Faith without Christianity

01-05-2008, 02:13 AM

Because I feel like the words "believe" and "faith" always make minds swerve straight to the bible, I was wondering if anyone has faith in something, or believes in something without the bible, or scripture, or even god.

I for example, do not believe that the world was created in 7 days, but I do believe something spiritual AND scientific did. I believe that there are powers that move our lives about, but do not LEAD us like the idea of destiny. I just happen to call this power god.

What are your personal beliefs, if not god, then what?

-K

Static · 01-05-2008, 08:42 AM

logic and reason.

love:) · 01-05-2008, 10:12 AM

dang, i thought this was not about religion, but somehow the word "faith" makes people relate it to religion..
"I was wondering if anyone has faith in something, or believes in something without the bible, or scripture, or even god."
Faith.. couldn't it just be about believing in someone/something?
Like when you have faith in people- you believe in them, you believe that they are not the way &*()'s describing them, you believe that they will make it; or you have faith in something- you know it's gonna happen??!

okay haha let the verbal diarrhea begin

funky macaroni · 01-05-2008, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FluffyNelly

Because I feel like the words "believe" and "faith" always make minds swerve straight to the bible, I was wondering if anyone has faith in something, or believes in something without the bible, or scripture, or even god.

I would certainly hope that there are people out there who do believe in and have faith in things that are outside of the religious scope. The people who don't stretch their ideas any further than that become the people that rationalize that fossils are the work of the devil and that dinosaurs never existed. Now, I suppose that's possible on some obscure level, but I don't see it as being very plausible. And those who don't stretch their scopes beyond the religious knowledge are destined to become stagnant and well...that's never pretty.

That being said, I don't believe personally in a God. At least, not in the Christian sense. I suppose you could talk about it more as a universal energy -the whole ying and yang thing. It's all about equilibrium within ourselves and our environment. I also believe in the Law of Attraction. If you send out positive thoughts, most of the time by way of a self-fulfilling prophecy, positive things will happen. The same goes for negative ideas. To sum it all up, I use reason, logic and ethics to guide me.

Stossel · 01-05-2008, 10:59 AM

I personally believe that anything's possible, but I'm not looking to ascribe to anything because of that. From what I've seen in my relatively short life, I've come to believe in the power of humanity. That the human touch is the most powerful thing on this planet. I have much more thought, but I can't put it into words.

**Ristaron** · 01-05-2008, 01:25 PM

In my opinion, faith is another word for ignorance. When people stubbornly hold to a belief without any proof (and, in fact, with mountains of evidence against it), they're being stupid.
Let's look at, for example, 9/11 (since we're not trying to find "God"). The 9/11 commission report details the events in a way that anyone with half an asshole can figure out to be riddled with flaws and flat-out lies. Yet, they still believe that 19 young men with box cutters hijacked planes and flew them into buildings -- one of which is constantly protected by enough sophisticated weaponry that a mosquito couldn't invade the airspace if it wasn't wanted.
Not to mention the 9/11 commission report details that fire melted steel in the Twin Towes. A dirty (uncontrolled) fire at that! What the fuck? And though it stated that the towers fell in a pancake fashion, but yet they fell at free-fall speed and the center superstructure, a nigh invincible framework, also fell.

People who have faith in the Bush administration in spite of their lies are ignorant. And that makes up a significant portion of the world.

In matters of philosophy, "faith" in an afterlife is something altogether different. There isn't any evidence for what happens after you die, so all you can do is go on your personal belief. But, then, some people lift their own personal ideas straight from a single book, and solidly believe it as fact. This demonstrates the stupidity of people who think that just because they believe something happened/happens doesn't make it true.

The only certainty is to test for yourself. I did an experiment on Natural Selection when I was in High School. It made far more sense than "God made the world in 7 days" (well, 6, and then he took a break). Why? Because you can't prove the latter, whereas I proved the former.

So if you're asking whether or not I take things "on faith". The answer is no. I limit my personal beliefs to what has scientific support, because then I avoid deluding myself with fantasies. Anything beyond this is speculation, which I -- like anybody -- am guilty of indulging in, but never taking to heart.

Overall, I prescribe to two integral secular methods of observing the world around me: Logic and Reason.

**Opunaya** · 01-05-2008, 01:36 PM

I don't know, faith could be used several ways, just like almost any word. For example, I have faith in my friends to be there when I need them.

01-05-2008, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ristaron

Overall, I prescribe to two integral secular methods of observing the world around me: Logic and Reason.

Extremely fair, and thorough. Thank you.

I was wondering though, if logic and reason is what you use to observe the world around you, what do you use to think about what comes after death? or do you just not?

Quite honestly, I believe in some sort of after life because, as a person that's what I need to... not stay sane but something like that. My mother died of breast cancer when I was seven and as a child that was how I had to think about it, and I still think about it that way because it's easy, and comforting. I choose this, and I understand that.

To any you, is death just death? What's your way of thinking about it?

-K

**Ristaron** · 01-05-2008, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FluffyNelly

Extremely fair, and thorough. Thank you.

I was wondering though, if logic and reason is what you use to observe the world around you, what do you use to think about what comes after death? or do you just not?

Quite honestly, I believe in some sort of after life because, as a person that's what I need to... not stay sane but something like that. My mother died of breast cancer when I was seven and as a child that was how I had to think about it, and I still think about it that way because it's easy, and comforting. I choose this, and I understand that.

To any you, is death just death? What's your way of thinking about it?

-K

I think that there might be something to what people have called "ghosts". The human consciousness is an emergent property of the brain (more than the sum of its parts). I speculate that it might persist in an autonomous form (similar to astral projection). It's an educated hypothesis, but I wouldn't keep it if something better (more scientific/provable) emerged.