Why is faith important?

[Mystic]

Probably none of you atheists will have the attention span to actually wrap your minds around this, you will just reply with a masturbation joke, but I will post it anyways:

Faith is the way that people severe there connection with the world around them and become united to the seed of the revelation of God. When people believe in God, it is almost as if all the other authorities and definitions of knowing and understanding and all the other competing views give way to the reality of the holy light of God, which challenges the morality of the world around and gives a new center in Jesus Christ.

Without faith, people are just reasoning and reasoning back and forth, debating about the right way to go, with no authority. When people have faith, it is like they become wed to God, they become one, their will is unified with God, if it was through peoples reason, there would be no marriage, it would be back and forth, no commitment. With faith, there is commitment, people become committed to doing good for the rest of their life and not doing wrong. To repent is to say that I will never do wrong, it is not necessary to have some sort of intellectual proof of changing from an evil person to a good person, you just change.

And faith and reason rely upon each other and establish each other, like a man seeing his wife and knowing her is linked to a man's covenant of marriage. Reason illuminates faith, it is intoxicating, and like sexuality, is addictive and potentially destructive and deeply linked to pride and the expression of ones will or ones seed.

The marriage of faith and reason is like the combination of the covenant of marriage and sexuality. Sexuality illuminates and gives a physical union to the spiritual, permanent union of marriage, which cannot be changed. So the believer puts his absolute trust in God, and cuts a covenant and says no more will I be a wicked person, instead I will be a follower of Christ. From this point on, reason can guide the person and illuminate his choice to do good, but it can never replace good with evil.

Hmmm...I told myself I would stay away from this forum, but I guess I am going to be back.

I previously use to be Shiite Muslim, and I had "mystic" visions of the 12 Imams, only that it was psychosis.

What I realized now, the vision of the "the good tree", the saints, the believers, Mohammad, and Ali, was my vision of all that is beautiful and good and praiseworthy.

Only that I've realized now much of that projection was mix of falsehood and truth, good and evil.

There is a lot of good in the Bible and the character portrayed as Jesus, and in Yahweh, and so you focus on that.

There is also a lot of disgrace and dishonor in society and what is high is being made low and what is low is being made high.

So you feel sticking to Jesus is a way to safeguard yourself against the evils out there or that it gives you a fundamental distinguisher (Quran is also called Al-Furqan (the distinquisher)).

And it's true, you might feel lost...not knowing...but let the doubts have their way, let them break you, even if you question all foundations, whether praise is real or a delusion, etc...I think if you are honest in your approach, you will be able to listen to the wisdom of your heart, the honest praise and condemnation of your soul, the honest view of morals you truly have.

Honesty is the sword of the soul.

And you don't have to worship a being to believe in a soul. In other words Deism is not the only answer outside religion and naturalism.

You can believe in a Creator, supernatural world, etc, without worship or subjugating yourself to any being.

You can take the Creator as a kind guide, instead of a dictator authority king, and that even he is bound by a moral code that he cannot break, and is teaching us in midst of a battle, revealing he is our weapon.

You can see him as way above you, or you can realize he hasn't struggled with evil and good, and had to over power his will to find the praiseworthy path, but out of kindness has let humans chose who they want to be, which is a greater honor.

We are not separate from the source, he lives in us, and I agree faith does change your outlook on life.

It's just that I think the Source rather have us soul search and battle, then simply submit to authority and dogma.

My two cents.