Faith closes the mind. It is pure idol worship.

[free spirit]

No but I can ignore the unsupported claims made about the world that surrounds me. So long as all you're doing is making claims without having any evidence to back them up, nobody has any reason to pay any attention. That's the part you don't seem to comprehend, your claims about God are no more worthwhile than people making claims about unicorns and Santa Claus.

If that is your attitude, what are you doing in here?

 

[nsantori]

I suppose if you want to define "faith" as blind belief,then perhaps. That's not how I define it -- nor anyone else I know. Faith and belief are two separate things. And belief isn't necessarily a "blind, literalistic acceptance."

Faith and belief are one and the same. It is persuading yourself of an undocumented story and claim it as a fact. If you believe in something not real (fact) then you are a pagan or idolotater, regardless of how many excuses and sophistries you use to justify that belief. The fact remains, that if you insist to rationalize reality to suit your beliefs you're doomed to never open your eyes to the truth.

 

[free spirit]

Faith and belief are one and the same. It is persuading yourself of an undocumented story and claim it as a fact. If you believe in something not real (fact) then you are a pagan or idolotater, regardless of how many excuses and sophistries you use to justify that belief. The fact remains, that if you insist to rationalize reality to suit your beliefs you're doomed to never open your eyes to the truth.

Faith has to be based on understanding the matter. If you have no understanding you faith is invain.
We know that religious faith is a conviction of something we believe in, without having tangible proof of its existence. This is also how new inventions are made: in the later case the inventor understands and believe that if he does a certain thing the device will work, and if it does, his faith is rewarded, and the new proven knowledge is shared to the advantage of all. If this is true, then we have discovered that the principle of understanding the matter is the inventor’s assurance of faith.
We should also realise that the assurance of faith for the religious person comes the same way. As we read in Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that all of us are without excuse.” Thus, believing in God, through understanding the awesome of creation, is the start of something inherently good within us. To contemplate the awesome nature of creation should humble anyone, even unbelievers.

 

[McBell]

Faith has to be based on understanding the matter.

this is nothing more than you trying in vain to prop faith up to equate reason.

 

[ahamtatsat]

Faith mandates a lack of proof. If you have evidence it is no longer faith, but a fact. That said, faith can be a good or bad thing depending on it's application. It is not in and of itself the direction to Divine connection and the understanding of the I AM, it can tie to that however. Others would see that as faith but for those who've touched that, this is seen as experiential proof, evidence - and that can't be transferred to others anymore than your dream and it's interpretation. Your experience exactly as you felt/knew it and transmitting that event to others.

For the unawakened, faith can prevent crimes, damage and pain of all degrees as a societal bond that hopefully blunts selfish, primitive urges. It can also cause one to express selfless concern, caring, and love for others, which while a much higher level of self-expression is not Divine recognizance.

 

[Cephus]

If that is your attitude, what are you doing in here?

Debating religion. You know, what this forum is here for?

 

[sojourner]

Faith and belief are one and the same. It is persuading yourself of an undocumented story and claim it as a fact. If you believe in something not real (fact) then you are a pagan or idolotater, regardless of how many excuses and sophistries you use to justify that belief. The fact remains, that if you insist to rationalize reality to suit your beliefs you're doomed to never open your eyes to the truth.

No, they're not. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. What do we hope for? Peace, justice, fairness, equality, dignity, plenty, unconditional love -- those things that Jesus embodies for us. Faith is living as if those things are already part of our lives -- even though they may not be perceptually available to us. That's something very different from belief, which, in the case of Xy, is a system of theological understanding, the use of metaphors and symbols, to define meaning. Neither of those things are properly "claimed as fact" (even though many people do claim the metaphors and symbols as "fact"). They are claimed for what they are.

 

[Cephus]

No, they're not. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. What do we hope for? Peace, justice, fairness, equality, dignity, plenty, unconditional love -- those things that Jesus embodies for us. Faith is living as if those things are already part of our lives -- even though they may not be perceptually available to us. That's something very different from belief, which, in the case of Xy, is a system of theological understanding, the use of metaphors and symbols, to define meaning. Neither of those things are properly "claimed as fact" (even though many people do claim the metaphors and symbols as "fact"). They are claimed for what they are.

No, faith is the ASSUMPTION of things hoped for without having any good reason to think it's actually so. It's wishful thinking, based on emotional desire. What you've done is taken a mythical character and attached all kinds of attributes that you want him to have without having any good reason to think he actually has those attributes or even exists at all.

This is nothing to be proud of.

 

[free spirit]

this is nothing more than you trying in vain to prop faith up to equate reason.

Yes, furthermore our ability to reason with words is the essence that makes us in the image of God.

 

[free spirit]

Debating religion. You know, what this forum is here for?

Got me.

 

[sojourner]

No, faith is the ASSUMPTION of things hoped for without having any good reason to think it's actually so. It's wishful thinking, based on emotional desire. What you've done is taken a mythical character and attached all kinds of attributes that you want him to have without having any good reason to think he actually has those attributes or even exists at all.

This is nothing to be proud of.

Aaaaand... I should take your opinion over the biblical definition of faith (Hebrews 11:1).... why, again??? I mean, heck, you can't even get the dynamics of the mythology right.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for -- for the reasons I stated. Other than that, I'm really not interested in playing pigeon chess with you.

Edit: BTW, you're assuming that I've done any of this. What makes you think I've "taken a mythical character and attached all kinds of attributes that I want him to have?" How do you know what (if anything) I believe, or what (if anything) I espouse?

 

[joshua3886]

Faith means giving up on using your brain. What if Benjamin Franklin had just said "Lightning is caused by God, there no reason trying to explain how it works". Faith is just a way of saying "Figuring out how stuff works is too hard so 'God did it'". Everything has a rational and scientific explanation for it if you are just willing to look for the solution.

 

[Greatest I am]

I also feel alone in the world, no one wants to know, but the Lord reassures me from the inside, therefore I am not alone for He is with me, if the words that I speak are His, then they will bear fruits. I am certain that regardless of our circumstances in the end we will be victorious.

Then a church must be built and loners cannot do so.

Organization is costly and if those with the wherewithal do not move then Gnostic Christianity has no chance.

It will be a moral movement that creates our church and even now, with our moral position being a fair bit above Christianity and Islam, people do not care enough about their morals to go to a more moral religion over their own.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Let us explore if we can begin a creed. First we have to lay the foundation for our creed; and if this creed is different from other Christian creeds we will have to give a solid explanation. Let me begin to explaining to you, what I was given to believe. First, He opened my mind to understand the NT. scriptures, as it happened in Luke 24:45. and that lead me to rightly divide the word. for unless we are able to distinguish the wheat from the tares we cannot move forward.
The following Scriptures are reliable testimony of the existence of stumbling blocks for in Matthew 13:24-25, “He presented another parable to them, saying. ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away.”’ And in Matthew 18:7, again Jesus said, “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!”
Also 2Peter 3:16 strongly warned us by saying: “As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also to the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” Again 2Peter 2:1-2 is very specific by saying: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned.”
Also the apostle Paul testified about the future teaching of untruth, for we read in 2Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their earsfrom the truth, and will turn aside to myths.”
Through these reliable and undeniable testimonies, I am fully convinced that early in the Christian era the inspired Holy Word of God was contaminated by the word of man, creating anomalies and ambiguities, making many parts of the New Testament open to speculations, which work against the knowledge of God.

No argument but that does nothing for our creed. We all know that we now have millions of Gods and are a divided world.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

It doesn't matter, all gods are myths until demonstrated otherwise.

Gnostic Christianity has demonstrated that God is a man as whatever was and is written about God comes from men and women.

All species follow one of their own as their ideal or God.

What makes you think man is supposed to break than natural law?

Why should we follow some alien non-human God?

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Faith means giving up on using your brain. What if Benjamin Franklin had just said "Lightning is caused by God, there no reason trying to explain how it works". Faith is just a way of saying "Figuring out how stuff works is too hard so 'God did it'". Everything has a rational and scientific explanation for it if you are just willing to look for the solution.

Yes. It is too easy to just give all to the God of the Gaps.

The church dumbed us down with their Dark Ages and we should never go there again.

Regards
DL

 

[sojourner]

Faith means giving up on using your brain. What if Benjamin Franklin had just said "Lightning is caused by God, there no reason trying to explain how it works". Faith is just a way of saying "Figuring out how stuff works is too hard so 'God did it'". Everything has a rational and scientific explanation for it if you are just willing to look for the solution.

Faith is what keeps us from despair and from giving up.

 

[Cephus]

Aaaaand... I should take your opinion over the biblical definition of faith (Hebrews 11:1).... why, again??? I mean, heck, you can't even get the dynamics of the mythology right.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for -- for the reasons I stated. Other than that, I'm really not interested in playing pigeon chess with you.

Edit: BTW, you're assuming that I've done any of this. What makes you think I've "taken a mythical character and attached all kinds of attributes that I want him to have?" How do you know what (if anything) I believe, or what (if anything) I espouse?

Just because your book says something doesn't make it so. That's the problem with just reading one book, you don't really get a decent perspective on the world. Maybe you need to expand your repertoire a bit, read some books on basic logic. I think that would be helpful.

And don't play the childish "you don't know me" card. You seem to take the Bible seriously and the people who wrote the Bible assigned God characteristics that they have no way of actually discovering factually. If you were capable of taking a few steps back and evaluating your belief system rationally, you'd see that. But hey, what do I know, right?

 

[Cephus]

Gnostic Christianity has demonstrated that God is a man as whatever was and is written about God comes from men and women.

All species follow one of their own as their ideal or God.

What makes you think man is supposed to break than natural law?

Why should we follow some alien non-human God?

Why should you follow any God at all? Gnostic Christianity hasn't proven anything unless you want to claim that it's all just people, at which point, throw out the whole concept of religion and don't worry about it. Why worship anything at all?

 

[Greatest I am]

Why should you follow any God at all? Gnostic Christianity hasn't proven anything unless you want to claim that it's all just people, at which point, throw out the whole concept of religion and don't worry about it. Why worship anything at all?

I said nothing of worshiping anyone or anything.

The only reason Gnostic Christians use the word God is tradition and what everyone else uses for whatever or whoever their ideal is.

When I say I am God, I am not saying I am the traditional miracle working God who may have never existed. I am saying that the only God you can ever know is the good we find within ourselves. It's the God of the Conscience, or the God of right over wrong. That is quite different from me or someone thinking they are the traditional creator God, or thinking that they are more than anyone else.

Jesus would define this concept as one just seeing that they have joined God’s divine council by embracing his own Christ mind.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Divine Council - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The only proper religion for mankind is humanity itself, for it is from this humanity that God first evolved. God was and will be a glorified and exalted human being.

Regards
DL