Blinded by Faith

I think this statement by Brigham Young deals with what you are getting at when you say blinded by faith.

“What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually.”

Today in Sunday school we talked about the wise and foolish virgins. When we talked about how to become the wise virgins and how to avoid being the foolish virgins – all the answers seemed to revolve around making us more dedicated and committed members of the church.

I suppose this seemed odd to me because I have separated my relationship with HF from my activity in the church and therefore I interpret the scripture messages differently. I suppose that each of us interpret the scriptures in a way that generally supports our worldview. We are all blinded by confirmation bias.

SD, would you say that faith is based on a hope for things that are unseen but are true? Or is faith just the hope for what we hope for in our hearts regardless of whether that is based on anything?

Maybe an example would be being blinded by faith of an investment into investment funds…and because the faith it was based on revelation it blinded them…and they didn’t do due diligence in their investing research or something like that, or even just to invest wisely because there is always risk in investing.

I just wonder if people put too much stock in their spiritual impressions, if they lose objectivity.

Maybe the 5 virgins that had oil we’re blinded by their efforts to keep enough for the bridegroom visit that they we’re blinded to realize they could have spared some to the “foolish virgins” if they weren’t so wrapped up in themselves.

Maybe some have so much faith in the church, they are blinded to the deeper gospel principles.

Maybe some have so much faith in God up in heaven, that they are blinded to see the power we have inside ourselves to already have the power to make heaven or the kingdom of God internally right now.

I dunno. One could argue that is false hope, not faith, if it is not based on truth.

I’m just throwing it possibilities on how faith can blind someone.

You have some good examples in mind?

SD, would you say that faith is based on a hope for things that are unseen but are true? Or is faith just the hope for what we hope for in our hearts regardless of whether that is based on anything?

The definition of faith in the first question above is a circular argument. If you KNOW it’s true, there is no need for faith! So, you can’t know for sure if it’s faith or not because the very nature of faith is to believe things you can’t verify. To me, it’s a very nonsensical definition of faith.

It also provides unjustified protection for the faith concept. If you have faith in something, and it doesn’t work out, or proves destructive, then all the proponents of faith have to say is that you were faithing in something that wasn’t true. Pretty darn convenient ain’t it?

I think the second definition is closer, but I would remove “whether that [hope] is based on anything” and replace it with “that we think might be true”.

As I have gotten older, I’ve gotten more and more disillusioned with faith. Faith in oneself, faith in your ability to solve problems, faith that motivates you to act — all good. But faith in these airy fairy concepts about the nature of God, the truth of religions — all that has been subject to so much abuse over the years. Faith in promises of blessings after this life don’t make sense to me either. They remind me of the sales person (shoes) who, when I wasn’t sold on the fit of the shoes, said “they may feel weird now, but when you get wearing them around outside, they’ll feel better”. Of course, wearing them around outside voids their return policy, so really, that “promise” was there to get my to buy them — there was no guarantee if the promise didn’t come to fruition. In fact, I would be out the fee paid for the shoes.

The circular argument above is a case in point. There are a lot of well-meaning people who have been disadvantaged because of good-hearted believing in things that aren’t true, but which sound good. Our religion would say they were fooled by the craftiness of men — well — there you go — craftiness can disguise as truth, and people in honest search for the truth can be sucked in by those falsehoods. Amen to faith as a means of finding religious truth.

You have some good examples in mind?

1. Leaders who believed the priesthood ban was doctrine so they never questioned it, and even perpetuated the ban. Their faith in the so-called revelations of past prophets blinded them to the error of the “doctrine” to the point they wouldn’t even question it.

2. Leaders who would shut down anyone who questioned the efficacy of home teaching because it was “divinely revealed”. Then we find that leaders have suddenly realized no one wants to do it, and it’s not effective. Took decades but they got it. But faith in the “everything is inspired” myth led to inability to even question the program for decades, I believe.

3. DHO’s statement “we don’t ask for apologies nor do we make them” sounds a bit blind to the needs of people who have been wronged by church policy. Perhaps born of arrogance about the rightness of the church’s policies, even when they harm others.

4. Members, like me, who felt something wasn’t right with certain statements by local and higher level leaders, but simply dismissed it because of the overall culture of everything the church does being “right” and to be followed with obedience. Members like the men who massacred all the pioneers at Mountain Meadows.

Those are examples that come to mind.

Agreed. Those are good examples.

Perhaps they are all faith in leaders…but maybe not faith in the gospel, or of love, or in God…but too much the arm of flesh.

Perhaps it isn’t faith that is the problem, but what that faith is in?

Proper faith can be a very good thing to inspire people to be better and have hope for the future. But if they miss the mark…they could be blinded by lesser faith. Which God allows mortals to learn that lesson the hard way.

The part in faith puts us right back into the circular argument. The very nature of faith is belief in something you can’t verify. So, it’s error prone — the chances are good you’ll end up having faith in SOMETHING that isn’t true.

Life operates on faith.

Scientific experiments are based on the hope that they will produce things that cannot be seen at the time.

Addicts enter treatment with the hope that they will be able to recover and live a clean and sober life, despite having failed to do so in the past.

Women get pregnant for the second or third of fourth time with the hope that this pregnancy won’t end like the last one(s).

Soldiers fight with the hope that they will live through it, even as they watch others die around them.

Sick people participate in experimental therapies with the hope that this one will work.

People stay with loved ones who have dementia with the hope that those loved ones will recognize them and say, “I know and love you,” despite it not happening day after day after day after day.

Hope in the unseen makes life bearable. Life without hope in the unseen . . .

Yes, we can be blinded by faith. Absolutely. However, we also ARE enlightened and inspired and driven by faith. I will take the enlightenment even though it includes a degree of blindness – of seeing in part and through a dark glass. I want to be able to believe in what seems unlikely or even impossible in the moment.

Two things — I like the things Curt mentioned — they are tangible things that you can verify eventually in this life by the outcome. Many will have success rates that show people can pursue those objectives and find they come to fruition. I think those are all worthy things in which to have faith.

The hard part comes when you have to give up your millions (kidding), all your disposable time, and your family relationships for faith in something that is only verifiable after death. And maybe hundreds of years after death. Things like which religion is true, whether JS really was a prophet, whether the 3 kingdoms, spirit prison/paradise actually exist, and outer darkness exists, whether Christ was just a good, influential man, or whether he was the divine son of God.

These things aren’t verifiable right now. You can get warm fuzzies about them which we can interpret as the holy ghost, but those feelings have proven unreliable to me in the past. I still hang on with the church in hope and faith there is SOME truth to them, and have hope they are true. But given many of the recent reversals of doctrine/policy, I wonder just how much power “faith in a specific religion” should have over my life.

The second thing — no one has addressed the circular argument that “faith is a belief in things you can’t see, but which are true”. So, based on this definition, if someone has faith in say, Islam, and then dies and finds its not true, they never had faith. And they don’t get the faith kudos either. They were just deceived or wrong.

How is that fair? By definition, faith is a belief in things you can’t verify, so just how accountable is the “believer” for believing unverifiable things that aren’t true? It’s the same lame argument traditional Christians give about being “saved” as simply believing. If you say “what about the guy who confesses Christ as his Savior, and then goes out and murders five people?”. Their answer “then he was never saved”. Circular argument where the first part of the sentence’s true is based on the truth of the second part, and the second part’s truth is based on the first part. It’s not a sound argument or statement, or a way of deciding who was saved.

I would like to say that “faith is a belief in things you can’t verify, but hope are true”. That way you can still be wrong, but get kudos for exercising faith.

And it makes sense. We start a business because we have evidence that inspires hope the business will be successful — such as local demand, for example. We enter counseling because we have faith the counselor can help us with our problems. We get pregnant a third and fourth time because we have hope that we will finally have a healthy baby.

If these things prove not to be true, we still had faith and should receive blessings for having such faith. The only time I think our “faith” requires censure is when we have faith in things we should have known were untrue. And this knowledge comes from solid evidence. For example, when you see four weather forecasts and they all provide a 90% chance of sunny skies throughout the entire day. That’s pretty solid evidence that good weather is in hand. To ignore it and cancel your event that day for fear of rain would likely be considered foolish. And even if it DOES rain, you should receive kudos for making a good decision based on the evidence at hand, even though it wasn’t 100% certain.

But defining the virtue faith as believing things you can’t verify right now THAT ARE TRUE is a nonsensical, circular definition to me.