists/agnostics want to insist that the burden of proof should be on the side of theists to prove there is anything “supernatural” then that’s their problem as far as I’m concerned and they can believe whatever they want to but I personally see no good reason whatsoever for restricting myself to any such limitation and am perfectly comfortable to take some anecdotal evidence that can’t be re-tested at face value as long as it makes sense to me and there is no compelling evidence to the contrary.
Quote:I think there are some who really do have the gift of faith and can believe and have hope in the LDS church, and there are some who just got “short end of the stick” so to speak.
I believe that completely, cwald – at least with regard to religious faith.
I probably should have been much clear and more explicit in the original comment that I’m not talking about any particular manifestation of religious faith in this post. Rather, I’m talking about the need to retain a belief in the unseen.
However, even saying it that way, I agree that some can do so more naturally than others (or, phrased conversely, that some struggle to do so more than others) – as evidenced by some of the discussions we have here on a regular basis.
Old-Timer wrote:I’m talking about the need to retain a belief in the unseen.
I think one of the biggest manifestations and uses of faith is in our relationships with each other. I can never see into your heart. I either believe you are good, bad, or indifferent. I think it’s the beautiful kind of faith that works miracles every time we say or think “I’m OK. You’re OK.”
Tom, Beautifully said!!!!!
May I quote you?
CG
Quote:I think there are some who really do have the gift of faith and can believe and have hope in the LDS church, and there are some who just got “short end of the stick” so to speak.
I’m one of those people. Two times in my life things have happened that when I share them with other TBM’s they say “Whaaaaat??? I’m surprised you’re still active.” And I find it had made me sensitive to other things that otherwise might not phase me, like the release scenario I’ve been harping about for the last year. The old SMA that “it’s a test, the onus is on you to forgive” argument just doesn’t hold water in those scenarios. And so, here I landed.
Of course, there is my own personality and other factors to blame, but I have to confess, the challenges I’ve faced in the Church have been extraordinary, to say the least. I think cwald has described me perfectly.
SilentDawning wrote:
Cadence:My boss has been implementing a Strengths-based organization, so I’ve been studying various traits that individuals have. I think the Gallup Strength of Analytical describes you perfectly:
AnalyticalQuote:Your Analytical theme challenges other people: “Prove it. Show my what you are claiming is true.” In the face of this kind of questioning some will find that their brilliant theories wither and die. For you, this is precisely the point. You do not necessarily want to destroy other people’s ideas, but you insist that the theories be sound. You see yourself as objective and dispassionate. You like data because it is value free. Data has no agenda. You peel the layers back until gradually, the root cause or causes are revealed Others see you as logical and rigorous. Over time they will come to you in order to expose someone’s “wishful thinking” or “clumsy thinking” to your refining mind. It is hoped that your analysis is never delivered too harshly. Otherwise others may avoid you when that “wishful thinking” is their own.
This is considered a strength by the Gallup organization’s research — and is their own wording. The last two sentence have nothing to do with your posts here though — they aren’t directed at you by me, for example.
But, not to thread-jack. I honestly think that in the absence of facts to which we can apply logic, the next best thing we have are spiritual impressions. It didn’t take me long to figure out that reason is not a reliable means for determing the truth of the big questions about whether God exists. Any attempts at reason are likely to be observational, and not scientific or experimental.
I will take that as a complement. Reason is my foundational base on which I rely most heavily, but I also believe in gifts of the spirit even though they have proven wholly unreliable in my life. But I view things of the spirit more as a comfort and peacefulness than a means of diving truth. Not that reason is perfect by any means but it does have a tangible quality to it that it is adaptive and can be bent and moulded until it becomes more clear and precise. Faith or the spirt can pick up when reason fails as in the absence of facts, but then for me I must acknowledge that I am in unreliable territory and can just as easily be right or wrong. I guess I prefer to take the positions when there are no facts to sustain a belief I choose just to not know. The burden of not knowing is much lighter than the burden of faith in the unseen. If the spirit wishes to speak to me I am here and ready to listen. Until then I am using the intelligence God gave me and will “reason it out in my own mind”.
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