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I just wanted to share a little snippet of information that came across in my lesson on Sunday on faith. I asked for definitions of what faith is. Someone said “A willingness to act in a way that defies common sense”. I said “I’m not being facetious when I say this, as I see your point. But could that also be considered the definition of stupidity???”.
Everyone chuckled at that and I moved on.
Is that a trait of faith — a willingness to do what is against our intelligence and common sense?
Yes, in a way, if it is based on hope in something without visible evidence. There is a fine line between faith and stupidity – and some people who aren’t wired toward a faith-orientation will never be able to see the difference.
SilentDawning wrote:I just wanted to share a little snippet of information that came across in my lesson on Sunday on faith. I asked for definitions of what faith is. Someone said “A willingness to act in a way that defies common sense”.
I said “I’m not being facetious when I say this, as I see your point. But could that also be considered the definition of stupidity???”.
Everyone chuckled at that and I moved on.
Is that a trait of faith — a willingness to do what is against our intelligence and common sense?
Yes, I believe it is. Faith is the willingness to act and trust something that you do not know to be true and reliable. You’re acting on hope — on optimism. And that, at one definition, is not great common sense.I agree…I can think of examples of how that would fit the definition of faith. And I can think of situations where that definition would trouble me and I am not sure I would go against my common sense. It would be situational for sure. If it is going against common sense because authority told you to do it…I would call that “blind faith.” Not very many people I talk to think blind faith is a good thing, ever.
Perhaps this point you are making, SD, makes the point that not all faith is useful (a derivative of Elder Packer’s comments on “not all truth is useful”).
I reacted in the moment to what he said, but on reflection, I think his definition of faith was too “externally centered” — meaning, it didn’t show enough respect for the individual’s own reason and intellect. I see that as a problem in our church. My comment was neutral really as I didn’t qualify what I said or rebut his comment, but on reflection, I’ll rarely ever act against my common sense and intellect unless I have powerful spiritual feelings that indicate I should follow the illogical path. That was my takeaway from my comment, on reflection.
SilentDawning wrote:I just wanted to share a little snippet of information that came across in my lesson on Sunday on faith.
I asked for definitions of what faith is. Someone said “A willingness to act in a way that defies common sense”… I said “I’m not being facetious when I say this, as I see your point. But could that also be considered the definition of stupidity???”…Everyone chuckled at that and I moved on… Is that a trait of faith — a willingness to do what is against our intelligence and common sense?Maybe that’s what faith has become for some people nowadays but personally I don’t think that’s what faith should be in an ideal world and I really don’t like the idea of celebrating and encouraging unquestioning acceptance of things that don’t make any sense whatsoever to the average person or for people to pretend to believe what they are expected to and go through the motions almost like the story of the emperor with no clothes where no one wanted to be the first one to openly recognize it.
When I had the most faith in the Church it was precisely because I thought the idea of prophets made perfect sense. The idea of prophets still makes sense to me in theory but the problem was that I saw too much evidence to suggest that it doesn’t actually work that way in reality as far as having a reliable succession of prophets that really deserve to be trusted nearly as much as they currently are in the Church. So that’s why I don’t see the point of having that much faith in LDS prophets anymore because at this point it would feel more like denial than something positive and it just doesn’t make sense to me anymore.
When completely coupled with strong spiritual feelings, then I think it makes sense — but that sense of spirituality and Godly pointing you in the illogical path has to be there to override common sense. Otherwise, we are not thinking, rational beings. As someone once said “the glory of God is intelligence”. I take this to mean that individual intelligence matters, so spirituality must overwhelm it in a very certain way for it to be effective. I wonder if people had applied this standard would we have had the Mountain Meadows Massacre?
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