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Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 1:47 am
(This post was last modified: July 10, 2013 at 2:09 am by Magnum.)
[/b]I've been reading a few links on the web concerning the subject matter.
I'm not sure if I can agree 100% but I would think faith to be somewhat of an ignorant laziness or something like that.
Your feelings/thoughts please.
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 1:49 am
Faith is an excuse not to think.
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 1:52 am
Can be. It can also be an excuse, like Minimalist said.
Could be ignorance. Could be laziness. But yes, it can be a sickness. I strongly believe this.
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 2:03 am
(This post was last modified: July 10, 2013 at 2:06 am by Magnum.)
(July 10, 2013 at 1:49 am)Minimalist Wrote: Faith is an excuse not to think. I agree. All people have to believe things even if its just for a short period of time. I mean until you know it's either true or not. People have to believe scientific stuff until proven different but Faith is like belief in belief without the knowing. Sorry it boggles my mind somewhat and in this sense it seems almost disease like to me.
Can't know for sure?
(July 10, 2013 at 1:52 am)Ivy Wrote: Can be. It can also be an excuse, like Minimalist said.
Could be ignorance. Could be laziness. But yes, it can be a sickness. I strongly believe this. Can you maybe expand on why you believe it could be a sickness?
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.
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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 2:09 am
Depends on what faith means. Faith is not always in a deity or something unknown. Faith can also mean hope in something is true with out evidence to show it is. For example you can have faith in someone even though you cannot prove fully of the aspect you have faith in. However faith in deity seems to steam from insecurity or inability to cope with reality.
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I would be a televangelist....but I have too much of a soul.
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 2:23 am
"Faith is believin' what you know ain't true" - Mark Twain
It's a very human thing, people believe what they feel they need to believe in order to cope. For some that could mean continuing to believe a spouse isn't cheating on them when everybody in their circle knows they are and in spite of evidence of the infidelity all over the place. They just can't bear to accept the truth so they don't.
Religious faith is necessary for many because the world can be a right scary place and it gives them comfort to believe in some uber-being taking an interest in our lives and well-being. Fear of death has a great deal to do with it as well, of course Granted that there is no real evidence of this, nothing you can measure, but that just makes it even more of a virtue to be a believer! (I always loved that one, I used to hear that all the time in Cathecism class as a kid.) As Mr. Spock would observe, you humans are so illogical. 
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 2:30 am
Quote:People have to believe scientific stuff until proven different but Faith is like belief in belief without the knowing.
Scientists usually can't wait to bore the hell out of you with their evidence. Religion is something totally different.
As the saying goes: Science has questions that may never be answered and religion has answers that must never be questioned.
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 2:43 am
On another forum this morning I read about a guy crying because he lost about $28500-00. Apparently he left a car to be sold by a secondhand dealer who now refuses to give him his money.
Turns out the guy signed all transfer papers etc. before the deal was made. This is in South Africa.
So to me it looks like Faith and Trust goes hand in hand.
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 3:06 am
(July 10, 2013 at 2:43 am)Attie Wrote: On another forum this morning I read about a guy crying because he lost about $28500-00. Apparently he left a car to be sold by a secondhand dealer who now refuses to give him his money.
Turns out the guy signed all transfer papers etc. before the deal was made. This is in South Africa.
So to me it looks like Faith and Trust goes hand in hand.
I'd say that was more a case of if you are that fucking stupid, then you deserve what you get. I can't have any sympathy for a guy who is such a complete imbecile that he would sign all of the papers over before he got his money. This, however has nothing whatever to do with faith or trust.
With normal humans who have functioning brains, unlike this bonehead, trust is only bestowed when earned. I trust my wife because we've been together for decades and she has never given me any reason not to. Quite the contrary. In a more general sense, you could say that I have a great deal of faith in human nature: I have a great deal of faith in their inherent lack of being able to be trusted by any person with a healthy sense of self-preservation. I think your South African dude found that out the hard way. 
“To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?”
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin
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RE: Is faith a Mental Disease?
July 10, 2013 at 5:29 am
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.
Bertrand Russell
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
Bertrand Russell
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Your reaction really makes me feel welcome but I have difficulty distinguishing between being a moron and having faith, sorry. I don't mean to get personal it's just the
way my brain started working. I just don't trust faith. It makes me uneasy and it makes me feel a bit stupid. 