What happens after you lose faith?

[Frank 013]

Faith huh?

Well if you are talking about religious faith...

I never had it...

I never needed it...

I don't want it.

Later

[Robert Tulip]

Faith huh? Well if you are talking about religious faith... I never had it... I never needed it...I don't want it. Later

At University I wore a Christian T-shirt with the slogan Faith, Justice, Peace. A communist friend of mine commented that two out of three aint bad. Life without faith has that bracing rationalist beauty of discarding myth and error. However, the logical mindset which rejects faith is one step from the rejection of meaning in symbol, myth and tradition. This is understandable when traditions are on balance harmful, such as belief in creationism and the virgin birth. There is something repugnant about teaching children claims that have been proven to be scientifically false, and confusing them by asserting these traditional claims are true. If that is faith

[Frank 013]

If a belief is backed by evidence then it is not in fact religious faith...

For example; the belief that a historical Jesus inspired the Bible is faith, because it is a belief with absolutely no supporting evidence.

And I happen to be a big fan of myth, as long as it is kept in the fictional category where it belongs.

Later

[Ophelia]

Hello Frank,

I don't normally discuss belief, knowing nothing about it, but I am always surprised to see people who link belief and evidence.

For me faith should have nothing to do with evidence, and proving or disproving the existence of a particular god.
If I believe one day I imagine it would be an experience that would be outside the world of rationality.


Secondly, I'm curious: what animal are you holding in the photo? It looks like a koala to me, I can't make up my mind!

[Penelope]

Frank you are lucky - if you have never had faith and never needed it.

My two closest friends, like you, feel no need of a spiritual dimension to their lives.

I was born needing it. I was brought up by my Mum, who could take 'God' or leave him. Didn't matter to her....so I never really had any parental influence to be a 'believer'. But I feel as though, if I stop seeking for a depth of faith, I might as well just switch off and die.

It might be that I am just a coward and can't face the fact that life is meaningless. It might mean that I am brave in that I keep searching.

At least I have lost the fear of questioning. I didn't ever treat the Bible as absolute truth, but I feared God. It was an Anglican Bishop who pointed out to me in an analogy, that a little child will sit in the corner of a room scared to move if he is in that room alone. If his Mother is in there with him he will wander around and enjoy exploring. That is how it has been for me. Once I stopped wondering where God was or who, once I just accepted that Jesus said 'Think of Him as your Father'. Then I could stop shivering in the corner and explore.

But I have only had a fight with dogma - not with faith. It is scary when you have been among supportive 'Christian' friends and then you have to be brave enough to admit that you cannot accept what they insist that you accept.

I don't need a name for my faith - it is just there and it is alive and growing and changing all the time - so how can I name it.

Christianity, Judism from which Christianity grew have both helped me on my journey - and now Budhism is helping me. They are only names.

The trouble with Christianity and Islam is that they proselatise. You have to appear to be absolutely convicted, all the time, if you are going to convert others to your faith. Budhism doesn't seek to convert but teaches that the soul will seek and find the truth when it is ready. If you try to convert people when they are not ready, it only makes them angry. What a relief!!!!

[Ophelia]

Penelope wrote:


"The trouble with Christianity and Islam is that they proselatise. You have to appear to be absolutely convicted, all the time, if you are going to convert others to your faith. Budhism doesn't seek to convert but teaches that the soul will seek and find the truth when it is ready"


Penelope, this is what I used to believe about buddhism. I used to do a lot of yoga for about ten years, and I also studied the philosophies associated to it.
With buddhism, I thought, we had at last a religion that was not preaching and targetting unbelievers like me.
The dream was shattered when, a week ago, I saw at my other book club that someone fom India (or with an Indian name) , had written something which linked buddhism and Heart of Darkness. I was surprised, so I asked him to clarify, and got a whole page of arguments showing that in HD Conrad applied all four principles of buddhism, with examples... exactly the sort of things which happen with some Christians.

Bye bye, Ophelia's illusions!


I wrote back and politely told him that I was unconvinced-- I was worried that perhaps I had met a new type of zealot who would pursue me in cyberspace, but so far it isn't happening.
I vowed the I would never again ask for clarifications about anything religious if I didn't know the person-- no more exceptions.

[Penelope]

Ophelia - the person you contacted was just one person and he might have felt the need to convert people to his faith. But more likely he was trying to convert you to his 'ideas'.

With Christianity and Islam - it is a demand of the faith that they convert others.

There is no such demand in Hindu or Buddhist philosophy. Buddhism is a philosophy, and way of life, but some say it is not a religion.

Yoga, I think is Hindu based......and it works very well for me too..

But Buddhism seems to have grown out of Hindu in that Gautama Buddha was a Hindu.

And Christianity grew out of Judaism in that Jesus was a Jew.

Jesus and Buddha taught the same moral behaviour (almost word for word in fact). But there the similarity ends.

.

[Frank 013]

Ophelia
I don't normally discuss belief, knowing nothing about it, but I am always surprised to see people who link belief and evidence.

Well, for me at least, most of the things that I believe (with conviction) needed to be shown to me first.

Ophelia
For me faith should have nothing to do with evidence, and proving or disproving the existence of a particular god.
If I believe one day I imagine it would be an experience that would be outside the world of rationality.

From my experience faith does not have anything to do with evidence; it appears to be a firm convicted belief in spite of the lack of any type of verifiable support.

Ophelia
Secondly, I'm curious: what animal are you holding in the photo? It looks like a koala to me, I can't make up my mind!

That is indeed a Koala, his name is Koala Jack and he lives in a zoo just outside of Sydney Australia. He is a cool little guy and a good climber... a little clingy though.

Penelope
It was an Anglican Bishop who pointed out to me in an analogy, that a little child will sit in the corner of a room scared to move if he is in that room alone. If his Mother is in there with him he will wander around and enjoy exploring. That is how it has been for me. Once I stopped wondering where God was or who, once I just accepted that Jesus said 'Think of Him as your Father'. Then I could stop shivering in the corner and explore.

This does seem to be a fundamental difference between most believers and non-believers. Even as an infant I was on the go, exploring, climbing, trying to drive the car...

According to my mother I was born with an exploratory and questioning demeanor. I definitely did not need my mother to give me the courage to explore; in fact she blocked several of my exploratory missions when I was a child. (probably a good thing)

I see religious faith in much the same way, an acceptance of some belief without question that blocks the exploration into that belief. I also believe that that is its primary purpose.

Now; it sounds like you allow yourself the freedom to explore and I think that is a good thing. But I think you will find that exploring and questioning those beliefs is not widely condoned in the Christian community.

Ask a church leader these types of questions and you will be offered "guidance" or "direction". It is just another form of control if you ask me.

Later

[Frank 013]

Penelope
It might be that I am just a coward and can't face the fact that life is meaningless.

I wanted to address this last night but I was on my way to work and did not have the time.

I wonder why the pious believe that life must be meaningless without religion and gods; I personally see the lack of a god or gods in this case as a freedom (one of many). The freedom to choose the meaning for my own life, which I feel is better than having someone dictate it to me.

Later

[Penelope]

Awe....thank you Frank for taking the trouble to reply to me.

You perceive correctly that I wasn't meaning 'physical' exploring. But the exploring of various other belief systems and methods of building spiritual strength and knowledge/wisdom. If one thinks that ones own faith or denomination is absolutely correct and that all the others are wrong....then the people with religious conviction will tell you that it is wrong to question and even that other faith systems are evil.

That can scare you and keep you in line if, like me you are inclined to be inexplicably 'intuitive',

I always think it is because (although in the main I am a very healthy person - physically) I have suffered mild epileptic seisures from birth. I think epilepsy must have some sort of effect on its sufferers because many of them are Nuns, Monks and thinkers of all types. Even my very favourite person in the whole world (aside from my friends and family of course) Rabbi Lionel Blue - is an epileptic too.

So, it would seem this compulsion to search for spiritual growth is something to do with the chemicals in the brain - what a Swizzz!

But Frank, something must have happened to me because I couldn't have been able to laugh about that, twenty or thirty years ago.