...in the eyes of God, Truth or whatever it is you refer it too.

Hellooooooooooooo,

Ok, just wanna throw this one in, these are my thoughts on the matter.

Belief and Faith are a tool to allow polite disreguard in discussion.....ignorance.

Belief and Faith are manefestations of the ego to give validation (when someone desires their point to be validated) to something that doesnt make sense in someone elses belief system (ego manefestation).

The context of Belief and Faith contradicts their purpose. Does God require people to believe in "him"? Surely Belief is only required when people have not had direct experience of something, yet there are so many people who claim that what they have faith in is therefore the "truth".

hmmm, there we go, what are your thoughts?


nn23

Welcome back stranger. You've been missed.

Well..i can tell u in my life faith and belief is not meaningless....actually its the direct oppossite. Even if you do not believe what others believes doesnt mean that it is meaningless...esp if help people in any way,

HA HAAA....

...in the eyes of God, Truth or whatever it is you refer it too.

Is God not self evident?....Do you need to tell "him" that you believe in "him"?

Well...as my point of view....true faith and belief is lived through our actions.....so for me yes..i need to show my faith, and i do believe that God cares if i show my faith rather than hide it.

For people it is different. They need faith and belief to compensate for lack of knowing the truth (me included). Though to experience enlightenment or God one needs to have faith in the appropriate belief in which one can transcend that belief. The belief is a means to an end. As one Buddhist onced quoted:

To have faith we rely on practice
To have wisdom we must know the truth
Faith is the prerequisite of wisdom.



But once truth is found there is no longer need for faith or belief, I agree with that.

"The word "belief" is a difficult thing for me. I don't believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it - I don't need to believe it."

---Carl Jung

And why is it that you "believe" this rather than "know" it? Can you not see the contradiction?

Who is it that you "show" your faith too? Someone you "believe" to be there but do not claim you "know" to be there?

If you "know" God is there because you "believe"...linguistically speaking this fits into the argument i preposed...


God is self evident, what is the purpose of Belief and Faith?....

Communication with others, and if this is the case, it kind of loses its sparkle that gives it such weight (meaning) within discussion dont you think?

The popular faith in words is a veritable disease of the mind ~ C.G Jung.

The existence of God is not self-evident to reason, but it is demonstrable. ----St Thomas Aquinas (Christian mystic)

No one can 100 percent prove that God does or doesnt exsist.......but faith isnt based on things that we cant 100 percent be proved...if we could prove certain truths then there would be no need for faith. You see faith inst just a belief in something.....its believing in something and acting on it. Truth cannot be proven untill it is seen and tested. Right now we cannot see God or put Him to the test,,,so for now we cannot prove 100 percent that God exsists...but thats where faith comes in.

So your saying that millions opon millions people for thousand opon thousands of years their faith and belief is worth nothing.......that a mighty big accusation to say.I dont think one person can nulify all the peoples faith through out history.

Yes, the thing is it can only take people so far and by this time the "meaning" has become SO internalised that people forget that it is simply for communicating a justification of purpose to others within the duality of language. Once the conversation is over they take it home with them, internalised within the bindings of thought to keep hold of their purpose for fear of it leaving if they did not have their faith or belief...its TOTAL identification with the senses and mind!

While it is a prerequisite like a key to get the cogs ticking, once the cogs are ticking the key is no longer required its presence creates a finity. What can be believed can be unbelieved.

OOOO thats a good quote

Is reason not a subject to object experience?

What do you mean?

Worth is worth nothing.

Nothing is worth everything.

Does everything (existence, consciousness) require belief?

Hence it takes many life times before people get over beliefs and transcend them.



Well it is alot easier said than done giving up beliefs that have become rooted in the unconscious. But I agree with you.

otay... .....thats all in your opinion....and whats a person's worth.....maybe everyting to them but worth nothing to anyone else

Dont feel confused. Nothing is something and that something is everything

"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. " ~Saint Augustine

"Faith is spiritualized imagination." ~Henry Ward Beecher

Intriguing quotes inner space.

There's hope for you yet.

aahhh..now i got it....lol thanks

mmmm well, i believed your quote was in answer to my question...if Belief and Faith's purpose is to give reason, and reason is a duality, something you give as justification too (therefore drawing a subject to object distinction) ...and duality is a contradiction...and so on.

But the duality at one level of existence is inevitable. As much as we know in theory what we are talking about, it is different to actually experience what we already are consciously......I've just contradicted myself again........paradox disease.

Personally, I see that faith and belief are a necessary step before knowing God.

Since I cannot see God, I was forced to first approach Him simply by trusting that what I "sensed" truly was God, and that the truth I saw in the account of Jesus, and His sacrifice for me were real. However, if I had remained at the place where all of this was still simply belief and faith, I would never have known God in a personal way, since I would still be only believing. Acting on that belief brought me to the state of actually knowing. I no longer believe God is there and have faith He is aware of me, I know God. So, faith and belief are not meaningless... unless they lead to nothing more.

LOVE IT!

errrrm, here you are...

Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus credtiem est.

What is always, What is everywhere, What is by all people believed ~ St Vincent of Lerins

My religion is an experience based religion. We seek truth and base it on our experience. When you experience something in ritual either you chalk it up to insanity or you seek the best explanation, based on the history of the experience such as have others had this experience. Belief and faith are just the hypothesis of the experience until a better explanation is found.

Christian mysticism and Buddhism are the same in essence. Here is a great way to convey what N23 is saying:

It is always a question of knowing and seeing, and not that of believing. The teaching of the Buddha is qualified as ehi-passika, inviting you to ‘come and see’, but not to come and believe. (Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught)

What??

HA HAAA That was the quote that first led me down my train of thought.

It demonstrates God beautifully and also the paradoxical requirement of belief and faith as a concept.

The term "What is by all people believed" is for want of better words (but of course it is undefinable) ...all existence, ha haaa what is, which is self evident and takes us back to my original statement....

Belief and Faith are meaningless in the eyes of God, Truth, or whatever you refer it too.

Yeah, they are just a hypothesis. So all things that we believe and have faith in are not the actual truth, even if we say that we believe them to be so.

Heres one i should have put in the original OP but it was written on a receipt upstairs and i forgot about it

There is no action in Belief or Faith, they are simply a justification for thoughts.

NICE ONE!!
nn23

If you think faith and belief are meaningless, continue on.
Faith and belief are the cornerstones of my life. That will never change, and you're free to have "faith and/or belief" in any theory you wish.

Hey Thozzman

hmmmm...yeah, the original OP was Belief and Faith are meaningless......in the eyes of God, truth or whatever it is you refer them too.



Sooooo, does Faith and Belief mean more to you than what it is you refer them too?

NICE ONE!
nn23

Belief and Faith are a tool to allow polite disreguard in discussion.....ignorance.

Belief and Faith are manefestations of the ego to give validation (when someone desires their point to be validated) to something that doesnt make sense in someone elses belief system (ego manefestation).

The context of Belief and Faith contradicts their purpose. Does God require people to believe in "him"? Surely Belief is only required when people have not had direct experience of something, yet there are so many people who claim that what they have faith in is therefore the "truth".


[/quote]





If I say it's gonna rain tomorrow, without any evidence of it whatsoever, then we are talking about faith, belief and perhaps hope too. If I make a religion, a "faith", out of it, then it is compulsory faith and belief for me and all the poor idiots who believed me when I said "it will rain tomorrow". If it doesn't rain the day after even though I said it would, then it really isn't a problem, cos' one day is the same as a thousand years for the Lord, so I haven't got a thing to worry about.

compulsory faith and belief turned into religion, means you no longer need to believe or have faith because they are now turned into the LAW.

The LAW must be served fanatically by the people who are now made for the LAW.

God and religion have nothing to do with each other, nn23. If there is a God, then God is LOVE that/who brings together through LOVE, not LAW.

Everything else is crap.

Faith and belief will become meaningless when one has an in-yer-face, one-on-one conversation with God. Absolute Truth, with a capital "T," will replace them, I believe. There will be no more doubting, no more hearsay, no more theories, but whatever this absolute Truth might be, that, I cannot tell you since I've never had this direct experience. True, I've experienced otherworldly (psychic) events in my life; nevertheless, I still have my dreams (sincere desires) to fulfill. God, alone, placed them in my being, I believe, like a computer program. There are no accidents. Yes, I'm not ready for the "Thy will be done" scenarios, completely. I still pray to hopefully get my way. Wanting is okay by me. At least, I'm very honest about it. Basically, when one has an once of prayer left, one is never entirely ready to let go or "just be" or surrender or renounce anything. A prayer is a want, after all, no matter how one tries to sweeten it due to one's religious guilt (perhaps). There is always the "but this, but that" factor going on. Even wanting to see God is a major desire, I'm sure you know.

And while one is on Earth, one is never completely certain about anything, even if one has a great map. Time has a way of distorting whatever it is one holds so dearly as fact, experience, Earthly reality, certainty, stability, and so on.

On the other hand, faith and belief are necessary. If anything else, they make one feel good (hopefully). Besides, what is there to lose by believing, etc.??? One theory certainly doesn't cancel out the rest. While on Earth, "saints" are just as trapped as the rest, regardless of whatever they claim (blah blah). They could claim all they want about "truth this and ignorance that," but baby, I still have my dreams and sincere desires to fulfill.

One has to be honest to one's self before one could really move on. Finish point A before moving on to point B... And my point A is getting everything I want, my way, for now. It's so easy for people to say, "Let go" when they have all the goodies, intact. And I never see them sharing their loot..., to me. What good is that to me???

"Hold on to your dreams. Don't let 'em slip from your hands..." -- JOI CARDWELL

Would that be a scientific fact, or just something you BELIEVE? I think if someone slapped you in the face, you'd believe it happened and you'd believe in the existence of the one who slapped. Likewise for any experience you have. But when it comes to a religious explanation of belief and faith, those two words could be simplified into one: TRUST. When we experience something so profound as God, we are curious of this experience. When we understand it, we trust it. So thus, faith and belief do not condone ignorance. Its taking what you understand to be truth and trusting it.

Right, belief and faith aren't truth because truth is a fact. Belief is something you think my be true, but can't be proven. Think of how you use the word "believe" in conversation. If you unsure about something you say "I believe this to be so, but don't quote me on it." If your sure about something you say "Yes this is how it is, it is a fact."

Yet so many 'facts' have been subject to modification. This makes them not facts, but observations UNTO a factual resolution. Even then, the factual resolution may not be final. Thus then, we observe what we believe to be a true observation, believe in it, and have faith in it to be known as truth. Its what he understand as to what we call fact. We understand gravity in its current explanation and call it fact. But what if it was modified? What if we found out that we TOTALLY misunderstood gravity? That, then, wouldn't make our understanding of gravity a fact, but just that: our understanding to what we 'thought or believed' was truth.

But Darkwind, one must distinguish between Earthly (material) fact "versus" Absolute Truth.

Peace to you always.

As to one of the first comments on the subject of belief :
"Does God require people to believe in "him"? Surely Belief is only required when people have not had direct experience of something, yet there are so many people who claim that what they have faith in is therefore the "truth"."

The Israelites and Jews of early times had direct encounters and conversations with God, and so have I which is why i am a pastor, but yet "believed" in God. Belief is not based upon the absence of experience, but most of the time the exact opposite. Sometimes encounters are misinterpreted, but in the case of early biblical history (which is constantly being proven through scientifical dicovery (check out Intelligent Design) and artifactual uncoverings) these encounters were numerous and elicitely proclaimed under one name or references to it. Faith, on the other hand, is more of acting on the belief (which we have now discovered is based on experience). Therefore, claiming them as truth is not as blind as u may see. I know it as the truth of my life based on evidence i can not deny...personal evidence one must experience on their own but must earnestly seek it to find it. Want a trip? Why don't u sit down one day and ask with sincerity, "If u are there God, reveal yourself to me that I may know you." If u want to do it the hard way, ask Him to remove His presence from around u instead. For even if u don't accept Him, He is always with u incase u change ur mind and knocking at the door of ur heart. Even the lost have the comfort of His presence, they just don't realize it. One second of His abandonement will be enough to leave an emotional scar for the rest of ur life. Try it, He dares u!

TboneMinister

Belief and Faith are not meaningless...they have meaning to those who engage them.

Of universal truth is the fact that we are all taught from childhood the belief system of our parents or guardians. None of the things we are taught are necessarily true....of a necessity they are all not true....yet what we engage as belief system validates our perceptions in these matters.

God is real, I definitely believe this since I've experience enough "out-of-the-ordinary" events in my life. But, are we really prepared to meet God in a face-to-face (with conversation included) scenario -- at all cost? Are we even ready to meet the "Thy will be done" challenge? Many people pray about this, but do they really know what they're saying??? Interestingly enough, Lt. Ripley and I had a long conversation about this matter..., recently.

I will admit what i said is extreme, but sometimes that's what it takes to break the stubbornness of man. Notice how i said it it would leave a huge impact.

TboneMinister

I truly respect you, brother, for I could sense that you have fortitude and zeal in your character.

Thanks brother. God Bless. I'm just tired of the knowledgeless ranting. God will prove Himself...only if u r TRULLY seeking with an OPEN heart. If u want results, He can and will give them when it comes to His glory. I can only hope my zeal and fortitude are enough....as i am to lead by example.

Thank you darkwind. I have probably by now written thousands of words trying to explain where I am coming from, and you have expressed it perfectly, and succinctly. The religion may be different, but the experience and the logical application of what follows is identical.
My additional conclusion is, that if it is not "insanity", it is probably as real as all other experiences.

Ditto to this also Div, I have had this experience, along with some of those other non spiritual paranormal experiences you mention, and it DOES change your entire world view about everything.

I would agree to the seeking of truth, but probably not in the same manner as you guys. My beliefs and faith ar not hypothetical, nor do I seek a better explanation. The explanation I have is more than the truth to me......but by seeking truth i mean the truths contained within this one.......i don't mean to advance the one truth of my faith and beliefs.

This is an awesome perspective......I don't know about the paranormal for myself however. This kinda flowed with the whole "Just ask" thing I mentioned.