Faith?

[irishrosem]

In addition to feeling cheated, she must also feel she has grossly wasted a large chunk of her life. If she spent much of her free time celebrating, participating in, and reading about her god and her religion, and if a large part of her community life has involved her religion, where does she turn at the age of 60? Do you start all over with a new community? All those relationships built around her faith will certainly change. Are they over? Not necessarily. But they are sure to be altered. Perhaps it's easier to just continue your faith than to question one of your life's major choices during your sunset years? I'm glad I sorted out my issues with faith on the earlier side of my life.

[Asana Bodhitharta]

Quote:She has wasted her time serving a master who has no desire or ability to repay her. so either he is a god of empty promises, or he does not exist.Or either you have no idea what's going on and your just guessing. What makes you think that it is not in her best interest to be exactly where she is in life right now. Perhaps God has something else planned for her that will extremely increase her faith permanently. The fact is you don't know.Quote:I think this woman is finally seeing that fact, and in her words she feels cheated. To work in the name of god demands sacrifice and I believe she wonders at the potential life she has denied herself.In what way do you feel that she denied herself? If you get sick or injured would you like someone to feel that you must have not had a good life? This is really sad you defaming this woman.Quote:In her mind she has worked a lifetime for god, but payment is not forthcoming. You assume that she worshipped God as an insurance policy.Quote:Is the only reason she did all of that because she intended to collect in the future? I tend to doubt it. Then why suggest it to everyone?Quote:I really do not think that at 5/10/20/40 years of age this woman was thinking "boy I'll really get a good payback from god when I am 65!But in any event the things that you see as gifts from god are available to all of us, believers or not.The Bible states it as "It rains on both the Just and unjust" The Quaran says clearly that this life is but a trial.Quote:Happiness, health, peace with ones self, peace with others, are all possible without invoking the god myth. In fact I would argue that it is easier without god, because there is no outside source of needless guilt.You certainly have no guilt condemning this womans faith. Why don't you tell her what you've been discussing here and invite her to join in on this conversation.

[MadArchitect]

Chris OConnor: I think she should feel cheated. She is being cheated. Her Bible and her preacher or priest have told her over and over and over again, "Ask and it shall be given..."In the interests of fairness, it should be pointed out that, while that passage could be interpreted to say you'll be granted whatever you ask for from God, it doesn't say that. It seems entirely more like to me that the "it" of the passage refers very specifically to Christian salvation. Context counts for a lot here: the chapter before 7 is about judgement; the chapter after is about the gate to life, which is generally interpreted to mean heaven.

[Dissident Heart]

I think there is some deep confusion regarding the goal of Christian life: it is not wealth and status and delightful health...but radical confrontation of the forces of evil and oppression, understanding full well the brutal consequences of such action.The Christian, as I see the text and understand the traditions, is not pursuing health, but the Kingdom of God...which is largely in direct contradiction to the dominant Imperial structures that inform and support the world of wealth, position, success and what is called "health".In other words, living a long and happy life free of pain is not on the agenda for Christians. Instead, an intensly active pursuit of peace and justice that rattles the cages of the masses while upsetting the comfort of the masters is in store: and it will kill those who are taken seriously.For Christians who think praying to God will simply cure their diseases, heal their illnesses or remedy their sickness...miss the point. The point is changing the world and sacrificing one's life along the way. Asking and receiving from God is only meaningful in that context.Now, I think Christian healing is a matter of pulling isolated, resentful, oppressed and battered folk out of the Imperial grip of master/slave relationships: but not as a way of simply reducing discomfort and increasing ease...but as a way of building authentic relationships of love and compassion that share a common goal and purpose. This common goal and purpose is the Kingdom of God.For Christians, praying to God is only meaningful as far as it awakens them to the coming Kingdom, makes them receptive of it, and equips them to work towards it. Healing, curing, mending...all of this is an issue of radically changing the world, not simply asking God to make the world less painful.Christians need to know what they're getting into when they decide to follow the path of the Crucified one...and understand it demands profound transformation at great cost. It is a terribly dangerous practice and it is not something conducive to bourgeois mentalities or those simply seeking the American dream or a happy, normal life.

[Frank 013]

Hey, did I smell a zombie dog? Later

[Frank 013]

I do not know if the woman was expecting to be healed because of the earlier mentioned passage or not.I do know that she believed in miracles. I can also see that she now has a more critical eye concerning miracles. Will she suddenly become atheist? Like I said before I doubt it, she was and still is far too immersed in that world. And just like the theists in this thread her friends undoubtedly used the same excuses mentioned above.But she has learned a lesson, one that she will most likely not forget. She now believes that god's compassion has limits, even for his devout worshipers. Later

[MadArchitect]

Frank 013: I do not know if the woman was expecting to be healed because of the earlier mentioned passage or not.Oh, I know that you weren't making that connection explicit. And honestly, I'm not talking about the specific woman you have in mind. I'm just trying to clarify that the interpretation Chris' link gave to that verse isn't clearly the implicit meaning of the verse. Less confusion is always a good thing, right?I do know that she believed in miracles.The question then, I'd say, is how dependent her religious faith is on her faith in miracles.On the whole, though, I don't feel terribly comfortable discussing this woman as though she were the subject of some kind of study. We've taken her very private pain and made it into the topic of a very public discussion. Obviously, she doesn't know that she's the subject of this discussion. I can't help but feel that she'd be fairly outraged if she did know.

[Frank 013]

Mad,I don't think that she would be especially angry because she is likely struggling with these same questions. But I do think it might be more productive to discuss a broader group, rather than just one individual. The question of faith hinging on belief in miracles is a good question. I would think that the Christian myth would demand a strong correlation between the two; after all every major event in the bible is considered a miracle. Do Christians need to believe that miracles still happen? I think so, Christians (for the most part) believe in a compassionate, loving, protective god and for a god to live up to this description he must be involved in aiding his flock, if even in small mysterious ways.I always thought it funny that Christians know, without a doubt, how god wants them to behave, but when asked why a loving compassionate god allows for certain uncharacteristic events or injustices to happen, his followers say "god works in mysterious ways".Later

[MadArchitect]

Frank 013: The question of faith hinging on belief in miracles is a good question. I would think that the Christian myth would demand a strong correlation between the two; after all every major event in the bible is considered a miracle.I'm fine with that point of departure.I'd say there's a lot of ways to look at the issue of miracles, and one isn't necessarily any more legitimate than the other.Our perception of the traditional view of miracles is that miracles are exceptions to the normal course of the natural world. I don't know that that's necessarily the case, historically.One view is that a miracle can be any phenomenon, regardless of whether or not it's inexplicable by naturalistic means. What makes a phenomenon a miracle isn't that we can't figure out any other way to explain it, but rather that it has a particular meaning to people based on its place in a perceived scheme of things. So even if it's possible to explain, say, a plague of locusts, the Hebrews perceive it as a miracle because they perceive a relationship between its occurrence and their situation at the time.Of course, that doesn't account for all of the miracles in the Bible. Another traditional view is that there was an age of miracles, but that we're living in an essentially post-miraculous time. That view runs in direct contrast to the notion that God dispenses miracles to Christian believers, although it still affords space for the idea of Providence.And a third view, which has some measure of currency among modern believers, is a kind of agnosticism in relation to the issue of miracles. Ask those believers if they believe that miracles happen and they'll say that they've never seen evidence of one. Ask them if they believe in the miracles described in the Bible, and they'll likely say that they aren't sure whether they really happened, whether there was a naturalistic explanation for them, or whether they're completely apocryphal. But these people still hold to the religious faith, still consider themselves Christians, and so on, and so forth.So sociologically, at least, I wouldn't say that belief in the veracity of miracles is a necessary component of Christian belief.I always thought it funny that Christians know, without a doubt, how god wants them to behave, but when asked why a loving compassionate god allows for certain uncharacteristic events or injustices to happen, his followers say "god works in mysterious ways".That's a charicature that certainly applies to some Christians, but Christians are also capable of giving far more competent and less simplistic answers.

[Frank 013]

Quote:So sociologically, at least, I wouldn't say that belief in the veracity of miracles is a necessary component of Christian belief. You may be correct here I keep thinking along a logical pathway and I forget that most people do not put that much effort into their belief.For instance as soon as miracles are removed from the picture my mind creates this line of logic. If the biblical miracles are not true, Then the bible is not true, Then what the heck are they worshiping? My answer is: an idea based off of a fiction book. My conclusion: they may as well be devotees of the Force and call themselves Jedi! But again I doubt that most agnostic Christians ever put this much thought into their belief.Quote:That's a charicature that certainly applies to some Christians, but Christians are also capable of giving far more competent and less simplistic answers.I have heard other answers but not better ones. And when confronted with the inconsistencies of their answers they always fall back to the "mysterious ways" answer in one form or another.Here is an example of one of their "better" answers.God allows his believers to suffer here on earth so that they can learn important lessons that will allow them to serve god better in the after life.Ok, that's great. But if god is all powerful, everywhere and all knowing why does he need servants? In fact why would he create the angels? Or man for that matter? God is all powerful all knowing but he can't entertain himself? Seems flimsy.Later