Can You Follow Someone, Without Believing In Them?

[wizanda]

Once you separate the teacher from the message, what value does the message have but what you give it rather than the person who gave it?

Now that is an interesting idea, never thought of doing that.... Like swap the message of someone for another person saying it; then examine is it a belief in the person, that gives it more credibility. . .. .. (meditating on it).. . . .

What is the difference?

To believe in someone, means to put your faith into them....Believing someone, is that you accept their statements.

Do you put some value In the person who gave the message?

Of course, always got the highest respect for all information; even bad evidence, as it is all to learn from....

It is the statements they make that are incorrect, that slowly accumulates to lower the percentage of validity....

Yet the way i feel about them personally hardly changes; like i love Paul in the Bible like my little brother, yet he makes so many silly errors.

How strong is your trust if you may not have believed in your teachers?

My faith is huge, i think we're in a place of delusion (Maya), where people don't verify things, so i always go look it up, always double check.

Then in a spiritual sense, i lean more on God, and not on man's understanding.

Once you find the teachings are correct, why not believe in the person who gave it?

If one teaching is correct from them, then it raises the validity of their information; yet why believe in them for being right... I believe what they have to say, not in them personally.

wondering what they would say about subject matters entirely outside their scope.

Good question, and imagining if you swapped something good that someone said, with another bad character saying it, would we receive it the same.

 

[Pudding]

For me having read lots of religions, don't see the necessity to believe in the messenger; yet their message, and if it adds up logically within all the other knowledge.

Yet having just been told you have to believe in Yeshua to accept his teachings, found that strange, and wondering how many other people feel you have to believe in someone, to believe in what they've had to say.

Have you ask them why they said you have to believe in Yeshua to accept his teachings?
What does they answer?

Also where do you think that stems from, what causes some people to need some object to believe in

If someone need some object to believe in then probably because they need hope and it would somehow make people feel safe when there are object they can believe in instead of there are none.

; rather than their statements being more important to qualifying if you believe them?

Do they say it's not important to qualifying the statements?

You have been voicing many opinion in quite a few threads about how all religion is Oneness base on your personal interpretation about them after you investigate them to find the similarity between them which you then said those similarity is the truth, the Oneness. If people find your reasoning unconvincing then they don't believe you and explain why they think so.

Also, in a hypothetical situation, a man had been accused of murdering his wife and many evidence support it, but the fact is that those evidence is faking by the true murderer which set up for the man to fell in which the true murderer do so for some motive.
The parents believe their son did not murder his wife because they believe in him, they believe in him because of their past times personal experience with him shows that he would not do such act regardless of the (fake) evidence that imply he had murdered.

So for the parents, they have to believe in (similar as have faith in) their son to believe he is guilty.

 

[idea]

.... what causes some people to need some object to believe in; rather than their statements being more important to qualifying if you believe them?

the idea vs. the reality. It's just some theory/philosophy without a physical reality to go with it.

kindness, charity, love → none of this is real without a n object to attach to it. The depth of the reality is dependent on the object.

 

[Tomorrows_Child]

For me having read lots of religions, don't see the necessity to believe in the messenger; yet their message, and if it adds up logically within all the other knowledge.

Yet having just been told you have to believe in Yeshua to accept his teachings, found that strange, and wondering how many other people feel you have to believe in someone, to believe in what they've had to say.

Also where do you think that stems from, what causes some people to need some object to believe in; rather than their statements being more important to qualifying if you believe them?

If you believe in someones message, then you believe in the messenger. That's simple logic.

If a doctor tells you you need antibiotics, you are not simply believing in what he is telling you but also in the man/woman themselves. If you did not believe in the doctor then you would not take the medication.

 

[DawudTalut]

For me having read lots of religions, don't see the necessity to believe in the messenger; yet their message, and if it adds up logically within all the other knowledge.

Yet having just been told you have to believe in Yeshua to accept his teachings, found that strange, and wondering how many other people feel you have to believe in someone, to believe in what they've had to say.

Also where do you think that stems from, what causes some people to need some object to believe in; rather than their statements being more important to qualifying if you believe them?

Peace be on you.
IMO there are people who are already following some of the wisdom brought by Prophets without knowing them or believing them.

 

[LuisDantas]

Christianity and Islam seem to me to be at least difficult to follow without a belief in the literal existence of their prophets (although I suspect that originally Christianity did not believe in a literal Jesus).

But most doctrines are expected to be judged on their own merits as opposed to their carriers.

 

[wizanda]

Have you ask them why they said you have to believe in Yeshua to accept his teachings?

I'm well aware of the Biblical text, and John which is made up, has 11 references to us being told we need to believe in jesus....

Yeshua in the synoptic gospels was more bothered that we 'have faith in God.'

Do they say it's not important to qualifying the statements?

Considering how many people who don't actually know the statements; yet believe in the person, is why i made a thread like this to begin with.

You have been voicing many opinion in quite a few threads about how all religion is Oneness

Oneness is the name of Heaven from my NDE, everyone's consciousness interlinked together is Oneness.

So though a religion might talk about Oneness, and within it, its ultimate goal is to reach Oneness; they're not Oneness.

If you did not believe in the doctor then you would not take the medication.

That is a good point; we believe in the doctor due to his qualifications, that prove his experience on the topic....

Like we wouldn't want some doctor to amputate our leg, who is like "I've never done it before, yet believe in me".

Thus in terms of experience, we do believe in someone's knowledge on a subject....

Yet if the doctor went out of his field of study, we wouldn't take his word for it, on a subject he isn't experienced in.

Thus we don't actually believe in the doctor; we just believe his experience substantiates his knowledge on the subject.

 

[LuisDantas]

About this last point, it seems to me that people adhere to organized beliefs for various reasons, social expectations chief among them.

While we often talk about fairly abstract ideals, a big part of religion's role (arguably its most consequential one) is to provide people with a common framework so that they may succesfully communicate and bound on particularly personal matters. That involves not only doctrine proper, but also language, concepts, even social schedules.

Thinking about it now, there is a fortunate alternate reading of the thread's title. We don't follow only religions founders, codifiers, priests and authorities, but also and in practice perhaps mostly the people that we have come to know and, if not necessarily trust, at least understand and feel confortable with. Humanity is very much a social breed.

Whether we actually share and trust specific doctrines, scriptures or even theologies is often a secondary consideration or even less of a priority. A strong case can be made that it is supposed to be a minor detail, for mutual understanding and acceptance is far more important than actual agreement.

 

[Tomorrows_Child]

I'm well aware of the Biblical text, and John which is made up, has 11 references to us being told we need to believe in jesus....

Yeshua in the synoptic gospels was more bothered that we 'have faith in God.'

Considering how many people who don't actually know the statements; yet believe in the person, is why i made a thread like this to begin with.

Oneness is the name of Heaven from my NDE, everyone's consciousness interlinked together is Oneness.

So though a religion might talk about Oneness, and within it, its ultimate goal is to reach Oneness; they're not Oneness.

That is a good point; we believe in the doctor due to his qualifications, that prove his experience on the topic....

Like we wouldn't want some doctor to amputate our leg, who is like "I've never done it before, yet believe in me".

Thus in terms of experience, we do believe in someone's knowledge on a subject....

Yet if the doctor went out of his field of study, we wouldn't take his word for it, on a subject he isn't experienced in.

Thus we don't actually believe in the doctor; we just believe his experience substantiates his knowledge on the subject.

I agree with your response but we are still believing in the person and what he/she knows. So there really isn't an argument here. Especially when it comes to faith, if you believe in the message of a messenger, ie believe in God etc then you must also believe in that person, otherwise you would just believe they were a mad man.

 

[wizanda]

then you must also believe in that person, otherwise you would just believe they were a mad man.

Not always, personally can show how the prophets add up across time, to validate Yeshua's gospel....So i don't believe in him; i believe in the fulfillment of prophecy, and what is stated adds up with the text.

Now understandably if what you believe doesn't add up, and other then their word for it, there isn't evidence to show what they're saying, then we call that blind faith.

Which obviously if that is all you have, then you will be more determined to believe in the person, not what they said.

 

[LuisDantas]

@wizanda , it may be worth considering the contrast between two understandings of religion.

By all means correct me as you see fit, but it seems to me that you favor the understanding of religions as a manifestations of some underlying common truth. By that view, religion is all but destined to lose its way as soon as it is created.

I favor an entirely different, perhaps irreconciliable and even mutually exclusive view of religion. I see religion as an entirely human creation whose function is to provide frames of reference for mutual teaching and understanding on matters of significant existential or emotional impact.

Edited to add: one of the reasons why I think they may be irreconcilliable is because your view asks us to ever go back to the original form of each belief, while mine expects us to take charge and adapt it along time so that it remains (or becomes) useful, healthy and relevant.

 

[wizanda]

it may be worth considering the contrast between two understandings of religion.

To begin with i was the same, and thought religions were all created by us, and some are...

Yet within studying them, found underlying principles stated, that mankind seems determined not to follow, thus they're repeated by the divine in many.

This is why I'm cautious of later teachings, that don't fit the original source; yet completely understand some people's attempts at trying to create a full proof religion, that covers all angles.

Plus as you will remember, started a thread on us here on RF creating our own full proof religion, to see what sort of things we'd come up with.

 

[LuisDantas]

I take it you mean "fool-proof"?

 

[wizanda]

I take it you mean "fool-proof"?

lol, oops, nope meant comprehensive; yet everything happens for a reason, and fool proof would make sense in some cases.