What Is Good about Faith?

[EgoLovesDeception]

Our bodies hunger; we feed them nutrients, and exercise and sunshine. Our minds hunger; we feed them information, philosophical construct and exercises in creative thought. Our spirits hunger; what shall we feed them? Faith is a spiritual construct that makes sense out of spiritual need, just as philosophy is an intellectual construct that makes sense out of intellectual need, and just as exercise is a construct that makes sense out of physical need.

Sorry from a well-meaning heart is a good thing. Isn't it? Isn't it a representation of G-d's humility for our soul's eternal sake as oppose to satan's arrogance for our ego's and flesh's temporal sake? :sorry1:

 

[EgoLovesDeception]

How illusionary. Why the heck am I still talking to this d*mn computer? Ahhh...

 

[Ringer]

The interesting thing about the story of Job to me is that if satin really wanted to test Job, he should have lavished him with power, money, and success, rather than with deep misfortune and suffering. Any fool will believe in God when times are desperate. It's when we think we're doing great by our own mind and hand that we fall away from a faith in God at the drop of a hat.

That's a good point but Job DID have everything he needed and yet God still said:

"Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

So it seems as though things were working in reverese. In fact, this is what Satan's beef was.

Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.

Job is a role model for many Christians because he worshipped God when he had all he could ever ask for as well as having everything utterly destroyed.

 

[HouseofIsrael]

My point is that we are at our weakest when we think we're strong, and at our strongest when we think we have lost all.

Wow...

 

[PureX]

That's a good point but Job DID have everything he needed and yet God still said:

So it seems as though things were working in reverese. In fact, this is what Satan's beef was.

Job is a role model for many Christians because he worshipped God when he had all he could ever ask for as well as having everything utterly destroyed.

The story of Job, like many of the OT stories were intended to inspire discussion and debate about the relationship between man and God. I don't believe Job was intended to be a "role model", but more like a problem in story form. The story was meant to make us ask tough questions that we don't necessarily have any answers for. Why would God allow satan to harm a man who had done nothing but worship him? Why should we respect a God that would allow us to suffer as pawns in a game between Him and evil? And what about the deaths of his children? As part of an idle bet?

The old Jews who wrote and used the OT used it much differently than we do today. They used it to inspire them to argue and debate the nature of God and man's relationship to God. They believed that for men to sit in such debate was a "divine endeavor" and they did not expect to find a single easy answer that would fit all believers. We do a disservice to those old Jews, today, when we turn their stories into single-minded object lessons intended to teach one lesson to all believers. That's not what those stories were meant to do, by their own authors.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

That's not what those stories were meant to do, by their own authors.

You presume too much.

 

[PureX]

You presume too much.

It's not my presumption, but simple history. The "living God" of the Jews was not a god in a book, or a statue in a temple. It was a god in their hearts and minds that they had to grapple and wrestle with.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

I make a razor wire distinction when dealing with this particular topic. Faith is a manifestly good thing, Religious adherence is of mixed-virtue, and the "leadership" of religions (that is those "members" outside of your average community worship service) are almost all bad.


Religious leadership has tended toward an incestuous (figuratively speaking not literally) power exchange amongst elites with an eye towards controlling the world. I refuse to take seriously any claims of faith or membership in a religion from people who cannot live up to the basic tenets of their religion.

Religious adherence creates communities, tends to espouse decent morals, and brings a little bit of joy into people's lives. It also tends to foster "follow the herd" mentality, in practice less than savory moral upbringings will occur under religiously dominated upbringings, and in my own personal opinion denies people the chance to figure out what their "true" beliefs are.


But Faith... No, Faith is a good thing. There is a strength and peacefulness attained in Faith and in my experience it doesn't really matter what that Faith regards so long as the Faith is true. Even an Atheist who has found some deep meaningful philosophy on life can have that same "Faithfulness" about them. So in the end I count Faith as being amongst the list of virtuous things that all people should aspire to have (in moderation of course; all things in moderation, including moderation).


MTF