How is faith a virtuous and reasonable attribute?

[Lyndon]

What do you mean 'the highest god'. May i ask again, what god you are referring to? I am not familiar with the androgenous 'highest god' you speak of. What religion is this that you follow?

Honestly I'm sort of a polytheist that believe there are less powerful God's who are not as purely good, like Krishna, Brahma, Manjushri etc

Hate to admit it but I have my own understanding of religion, not exactly my own religion, I practice Elements of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, I believe the highest God is the highest God in all those religions

Most of my life I've been a Buddhist that believed in a God the Buddha never talked about or denied.

 

[Lyndon]

Sure. If the biblical god was proven to me to be real - I would believe he existed, but would refuse absolutely to worship him.

What if you discovered that the true God exists, but is nothing like it is described in the Bible, just a source of pure truth, honesty, and wisdom, that all the true prophets draw from, but few hear without mucking it up with their own prejudices and ideas.?? To me God is like every atom and electron in the Universe, just everything

I think the Jews envisioned a much smaller God, a god only concerned with them and selfishly opposed to their enemies, a petty god, not a Universal GOD

Actually the best book I have read about God is called the Tao in "The tao te ching" by Lao tzu about 500BC in China.

 

[oldbadger]

To skeptics faith is nothing more than the ability to suspend disbelief when common sense and reason would clearly support disbelief.

...common sense..... and reason.
How many people who had faith in their own sense and reason were found to be complete idiots?

I'm sorry

I do not believe that you are at all sorry.....

, but to me faith is a measure of how purposely gullible a person can be. Am I wrong?

Rubbish. There are all kinds of 'faith'. Even you might hold some faith..... in some things. It's all about 'trusting'....

Is there any rational argument for faith being a virtuous and reasonable attribute?

Faith is not an attribute........ it is a condition of the mind, heart or inner self .... relating to some 'thing'. I don't have the same faith as, say, a Christian might have, but I have faith.

Go find some faith, and you will know more about it.

 

[Bunyip]

Honestly I'm sort of a polytheist that believe there are less powerful God's who are not as purely good, like Krishna, Brahma, Manjushri etc

Hate to admit it but I have my own understanding of religion, not exactly my own religion, I practice Elements of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, I believe the highest God is the highest God in all those religions

Most of my life I've been a Buddhist that believed in a God the Buddha never talked about or denied.

So when you say 'God' you are simply referring to a generalised abstraction of your own invention - as opposed to a known god?

 

[Bunyip]

What if you discovered that the true God exists, but is nothing like it is described in the Bible, just a source of pure truth, honesty, and wisdom, that all the true prophets draw from, but few hear without mucking it up with their own prejudices and ideas.?? To me God is like every atom and electron in the Universe, just everything

Well if I knew such a 'source of truth, honesty etc' God existed, I would need no faith. And as for the god you describe as the entire universe, believing the universe exists demands no faith whatsoever either.

I think the Jews envisioned a much smaller God, a god only concerned with them and selfishly opposed to their enemies, a petty god, not a Universal GOD

Actually the best book I have read about God is called the Tao in "The tao te ching" by Lao tzu about 500BC in China.

Funny you should say that, given that there is no God in Taoism.

 

[Lyndon]

So when you say 'God' you are simply referring to a generalised abstraction of your own invention - as opposed to a known god?

No I would say The True God is the Tao, in Taoism, the source of the Buddha's wisdom the Dhammakaya, the true JHVH that few accurately reach in the Bible, and the True Allah that the sincerest Muslims reach etc

Taoism introduces a name for the higher power, THE TAO and then spends the whole Tao Te Ching explaining how to become aware of the Tao and let the Tao influence our life. The Tao is literally everything I think, and understanding the Tao is understanding how everything is interconnected and"synchronistic".

 

[Lyndon]

its sort of like the God of the human body cell is the human itself that the cell is a part of, the God of the human is the Earth, the God of the Earth is the solar system, the God of the solar system is the galaxy and the god of the galaxy if the whole universe, Its easy to understand why it might be hard to comprehend God, and why it so silly to say any man is God. Muslims talk a lot about how incredibly huge and powerful God is, unfortunately they don't always translate that into the best religion, but they try.

 

[Bunyip]

No I would say The True God is the Tao, in Taoism, the source of the Buddha's wisdom the Dhammakaya, the true JHVH that few accurately reach in the Bible, and the True Allah that the sincerest Muslim reach etc

Taoism introduces a name for the higher power, THE TAO and then spends the whole Tao Te Ching explaining how to become aware of the Tao and let the Tao influence our life. The Tao is literally everything I think, and understanding the Tao is understanding how everything is interconnected and"synchronistic".

Sure, I have read the tao - I was baptised into Tao some years ago by the way.

The point is that the Tao conception of god is not at all the same as the theistic faith based gods. It is not a God in the same sense at all. Chinese philosophies do not posit theistic gods

 

[Lyndon]

THAT'S BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS WRITTEN BY MEN

Well perhaps by some miraculous happenstance we get into this big argument about God, and find out we both believe in God in the form of the Tao, you don't have to accept that the Tao is God in the Bible and Koran as I tend to think, but at least you could consider that the better parts of those religions, be they few and far between, may come from the Tao....

 

[JustWondering]

...common sense..... and reason.
How many people who had faith in their own sense and reason were found to be complete idiots?

I do not believe that you are at all sorry.....

Rubbish. There are all kinds of 'faith'. Even you might hold some faith..... in some things. It's all about 'trusting'....

Faith is not an attribute........ it is a condition of the mind, heart or inner self .... relating to some 'thing'. I don't have the same faith as, say, a Christian might have, but I have faith.

Go find some faith, and you will know more about it.

But how is faith in improvable supernatural beings/forces a good thing? For instance, do you think that the Jehovah's Witness's faith in the belief that blood transfusions go against god's will is misplaced or do you think that is a reasonable faith based belief to practice?

 

[Augustus]

Faith is virtuous when it makes you do things that are beneficial for society, it is reasonable when it does thing that benefit you or society.

'Scientific-rationalism' is often neither virtuous or reasonable, faith also. Both can teach us something though.

 

[oldbadger]

But how is faith in improvable supernatural beings/forces a good thing? For instance, do you think that the Jehovah's Witness's faith in the belief that blood transfusions go against god's will is misplaced or do you think that is a reasonable faith based belief to practice?

Oh dear.... oh dear! That old chestnut.
Let me help you........ although I would take a transfusion, or sign for my wife to have one, please just stop and think...
1. How many people have died in the last 50 years because they refused a transfusion?
2. How many people have died in the last 50 years because they agreed to a transfusion?

You believe in loads of stuff that probably isn't reasonable. I know parents who don't believe in kids seat-belt laws, who think that smoking at home is ok, who don't agree with giving tramps money (oh! they only spend it on cider!) etc etc.

Whether you like it or not, you will almost certainly have loads of 'beliefs' and 'faiths' which are unreasonable to others, one of which is this:- You believe that you are more reasonable than Jehovah's Witnesses.

 

[john2054]

Hi Lyndon, can I just say that i'm with you 100% brother. Also you might like to know that the female god does make a small albeit brief appearance in the book of the Bible, John I think. Her name is Sophia, she is the female biblical Goddess. As for proving the truth of the Chinese sages to a wanker, why are you even bothering>? Some people love their sin so much they will cradle it to the grave. More's the pity i've met quite a few of them on here!??

 

[Lyndon]

I'm talking about God in the bible(with a dual Male and Female side), Which in China was understood as TAO, Sophia I assume is a greek demi-goddess and has nothing to do with my religion.

 

[Bunyip]

Faith is virtuous when it makes you do things that are beneficial for society, it is reasonable when it does thing that benefit you or society.

'Scientific-rationalism' is often neither virtuous or reasonable, faith also. Both can teach us something though.

But faith is also often neither virtuous or reasonable, so what is the distinction you are making there?

 

[Augustus]

But faith is also often neither virtuous or reasonable, so what is the distinction you are making there?

No distinction really, no worldview, belief system or ideology is of itself virtuous and reasonable. The OP asked if there is any rational argument that faith is virtuous and reasonable, and how faith in an unprovable supernatural being can possibly be a good thing, was just noting that any belief that provides benefit is rational. Justifications for beliefs are not important, the effects of having these beliefs is the main thing.

Religion is just a mix of tradition, ritual, wisdom and culture. It is a source of knowledge just as science is, not the same type of course, but knowledge none the less. Importantly, any source of knowledge that lasts thousands of years must have some benefits, otherwise it wouldn't still exist. What is rational is what provides benefit, not what is 'objectively' correct.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

To skeptics faith is nothing more than the ability to suspend disbelief when common sense and reason would clearly support disbelief. I'm sorry, but to me faith is a measure of how purposely gullible a person can be. Am I wrong? Is there any rational argument for faith being a virtuous and reasonable attribute?

Faith is based on emotions, you have much faith, it means you have deep emotional life.

All those things skeptics say are very good, objectivity, facts, many of those things computers and machines can do much more efficiently than people.

What's really more important in people's lives are things which cannot be measured at all, like love and hate, beauty, trust and so on.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

To skeptics faith is nothing more than the ability to suspend disbelief when common sense and reason would clearly support disbelief. I'm sorry, but to me faith is a measure of how purposely gullible a person can be. Am I wrong? Is there any rational argument for faith being a virtuous and reasonable attribute?

Faith is based on emotions, you have much faith, it means you have deep emotional life.

All those things skeptics say are very good, objectivity, facts, many of those things computers and machines can do much more efficiently than people.

What's really more important in people's lives are things which cannot be measured at all, like love and hate, beauty, trust and so on.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

To skeptics faith is nothing more than the ability to suspend disbelief when common sense and reason would clearly support disbelief. I'm sorry, but to me faith is a measure of how purposely gullible a person can be. Am I wrong? Is there any rational argument for faith being a virtuous and reasonable attribute?

Faith is based on emotions, you have much faith, it means you have deep emotional life.

All those things skeptics say are very good, objectivity, facts, many of those things computers and machines can do much more efficiently than people.

What's really more important in people's lives are things which cannot be measured at all, like love and hate, beauty, trust and so on.

 

[JustWondering]

As for proving the truth of the Chinese sages to a wanker, why are you even bothering>? Some people love their sin so much they will cradle it to the grave. More's the pity i've met quite a few of them on here!??

If you truly believe I am a sin loving wanker who is not worth talking to please refrain from posting on this thread, thanks.