Do you see any benefits to religious faith?

[Arkilogue]

First, let me give you kudos on one of your best posts on these forums.  I've developed a dislike for you, but mainly because you injected your new-age woo into a science thread.  However, this post was bang-on, and you've gone convincingly to the point-- except for choosing a suspect source, in which I have little "faith."

Well....thanks. And thnk for making me look deeper into this, found something salient, posted at the end.

Let me ask you, when the Biblical Jesus talked about faith like a mustard seed, do you think he was talking about the process of gathering "solid, compelling evidence?"  Why, then, did he scold those who demanded miracles, saying "Do not put your lord God to the test"?  Sounds kind of like the opposite of what you're talking about, bud.  It sounds like a very explicit instruction to accept WITHOUT evidence. . . which is how we view the use of the word today.

Do you know what shape a mustard seed is? Here's the entire passage: (Aramaic) Mathew 17:19 Then the disciples came to Yeshua himself alone and they said to him, "Why were we not able to heal him?" 20Yeshua* said to them, "Because of your unbelief, for amen, I say to you, that if you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you may say to this mountain, 'Move from here', and it will move, and nothing will be difficult for you". 21"But this kind does not go out except by fasting and by prayer."

KJV: 20And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed,

And here is where translations start giving additional/superfluous/non
sequitur/misdirecting information: "Size" is not in the original Greek

New American Standard Bible: And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

Now it sounds like Jesus is either stupid or an asshole. "Oh your faith is too small? If it was only just as big as the smallest thing around, you might get somewhere in life." :rolleye:

The mountain is doubt. The giant inertial collection of unbelief and even erroneous belief. It only takes faith like a single spherical grain of mustard to move the entire thing.

Okay, let me say something WITH you, because I also did a little deeper research into the word's use: I think a lot of X-tians, and especially Catholic, doctrine is in accord with what you are saying.  I believe, in fact, you could probably find much better proof that "faith" means someone is "convinced," but you'll also find that it requires an act of participation-- someone makes a conscious choice to accept the "evidence," and fall in accordance to the will of God, etc.  So in a world that is FULL of evidence against the God idea, and very little for it, how should we in the 21st century view faith?  In the context of a forum whose members are not theists, what should we look at when we ask if there's a benefit to faith?

Saying, "Faith is the Truth of God, implanted into a willing soul," yadda yadda isn't going to get us very far here.  Saying that it represents a suspension of disbelief-- a rational disbelief caused by the overwhelming evidence AGAINST the God idea-- and then looking at whether this suspension of disbelief has benefits, is the right way to go about it.

And here is what I found digging deeper into faith and "conviction" part of it.

http://biblehub.com/lexicon/hebrews/11-1.htm
or, the conviction ἔλεγχος elenchos 1650 a proof, test from elegchó

Elegchos in Plato’s Works: http://www.lectio-divina.org/index.cfm?f...ture_id=16

The Greek noun elegchos may be defined as follows: refutation, argument of disproof, refutation; it
derives from the verb elegcho: to refute, cross-examine, question, put to shame.

My faith authoring experience was not my NDE. It was the experience of being absolutely transparent to an omnipresent mind which allowed me to look at myself clearly through it's many eyes. Think of your house and night, you have a nice view, windows look clear. But then the sun comes up and strikes the windows at a certain angle highlighting every single smudge and mare on the glass. So much so that your attention is immediately on all those imperfections that used to be "invisible" now are messing up your nice view.

The experience was absolutely not butterfly breaths and rainbow farts. It was my Magic Mirror gate from The Never Ending story where kind men find out they are cruel, brave men find out they are really coward. When confronted with their true selves...most run away screaming. I thought I was a relatively good, reliable person, I found out I was petty and a flake and I wouldn't have chosen to even be my own friend. I was ashamed of myself and my mind recoiled but there was no where to go and I became afraid...so the presence left me.

I was during me NDE that I fully accepted/embraced myself with all my collected errors and returned to my body volitionally.

My my faith authoring experience was ego shattering. Conviction by my own judgment given the shared conscious power to observe myself in truth. It was a gift of Reality.

I've never been so terrified and grateful for anything else in my life. My mountain crumbed to the ground in a global earthquake.