Why God uses faith

I would *really* love to know how we know that. Please explain. again, I would love to know how you know what the Bible writers' religion was. True. This is what I do with most ancient, unauthenticated, tall stories I come across. I do the same with Homer's Iliad too. My standards are the same regardless of which story makes me feel better. ?? we don't even know WHO the writers were, let alone have knowledge of their state of mind !! Absolutely! And when someone who's presenting themselves as writing fact start talking about cursed fig trees and zombies walking the streets of Jerusalem, among other things, I start doubting their claim about writing facts. I'm not the one contradicting them, nature does this pretty well by itself. I'm also not accusing them about lying or stupidity, simply of ignorance, naivety and myth-making. But that's another topic. No. Neither do I know the Gospel writers well enough to know whether it was OK with them to add imaginative bits into their writing or if they thought what they were writing was fact.Do you ? You can put a colour chart in front of a million people and ask them to point out what is the colour of grass and they'll all point to the same colour.You ask a million people about the truth of the Bible and you'll get a million different 'truths'. It's not so much that I don't like what you said, it's just that I find it meaningless, airy-fairy babble (please don't take offense). What does it mean 'Faith honors God' ? Is the ultimate Being really so vain that is honoured by the unquestionable obedience of its creation ?! are you seriously suggesting that KNOWING that we were created, loved and saved by God would NOT make us love him ???!?while HOPING that it's true DOES make us love him?! if he cared enough to show me His word clearly, unambiguously and emphatically I'd be delighted to.
Sadly, he hasn't. see above. He gave us intellect and the ability to tell right from wrong. But he's expecting us to ignore these and trust our heart, desire and hope ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Actually my faith was blind and ignorant. It was based on ignorance, but it made me feel good and got me through difficult situations. What brought it down was a combination of knowledge and experience. Experience taught me that I could rely on myself to get through difficult patches. Knowledge came with more detailed Bible study and the revelation of the internal contradictions, factual errors, historical improbabilities and absurdities that lied within.So, if anything, your faith is more solid that mine had ever been. I was convinced then that I 'knew' the truth. With hindsight, I can see now that I only very, very, much wanted what I believed to be true. I suppose the difference between us is that in your case you can claim a few more 'very' than I could.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Both of these faculties are FALLEN. They are not trustworthy. They are seriously flawed. They may be of use in leading a person to God, though never sufficient, but the way you go about it, no. NOTE WELL: I did NOT say trust our heart. Scripture tells us our heart is deceitful above all things. Abandon that idea completely.

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In fact I also did NOT say to TRUST anything whatever. Trust is not the idea here. I said, HUMILITY, DESIRE, HOPE. Interesting that you didn't notice "humility." What I said is how He might be found, what the method of SEEKING him is, gave you a little recipe for seeking Him you could say. Which was:First you put your own opinions on hold, all that stuff you wrote in that post. Big step for you, probably impossible, right? You must take the position that maybe you're completely wrong about all that. That's the part about HUMILITY.Second, DESIRE is WANTING to know God if He is real. That focuses you forward toward finding Him. You seem to be expressing a desire to know God if only, if only... Well, you are going about trying to know Him on terms that are alien to Him, and complaining up one side and down the other about His terms. That won't fly. If you REALLY want to know Him, He's made Himself quite available to anyone who will seek Him according to HIS rules. It's not too terribly hard. Cost you your pride mostly."Hope" should perhaps not have been part of my little recipe, as that will grow with faith.Needless to say, you did all the opposite things in your post.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-04-2006 08:05 PM

Yes, the intellectual onslaught. Well, that's just a more concerted attack on belief than I experienced, but basically the same thing. Mostly the attack I experienced was ridicule. Science says it's stupid to believe. Believers are basically infants, or uneducated yahoos. All that. Well, yes, NOW it is. No, I would never say my faith is based on anything I WANTED to be true. That would certainly be an unstable foundation for faith.

Nope. Wrong again. Science does not say that. That's why many, many if not most Christians have no problems with science.The evidence though shows that there has not been a world-wide flood in 600,000 years at the least.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You know it from the religion they believe themselves, from the gospel they preach, a gospel of truth, a religion that goes back 2000 years and one of whose directives is "Thou shalt not bear false witness." The Bible doesn't whitewash anything or anybody. You hear about all the sins and failures of even the greatest of the heroes of the Old Testament. This is the environment the writers of the NT grew up in. If you can believe that they casually violated their own beliefs then you are capable of such a jaundiced view of humanity in general nothing I could say would dissuade you. From READING the BOOK, for heaven's sake. I think your standards may be lacking something. You can't judge the veracity of a report by a priori judging it false because you don't believe in this, that or the other. You'll never learn anything new that way, certainly nothing that is true that is out of your own personal realm of experience. You'll just confirm yourself in a loop of belief of your own invention. But if the authors are honest men giving a true report, which it sure looks to me they are, and you give them that much respect, you may in fact discover some remarkable things. We don't really need to know who they are beyond what little is given that identifies them, but their state of mind is clear to anybody who reads what they have written. These are honest men. Now we have arrived at the nitty gritty. You do accept that they present themselves as writing fact, but you have the nerve to impose your own prejudices on WHAT they are trying to tell you, and that leads you to treat them as ignorant louts or some such. How could you possibly learn about real dead people coming to life and walking the streets of Jerusalem if you discredit their witnesses? You have a distaste for such ideas and for cursed fig trees and you let your taste dictate whether the story is true or not or important or not. You sure do trust your own subjectivities but won't give anybody else even a bit of the benefit of the doubt it appears. But the story you are dismissing is about things that are above nature. This you will never learn if you insist on making nature your standard, which is nothing more than imposing your own prejudice on the text. Whatever, you discredit and demean them, based on your own prejudices about what they are telling you, doesn't matter what kind of lousy character you accuse them of really, as long as their obvious sincerity and integrity have fallen to the axe of your bias against their sincere report. I do, yes. I know that intentionally making anything up would violate their beliefs and their integrity. This is obvious from the context. Seems pretty clear that if you know the Bible you know that for them to be guilty of the weak character of which you accuse them would be a serious breach of the very things they are reporting and preaching. When I say I don't know Homer, I simply mean I haven't read enough of Homer or about Homer to know if exercising his imagination was just fine in the context in which he wrote. But you claim to know the Bible, so that's not your excuse. Not the best example then. Perhaps you can think of others more appropriate. Doesn't matter though. That is still how I know it's true, the same basic way. I know it because I know it. There's plenty that goes into knowing it of course, but it nevertheless does have that same sort of directness to it. It can be analyzed into many parts, such as my recognition of the honesty and integrity of the writers though. You've got to let go of this self-righteous attitude and try being humble, as I said, if you want to know God. We'd tend to take Him for granted I think. Hope was probably a mistake, as I said in my last post. Why do you focus on that rather than Humility and Desire, which I put ahead of hope anyway? I explained further in that post. True, He hasn't, and He won't, and you can go on stubbornly insisting that He play by your rules if you like, but He hasn't been stinting with the proper instructions as to how to play by HIS rules, which anyone with a genuine desire to know Him can easily enough follow. But again, it will cost you your pride. Yes I gather you insist on your own will rather than His. Well, that's your choice.

I was characterizing the message that was given to me, jar, not stating my own beliefs.

So you agree that Science does not say it is stupid to believe?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Not all science, Jar: Only TOE.TOE is radical.

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We are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.--Matthew Arnold"It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."Our Nada, who art in Nada, Nada be thy name. Hail, Nothing, full of Nothing, Nothing is with thee.--Hemingway"Headpiece filled with straw, Alas!"--T. S. Eliot

How do you conclude that? Or is it just your desire and hope ? But desire and hope are both things of the heart. You don't make a conscious decision to desire something or hope for something. Still, as you point out, the Bible tells us not to trust our heart. Yet you're saying that we need to in order to find Him! Ok, I can do that. Ofcourse I want to know if God is real. I have a desire to know God. Period. Ok, you need to tell me two things:1) where can I find HIS rules ? ( I think I can guess that)
2) how do I know these are HIS rules and not the Devil's rules or some rules that men made up ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

can't you SEE the circular reasoning here ? We know the Gospel writers wrote facts because they said they did ??!! So what ?! The Lord of the Rings tells about the weaknesses and failure of its heroes. Does this mean it's true ?! For crying out loud Faith, we don't KNOW their own beliefs, we have no external validation for the Gospel writers, nothing, nada, zip.You're saying that because they said they're honest then they must be honest. Can't you see how absurd this is ? No, belief has nothing to do with it. If a report contains stories that violate the laws of nature goes against historical evidence and has internal contradictions I would expect extra evidence before I accept it as true. No 'a priori' judgement is involved.On the other hand, if you don't abide by these standards then I'd expect you to accept as true and factual reports, amongst other things :The Bedes (Indian religious texts),
The Lord of the Rings,
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey,
Iain Banks's latest novel,
whatever other story appears to present itself as factual report, regardless of content.Well, do you ? so...we know they're honest because in their writings they imply they are ?!Presumably you think that Tolkien was honest too ? After all, he is supporting the forces of Good in his historical account of the Lord of the Rings. If by 'prejudices' you mean difficulty to accept claims that violate the laws of nature and common sense, then yes you're right.Now would you - by any chance- have the NERVE to impose your own 'prejudices' on what Joseph Smith is trying to tell you in the Book of Mormon ? May be that's why you see him as a fraud and not the honest writer of historical events he really is ! So you'd happily accept any supernatural story that's presented to you. Anything else would be imposing your own prejudice on the text and you don't do that.
Do you ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

What do you mean by 'being humble' Faith ?I think you mean 'don't question' or 'ignore contradictions between God's character and the request to have faith in him'.In any case, can you show me what 'being humble' has to do with what I said above ? I take my parents for granted. That doesn't mean that I love them any less. Ok, replace 'Hoping' with 'Desiring' then. My argument still stands.I can't see how Humility comes into loving him more or less. You know, I always wondered why Christians keep saying that you have to leave your pride behind and such. I was a lot prouder when I WAS a Christian, I was special, God's child, I had a direct channel to the Creator. I couldn't BE any prouder.Now, on the other hand, I know I'm the nameless product of chance living a temporary existence.Maybe I should be asking you to leave YOUR pride behind and accept facts as they are.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

The discussion is running away from the original topic. "Why God Uses Faith"Please rein it back in and refer back to the OP for clarification.Please direct any comments concerning this Admin msg to the moderation link listed below.Thank you

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Usually, in a well-conducted debate, speakers are either emotionally uncommitted or can preserve sufficient detachment to maintain a coolly academic approach.-- Encylopedia Brittanica, on debate

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Hi Faith,Just trying to get this back on topic, and I picked your post to reply to even though I am not actually addressing your comments.Ok so...Why doesn't God supply objective evidence (something everyone could agree on no matter what their personal beliefs) showing His existance. What prevents Him from doing so?Is there something in the Bible that gives us a clue about the answers to these questions?

ok, I'll try to get this back on topic,

quote:

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Why do you think God would use faith instead of visual guidance?

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assuming that God is:
a) all-powerful
b) all-loving
c) wishing our salvationthen there is NO reason (I repeat, NO reason) why God would rely on our faith in order to further his will.A god who does rely on faith is missing one or more of the attributes above.So far in this thread I haven't read one single reason why God expects faith rather than trust based on evidence.All I've heard is 'it is what it is' and 'who are you to question God's ways?' (a classic).So, in a nutshell, the answer is that God requires faith because that is the only way a mythical entity can 'exist'.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."