Faith - Can it Go Too Far?

[diffidus]

I have been trying understand the limits of faith. My limits are very low. Habit leads me to think the sun will come up tommorow and that Einstein's law of gravity will not suddenly change. But I am agnostic to even this, as it is certainly something that cannot be proven in advance. In this way, to at least a certain extent, we all have faith in science.

But a real test of faith is given in The Bible. The story of Abraham is heralded as the ultimate test of faith. In this story, Abraham is asked to sacrifice on an altar his own son Isaac. I cannot help thinking that, if this happened in a modern day setting, Abraham would most likely be arrested as a dangerous schizophrenic or possibly even psychopath.

The story makes little sense: surely he must have had some doubt, in which case he could surley not risk murdering his own son. On the other hand, if God had really left him in no doubt, then where is the test of faith?

To me, I find the story of Abraham frightening. It holds the very essence of fundamentalism, yet tries to 'pass it off' as a virtue. The story highlights a very real concern for all Humankind, namely, what are the limits of faith?

[Minimalist]

You are close to a Great Truth, Dif. Perhaps best expressed by Robert Green Ingersoll:

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.

[BloodyHeretic]

But a real test of faith is given in The Bible. The story of Abraham is heralded as the ultimate test of faith. In this story, Abraham is asked to sacrifice on an altar his own son Isaac. I cannot help thinking that, if this happened in a modern day setting, Abraham would most likely be arrested as a dangerous schizophrenic or possibly even psychopath.

There wasn't anybody to do that back in the day. Pity.

The story makes little sense: surely he must have had some doubt, in which case he could surley not risk murdering his own son. On the other hand, if God had really left him in no doubt, then where is the test of faith?

The point I think, is that he overcame these doubts and trusted in god.

To me, I find the story of Abraham frightening. It holds the very essence of fundamentalism, yet tries to 'pass it off' as a virtue. The story highlights a very real concern for all Humankind, namely, what are the limits of faith?

Why god wanted this unthinking, blind, stupid, ignorant obedience as his chief virtue in first the Jews and then Christians, is beyond me. If I was god, and asked Abraham to ritually murder his son, and he didn't have the integrity and moral courage to refuse point blank to carry out this disgusting act, I would not be impressed. This is the patriarchal figure of the three monotheisms, a source of inspiration! He was a spineless moral degenerate coward, not to mention delusional, and is no role model for anyone.

However, in a system trying to propagate itself (religion in this case), unquestioning devotion and obedience is desirable in it's followers. Another trait of it's man made origin, how anybody can actually believe this stuff is, I agree, a scary prospect.

[Napoléon]

Garrgh! I'm so sick of people telling me it takes faith to believe in science

Science is testable, and seen as the sun coming up everyday and the laws of physics/gravity can be tested, then it doesn't really take faith to accept these things as true or correct.

Can we test god? NAHHHHH....

See my point?
Sorry, Bad mood today

[frankiej]

In a case like abraham, I don't see why God needed to test him... Obviously you touched on that but i'll just add something.
The test did not really need to be carried out at all; Abraham clearly was in no doubt of his own faith as represented by his attempted murder and surely if God is so omnipotent as the crazies claim he is then he would have known anyway, so the only purpose I can see for this test was to prove to Isaac that his father was a fucking mad man who needed help.

I did a blog entry a wee while ago about faith. It is the absolute belief in faith that makes people blow them selves up or shoot an abortionist.

[Minimalist]

I don't see why God needed to test him

Er...wouldn't an all-knowing fucking god have already known how the "test" would turn out?

[Faith No More]

I think a more reasonable version of the story would go like this.

God: Abraham I want you to kill your son.

Abraham: Really God?

God: Yes Abraham, kill your son.

Abraham: Okay God.

(Abraham reaches for a knife and lifts into the air)

God: Holy fuck! You were actually going to kill your own kid just because I said so? I was just kidding, but Jesus Christ you are a moronic asshole.

[diffidus]

Garrgh! I'm so sick of people telling me it takes faith to believe in science

Science is testable, and seen as the sun coming up everyday and the laws of physics/gravity can be tested, then it doesn't really take faith to accept these things as true or correct.

Can we test god? NAHHHHH....

See my point?
Sorry, Bad mood today

Diffidus:

You are certainly correct about God. But not correct about science. It may sound slightly bizarre, but I was making a real philosophical point, namely, that the law of cause and effect (that underlies much of science) has to be assumed. Suppose you have an apple and you drop it. You assume, reasonably, that this is due to gravity and that if you pick it up and drop it again - it will fall. However, your empirical observation about the apple can never be extended into the future - all empirical measurements are necessarily in the past. This shows that we infer the future events from measurements made in the past. Even worse, we can never prove that the future events follow from the past events and, hence, we must always hold them on faith. This point is not new, but a central proof given by the Scottish philosopher David Hume.

---

Faith - Can it Go Too Far?

Diffidus:
Extending this notion a little.

Is there anybody out there who believes that Noah lived to the ripe old age of ~900 years.

Or that he and his kin (about 8 people) built a boat out of wood the size of an enormous football stadium.

Or that Noah then filled this with two of every species living on earth.

How could these 8 people feed such a multitude let alone clean up the waste.

To believe this story, again, makes me fearful - can it really be that faith causes such self delusion?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I don't see why God needed to test him

Er...wouldn't an all-knowing fucking god have already known how the "test" would turn out?

G'day Min. I'm not quite back yet.

Yes, an omniscient god would indeed have known ,by definition.. An embarrassment for those of the Abrahamaic faiths who actually spend any time reading history and thinking at the same time. Until the Book of Exodus, YHWH, God of the Universe and infinite attributes, was still 'El' ('He) a petty Sumerian desert god closer in character to one of the more petulant Greek or Norse gods.


Tangent: There is a current position amongst archeaologists that the Torah was written down in Judah (southern Israel) in C7th bce. Interestingly THOUSANDS of figurines of a female deity have been found all over Israel dating from that time. The implication is that although Judaism may have been OFFICIALLY monotheistic in the seventh century, a great many Jews remained privately polytheistic.

[Minimalist]

Good to see you again, Pad.

The tangential issue you mention is dealt with in Bill Dever's "Did God Have A Wife." The existence of a generalized Canaanite religion in the area seems obvious ( to all but the most biblically benighted assholes...of which there are quite a few around here.) What Dever seems to be suggesting is that in the 7th century ( as Jerusalem became an actual city instead of a one-horse town ) there was an effort by the king and the priests located there to make their role central. The king had political considerations in that he needed the support of the people in the countryside and so did not always give the priests what they wanted..... a sure fire way to get on the wrong side of priests even today! Yahweh may well have been the king of the gods in Jerusalem at that time but he was not the "only" god. That line of shit grew out of the Persian occupation. Once exposed to the idea of a single creator god Yahweh got a promotion. See Philip R. Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel.