(August 2, 2012 at 12:44 am)whateverist Wrote: I was writing a review for the book "The Wisdom of Insecurity" by Alan Watts on fb today. That was an influential book for me back at a time when I liked a lot of woo. Seriously, while Watts tends to over-reach at times he also makes some good points, I still think.
Here are a couple quotes about belief in God and how that is in opposition to faith.
Quote #1: “If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go.”
Quote #2: “For we have never actually understood the revolutionary sense beneath them [the words*] – the incredible truth that what religion calls the vision of God is found in giving up any belief in the idea of God.”
*My insertion.
Essentially Watts thinks we are in flight from uncertainty and that leads to many compromises and poor choices all in hopes of attaining certainty .. which is and always will be elusive anyway. Whatever glimpse of God may be possible and what that could even mean is something which no one will ever know who will not open his eyes to see but clings instead to belief. By clinging to 'the word', Christians miss the 'thing' itself, whatever that may be.
I wonder if we have any Christians on board who would like to explain to me how faith, which is synonymous with trust, is compatible with dogma. How can you say you have faith in the nearness of God if what you really mean is you have faith that the words written in the bible are true? Isn't your 'faith' in God really secondary to your belief in what that book says about God? You have no confidence in anything you experience in your relationship with God that even comes close to your belief in the words written in that book. You read those words into what you experience almost as a kind of self hypnosis. If God exists and really wants a relationship with you but the words written in that book are all you are willing to see, aren't you risking a lot?
[Hopefully it is clear why citing the bible would be an evasion of my question. The bible can't be the reason why you choose the bible over God. Either you have faith to open yourself to whatever God is and however He chooses to make Himself known to you, or you have your assumptions (ie, beliefs) from the bible.]
It seems you have a different understanding of Faith than what God expects or provides for. God tells us: Faith is what makes real the things we hope for. It is proof of what we cannot see. God was pleased with the people who lived a long time ago because they had faith like this.
For God and his followers 'faith' is an extention evidence based belief. Hokem writters that cater to those who wish to try and phiosophically seperate themselves from God, have changed the meaning of the word faith to mean: an intense baseless hope. Which is not what God offers, nor is the faith God offers limited to the reading of the bible. God offers exactly what an indivisual needs to sustain biblically based faith, and if one is faithful to what he has been given. He will be given more. If not what he has been given will be taken from him and given to someone else.
