Monolithic Faith

If you tell me your faith can never be challenged, you are a fool. It will always be challenged. If you tell me that it cannot fail, it is not really faith. The possibility must always exist for faith to fail or faith becomes certainty and is meaningless (to the faithful). Faith does not start with your birth, it is taught to you. That teaching can come from mortals, and if it does then you must always remember that. I do not know but I do have faith that faith can also come from a divine source and in that case you are justified in having it, but if you do not also accept that your faith may be delusion then again it becomes certainty and is meaningless.

Because you are not born with faith, it cannot be monolithic and unchanging. You come upon it by some means, so if you suggest to me that once you have it you can never be without it, it sounds foolish to me. You didn't always have even the ability to understand it, so you cannot convince me that it is a permanent thing to humanity, yours or anyone else's, and besides - if it is a permanent thing given to you at birth, it misses its own point.

I've had faith in god. I know what it means to interpret scripture generously to God, giving him responsibility mostly for the best things and leastly for the worst things. When I began to equalize the responsibility and give God universal responsibility for all things, I began to understand not only a hypocrisy in God and religion but in the followers of religion as well.

Now I am told my religious life was a lie. It was a lie - I've said that - but my faith was genuine. I watch with interest as the flock of God divides itself, unaware of the blasphemy they are committing. They say their god is the best, or their practice is the best, and other practices are inferior. They read symbols out of prophecy and interpret them. They interpret the scripture. They dare speak for God?

They can't have their cake and eat it too. Either they must follow their scripture word for word, or they must commit the blasphemy of telling others what God really meant when this or that was written. They give their god a bad name. They tell us that religion is petty, that their god is vain and selfish, and will punish those who believe but don't believe properly. They are the proof of the evil of blind obedience to an interpreted creed.

Surely their god is kind enough to forgive them their transgressions, even if they interpret their law to suggest that it wouldn't.

I sometimes look down even on myself for the crime of being too generous, but I have been thinking about it and I still quite like the notion that no one will be punished - not even those who commit God's worst crimes. These hypocrites who pretend that their "wisdom" is greater than that of others certainly won't be rewarded, regardless of what they think. For they do not even seem to understand the wrongness of their behavior and will be unable to find the humility to ask for forgiveness.

If we are all God's Children, then a good god will not play favorites.

 

faith can be gullible, that does not mean it is always gullible.

There are good reasons for it. The top one is that I'm inclined to think there could be a god, and I do not want to be deceived into placing my faith in the wrong supernatural being, or give the god a bad name by adopting exclusive beliefs. This is probably a latent desire from when I had faith before I started seeing the problems in religion.

To imply that it can be tested also implies that it can persist or fail. You said faith cannot be a delusion, I think you might have misunderstood me. A delusion is the belief in something that isn't real (this probably simplifies the definition greatly). If you have faith in something that has no proof, then either your faith will eventually be justified or you are having a delusion. I'm not trying to say they're the always the same thing, but they can possibly be. In fact, if you have faith in a god that says all other gods do not exist, then it must be that all the other religions have faith in a delusion.

Let me repeat this from another thread: I do not believe the nature of humanity is good or bad, but actually both. I think everyone is a hypocrite in some way, and I don't mean to imply that's a bad thing. You are correct, I have a habit of generalizing and simplifying things (otherwise no one would finish reading one ). For example, I will often say "Religion is bad!" What I really mean is closer to "Exclusive Religion is bad!" I can try to include that word more often, if it would please you. My problem is the motive to divide that comes with exclusivity, not the idea of God.

The golden rule is great, but it conflicts with the other rules. I actually prefer the silver rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Rule). That's a short read, but the gist is this: do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. Almost the same thing. The golden rule promotes positivity, the silver prohibits negativity. I would rather not do something to someone else I would consider right and they might consider wrong.

I don't want to post to be contrary to your views, but if you're a Christian look at Deuteronomy. You're probably going to think no one should follow half of those rules, and I would have to then ask why should they exist at all then? The idea of a monolithic and unchanging faith is accountable for this. God should allow us to update the scripture so that it no longer contains laws that are barbaric to present day society, because it's fairly obvious that they were meant for an elder people. That, or we should follow those laws. I would not follow them myself, and I know the Catholic Church has edited its canon before.

 

"Morals." "Values." "Logic." "Emotion." "Convictions."

Contradictions. Inventions meaningful to you, but are they meaningful to the rest of us?

Probably not as much as you think.

The golden rule allows people to preach to other people who do not want to hear it. You can say "I love my God, so I would love to hear the Good News, therefore I can pester my community about it!" Granted, you could also tell yourself "I would not want to be pestered about Islam, so I will not do preach God to someone without asking them first." You can do one or the other, but this second one would be the silver rule.

I would agree for the most part that there is no overarching axiom for life.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree (unless we agree on what I am about to say):

They are both useful. I suspect I might have brought up the silver rule so that it could be considered along side the golden rule.

What is meaningful to me: hate no one, and avoid divisions. The latter piece is why I do not forget the silver rule.

 

I forgot my new word, Community. In which, I take it to be implied that there would be some sacrifice.

 

Daodejing knocked me off my feet. My life formed lessons for me before I even read it, and I mean right before I read it. I was having thoughts like "the whole truth cannot be told," and "to succeed, embrace failure." That thought about the truth is right there in the very first line. What a smashing coincidence! And the other thought is right in line with many of the notions that follow.

The Way that can be known is not a constant Way.

It was there even before I was ready for it, made itself known to me effortlessly, and continues to be useful after I found the book that had this idea. The entire first chapter cut deep into me. I suddenly feel a strong desire to learn to read Chinese language.

 

Is there an actual birthday? I studied the work for my Chinese philosophy class, and the secondary reference I have noted that it's often considered a consolidated work. It means "the old master," right? That name even suggests the author(s) are unknown.

 

Interesting, I wonder when that happened. I have only studied Confucian thinkers so far, but this sort of ritual propriety would have interested them. On the other hand, I take it from the Daodejing it may not have interested Laozi at all.