Blind faith in Taoism??

[Master Vigil]

Can taoism be qualified in the "blind faith" category? Is the Tao blind to us? If so, can we have faith that it exists? Does the Tao require faith at all to exist? How can the natural Tao lead us to believe without blindly leaving us in the dark?

 

[Runt]

LMAO, anyone who believes the "totality of all" does NOT exist is a lunatic. I don't think belief in the Tao requires blind faith, because we know that everything that exists exists, and thus logically the totality of everything should exist as well. Whatever the All is, the Tao is. The question about blind faith comes when you ask, what things are included in the All? If you believe in a conscious entity much like the idea of God, that requires blind faith. If you believe in a soul, that requires blind faith. If you believe in alternate realities and "higher realities" (like the astral plane), that requires blind faith. If these things do exist, they are a part of the Tao. Thus, if you believe in these things and you believe in the Tao, then your belief in the Tao is tied to blind faith, but is not dependent upon it.

 

[anders]

Daoism is not a faith and the Dao requires no faith to exist. The Dao is there; you don't have to believe in it. We make our free choices, but if we go against the Dao, we will have to face the consequences in this life (I have found nothing in Daoism suggesting another life).

I think that asking "Is the Tao blind to us?" uses a wrong perspective. Phrased that way, it implies that we can understand the Dao and that the Dao behaves or acts in a way we can describe. "The Dao that can be explained is not the eternal Dao" (first sentence in the DDJ). The Dao De Jing focuses on our behaviour; the Dao is "Guiding without interfering" (DDJ 51).

Having said this, I feel that I must close with DDJ 56: "Those who know do not talk. Those who talk do not know."

 

[Master Vigil]

You say the Tao is there, and does not need to be believed in to exist. Christians can say this about god. I'm not denying that we can describe it, but it is the eternal tao that we cannot describe. Is that tao blind to us, because it is unknowable and unfathomable?? Does it take faith to believe in what is unknowable and unfathomable??

 

[anders]

It takes just common sense. You don't have to have "faith" in natural laws either, but you learn that you'd better not ignore them and that you can't evade them. Gravity is there. If you drop a thing, it will fall. Dao is there. If you stray away from the Dao, there will be consequences.

 

[Master Vigil]

But natural laws, gravity, etc... are all knowable to us. But the eternal tao is unknowable to us. Do we use faith to understand what is unkowable to us?? I understand that it does not take faith for something to exist. But does it take faith for us to believe in something that is unknowable??

 

[Runt]

It does not take blind faith to admit that the unknowable exists. What takes blind faith is trying to define the unknowable without having any way to KNOW it, and believing that your definition is reality. For example, imagine that there is a deep hole in the ground. It is dark; you cannot see the bottom. You don't know how far down it goes. You don't know what is inside, or if anything even IS inside. It does not take blind faith to recognize that the hole, the unknown, exists. However, if you start speculating about what is in that hole and reach a conclusion without having any way to find out if you are right, then your belief about what the hole contains--whether it be water, worms, bones, God, or the energizer bunny--requires blind faith.

Thus, it does not require blind faith to say that the Tao exists, as long as you don't go trying to define the Tao or say what positive characteristics it includes.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

But natural laws, gravity, etc... are all knowable to us. But the eternal tao is unknowable to us.

So too is the consequences of mixing Pixie Dust with Unicorn Poop, and for precisely the same reason. Once you presume a domain outside of, or beyond, natural law, you step through the looking glass.

 

[Master Vigil]

That's exactly my point deut. So therefore, if one accepts the idea that we do not know everything, than one must believe that the unknowable exists. Now when people start defining the unknowable and proclaiming to know what the unknowable wants and says is when I think people step through that glass. But just realizing that there is the unknown, I don't believe that as blind.

 

[TechnoTaoist]

My first glimpse of Chapter 25 clued me in:

Humanity follows the earth.
Earth follows Heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
The Tao follows only itself

My faith is based on that. It is not blind. I may not be able to fully fathom the object of my faith, but I can tell it is there, as surely as I know the breeze on my face is cool, or the sound I hear to my right is surely an animal in the underbrush.

 

[Master Vigil]

Exactly, this is where taoism begins to differ than the rest of the blind faiths. We do not put characteristics to what we do not know. We just recognize that we do not know. That does not mean it doesn't exist, or we don't know if it exists. Just that we don't care to make it too personal.

 

[TechnoTaoist]

I think you are missing the point...

I'll use the Christianity as an example, as you seem to be picking on it in this and other posts. I see the truth in Chapter 25. It is meaningful to me. The Judeo-Christian equilivant is Psalm 19, "The heavens declare the glory of God, the Fundament the working of his hands"

Where I see the impartial, spontaneous force in the earth and heaven, the Judeo-Christian sees a personal force that shapes things.

Based on that, their faith is not blind either.

 

[Master Vigil]

But they don't see it, that is my point. They only believe in it. Taoists do not understand the Tao through a book. They understand it through themselves. If they claim to know it from a book they are lying. The way of nature is easy to recognize, a personal god with human characteristics is not. This is where the Taoist faith and the Christian faith, (or any other with a god who is given characteristics) differ. Believing that the heavens declare anything, and that they are the working of "his" hands is faith in that which is only written in a book. But believing that the way of nature (tao) exists, is not blind. It is common sense.

 

[godischange]

Wow, deep questions Master Vigil! I think that the tao is different for everyone so it can never be a blind faith. "The Way" presents itself to everyone in different opportunities. And if we didn't have faith in the tao, then this really wouldn't be a religion anymore! I think the real question we have to ask is "What is our tao?" "What path must we follow and how will we find it?" And to answer that you have to know yourself well enough to understand what you really want and what will prove true to your ideals- e.a. I know that I enjoy politics and helping others, so I want to be in a position of power in which I can make changes to the world around me. I think president is a laughable title for even my abitions, but anything is posible if you follow your path with all your heart.