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At sacrament meeting today one of the speakers made the point that faith was just a matter of deciding to believe. I was struck by that since my loss of faith came from a combination of not feeling a connection with the Spirit and not being able to explain problems with JS, polygamy, the BoM, historical problems, etc.. Do I just decide not to think about them and say they don’t matter? I’d appreciate other’s opinions. GBSmith wrote:At sacrament meeting today one of the speakers made the point that faith was just a matter of deciding to believe. I was struck by that since my loss of faith came from a combination of not feeling a connection with the Spirit and not being able to explain problems … Do I just decide not to think about them and say they don’t matter?
Deciding to believe in what, exactly? If you mean deciding to believe in a lot of the details surrounding the lds faith that are clearly questionable, then I think that horse has left the barn. If you’re talking about something more nuanced, then there is still hope.
You have touched on a central issue in all of this, at least for me. I, too, have had it suggested to me that I should “just believe”, but of course it’s not as simple as that, and people that say that sort of thing tend not to see the world the same way that some of us do. That’s my euphemistic way of saying that they have a different personality type. To ask someone to “just believe” in a thing that is ludicrous to them is to ask someone to deny their own self, and I think it would lead to all sorts of mental and emotional issues for anyone that tried to do it.
Having said that, here are two thoughts that have helped me a lot while trying to navigate this journey. One was something Bushman said (I think). Something along the lines of “I have cause to believe. I have cause to doubt. I choose to believe.” The other is the idea of the “leap of faith” that Kierkegaard espoused. Both imply that belief is somewhat of a conscious decision, and not something that comes over us inexplicably.
I also think that completing the process of deconstruction before trying to “believe” anything that someone else is selling is important. Again, at least for me. Once I have leveled the playing field, so to speak, I am much more inclined to be open to investigating truths on my own terms.
I have heard this definition “faith is a belief in things that are unseen, but which are true”. Therefore, if you buy into that definition of faith, what you choose to believe HAS to be true — or it’s not faith. It’s not just what you decide to be true through the imperfect lens of a mortal, or by definition its not faith.
Now, personally, I no longer buy into that definition. I think faith is believing in something you can’t see –whether true or not. And yes, we decide what we have faith in. Even believing in the LDS version of the gospel as a result of a spiritual impression involves a decision to believe at some point. Ultimately, we decide to believe — and often, we believe in things that are false.
To me, faith is hoping things are true and acting as if they are. I do think a lot of it is just deciding that the evidence for the church (or whatever) is good enough, and you are going to not worry about the rest. It would be the same if you were going to propose marriage to a woman. You don’t know for sure that she will say yes, but you have enough evidence to take the leap. Of course she could say no, and the BoM might be a fairy tale, but you have to take that leap at times. It’s the old risk vs reward axiom.
It’s interesting how life intersects sometimes in multiple places. I wrote the following a while ago, and it posted to my personal blog this morning: “Letting Go of Knowledge and Returning to Faith” (
http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2011/03/letting-go-of-knowledge-and-returning.html Thanks for asking, GB. I totally 100% believe your question is my definition of faith…that I just need to decide what to believe and go with it because I can’t see the answers as we look through the glass darkly, so I just have to choose what to believe. I decide what I will believe and I commit to it. The closer I am to reality and truth, the more my faith will sustain me. I think some mormons process things a certain way and decide what to believe, and some mormons process the same teachings differently and some catholics or whatever other religion decide to believe things another way (there is variation within one church and across different churches)…and we are all off a little bit from the real truth…because that truth is veiled from us as prescribed in the Great Plan. Most importantly, regardless of what faith you have, what you decide to believe, the real critical thing is what you do with it. Faith is more than belief because it is action-oriented. So whatever your beliefs…the actions you take are what matter.
GBSmith wrote:Do I just decide not to think about them and say they don’t matter?
In a way yes, but probably not exactly the way it first appears. Those things DO matter, but to the realm of physical truth and not necessarily to spiritual truth. I say that my Mormonism requires me to believe in things that ARE true – whatever that is. Current understanding always evolves as we gain more light and understanding line upon line — along the principles of continuing revelation. Just because our comprehension of some topics evolve, that does not mean we need to discard the principles of further light and knowledge that brought us to that point – after we arrive there.
In short you are not supposed to “sit in a box.” That does not serve your eternal progression well. Climbing out of the box can be uncomfortable, but it can also be a tremendous learning experience. However, the same symbols that you have always been familiar with still point to spiritual truths. On those you CAN “just decide to believe.” It may require some decoding for you to see the truths “outside of the box”, keep looking.
No definitely not. The leap of faith is needed, but faith itself is more complicated, more mysterious, if only in a psychological sense. GBSmith wrote:At sacrament meeting today one of the speakers made the point that faith was just a matter of deciding to believe. I was struck by that since
my loss of faith came from a combination of not feeling a connection with the Spirit and not being able to explain problems with JS, polygamy, the BoM, historical problems, etc.. Do I just decide not to think about them and say they don’t matter?I’d appreciate other’s opinions. The problem is that people can’t always just choose to believe whatever they want to; sometimes they either believe something or they don’t or else they’re not really sure what to think. I can try to tell myself that the stories of the flood and the Tower of Babel actually happened approximately the way they are described in the Bible but at this point my mind refuses to cooperate and just won’t believe it. Personally, I don’t care much for beliefs that basically require ignorance or denial of generally accepted facts and evidence to sustain but I still like faith in cases where there is no way to know for sure either way.
To me, having faith is simply a best guess about something essentially unknown that you still feel confident enough about to act as if it were true and it seems like faith is often based on speculation and/or anecdotal evidence like eyewitness accounts, hearsay, etc. rather than undeniable evidence. Of course, no one would probably say that they have “faith” that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy even though conspiracy theorists can think of alternative explanations. It seems like faith also typically implies belief in something beyond the ordinary like divine intervention so this gives some people another reason to doubt.
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 know there are various popular arguments against God about things like lack of evidence and the “problem of evil” but for me they don’t hold much weight and as long as the idea of God still makes sense to me and I don’t see any convincing reasons why I should believe otherwise then I am perfectly comfortable believing in this without needing or expecting any conclusive proof that can’t be denied by skeptics.
GBSmith wrote:At sacrament meeting today one of the speakers made the point that faith was just a matter of deciding to believe.
In SS someone made the exact same comment. We were taliking about the parable of the sower and the 4 soil types and this lent itself well to talking about how to become the good “believing” soil. I don’t believe that people just choose to believe. There are many variables such as personality types, life experiences, support from ward & family etc, that make these choices more or less possible depending on their presence and severity.
I made the point that the apostle Paul had a “thorn in the flesh” and that in the following parable the tares and the wheat are to grow together untill the end. My point is that the challenge of this life is to navigate adversity and not that we can wish it away by deciding to have faith. Maybe your thorn in the flesh or tares are to be “a combination of not feeling a connection with the Spirit and not being able to explain problems with JS, polygamy, the BoM, historical problems, etc.”
I also think it is important to remember from the parable of the wheat and the tares that there is still wheat among the tares and it is good. This site helps me to nourish my “wheat” while not pretending that the “tares” don’t exist.
doug wrote:
Deciding to believe in what, exactly? If you mean deciding to believe in a lot of the details surrounding the lds faith that are clearly questionable, then I think that horse has left the barn.True, that.
Quote:If you remove faith from the equation, you remove hope from your perspective – which means that when the black-and-white certainty of supposed knowledge shatters, there generally is no foundation of faith left on which to fall – since “hope” has been removed from the equation.
Black and white didn’t serve me well since when it was gone it’s as Ray said, there’s no foundation on which to fall back on. Roy’s comment about a “thorn in the flesh” is pretty much spot on since not believing has become the starting place rather than the opposite. I expect the first step is figuring out a way to extract the thorn. Anyway I appreciate all the thoughts.
Faith could be just as much be a matter of deciding not to believe as believe. Iow, deciding WHAT to believe. Old-Timer wrote:Iow, deciding WHAT to believe.
, and what NOT to believe…and following it up with actions.
A group of people can all have similar actions (attend church, pay tithing, etc), even if their faith differs slightly on what they believe and what they don’t believe. I think there is wiggle room in faith, which allows for variation in thoughts/beliefs within the same church.
I’ll just throw one out there: What if I “decide to believe”, for instance, as an atheist….is that faith?
To answer my own question…I think it probably is but that sure deminishes the reverence that we usually associate with the word.
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