Faith, Hope & Love?

[ronedee]

Are these just pirated Christian "words"? Or do they have any meaning to you at all?

1. Can you have Faith in anything/anyone (as an anti-?), or is it just a word? Is having Faith(in anything) always a let-down, as so many claim?

2. And Hope? Is that just another word like Faith, or does it mean something very different? Hope is very powerful to many people with, and w/o religion. Is it "false" hope that keeps them going? Or is it real in any sense?

3. Love. What is that? Isn't it more than an emotion ....really? Is there any amount of words, phrases, adjectives that can truly describe LOVE, other than the experience itself? I mean, love can do so many things, on so many levels! And effect/affect us in so many ways! It's probably the strongest experience we will ever know besides death itself.

Why are these: virtues/values/emotions/words etc. so important to everyone regardless of religion?

Is it logical to have these virtues; with the many things they spawn? Is it a function of social necessity? Or a tool to manipulate for personal gain and profit? Would we be better off w/o them? Would we be human w/o them. Where do they fit in your evolution of man? i.e. Did one day the "ape" wake-up and not want to eat its young?

Whats your take on these very powerful words, and their effect on our lives? Gut, not textbook, please!

[Foxaèr]

Faith, hope, and love seems like a trinity concocted by emotionally illogical individuals lost forever in the nether regions of the imagination, separated from the stability of reality.

[ronedee]

Faith, hope, and love seems like a trinity concocted by emotionally illogical individuals lost forever in the nether regions of the imagination, separated from the stability of reality.

Thank you for your lengthy, thoughtful reply! What would I do w/o you!

[Captain Colostomy]

Gut? I think none of them are virtues. Faith is irrational believing, hope is wishful thinking, and love is an emotional state of attachment. I do use all three words, but I'm not prone to thinking that they have some lofty life of their own.

[Minimalist]

Whats your take on these very powerful words

They are just words. But they are particularly hypocritical words when coming from a professed member of a church which facilitated, tolerated and obscured child sex abuse on an intercontinental scale for generations.

How can you bear to remain a member of such a corrupt organization?


Or....are you merely full of shit?

[Whateverist]

They all mean something to me, just nothing to do with gods of course.

[Rayaan]

Are these just pirated Christian "words"? Or do they have any meaning to you at all?

No, they are not pirated as Christian words.

They are simply English words and you will hear different perspectives and/or definitions of each of them depending on who you ask. Anyone can use those words, but that doesn't necessarily indicate anything about their personal opinions regarding the existence of God (or gods) nor about their opinions on Christianity or any other religion, for that matter.

[FallentoReason]

^/thread

[genkaus]

Are these just pirated Christian "words"? Or do they have any meaning to you at all?

If by pirated Christian words you mean that Christians have been trying to hijack those words to put their own theological spin on it, then yes, they are. Regardless, they do have a meaning for us all.

1. Can you have Faith in anything/anyone (as an anti-?), or is it just a word? Is having Faith(in anything) always a let-down, as so many claim?

I can - meaning I am capable of holding a belief without evidence or contrary to it. But I prefer not to. It is not always a let-down, nor is it always a let-up, but it is irrational.

2. And Hope? Is that just another word like Faith, or does it mean something very different? Hope is very powerful to many people with, and w/o religion. Is it "false" hope that keeps them going? Or is it real in any sense?

It means something very different. Hope means a positive future expectation. Unlike faith, it can be reasonable or unreasonable. False hope would mean an unreasonable expectation which would, in all likelihood, turn out to be a let-down.

3. Love. What is that? Isn't it more than an emotion ....really? Is there any amount of words, phrases, adjectives that can truly describe LOVE, other than the experience itself? I mean, love can do so many things, on so many levels! And effect/affect us in so many ways! It's probably the strongest experience we will ever know besides death itself.

Nope - love is simply an emotion. A strong emotion - granted - but an emotion nonetheless. Yes, it can be adequately described in words. And no, since it is not an entity, it cannot do anything.

Why are these: virtues/values/emotions/words etc. so important to everyone regardless of religion?

Is it logical to have these virtues; with the many things they spawn? Is it a function of social necessity? Or a tool to manipulate for personal gain and profit? Would we be better off w/o them? Would we be human w/o them. Where do they fit in your evolution of man? i.e. Did one day the "ape" wake-up and not want to eat its young?

Hope and love are important because they are one of the most basic and direct indicators of our fundamental needs as human beings. I don't consider faith to be important at all.

It is logical to have these "virtues" provided they function as virtues. It is a function of basic human psychology. They are indicators of of personal gain and profit - though not a way to manipulate it. The question of being better off without them doesn't come up - we wouldn't be we without them. It depends on what you mean by human. They fit in evolution as automatic indicators of our benefit alongside developing human psychology. And no - apes who did not eat their young at all were the ones who became our ancestors.

[Walking Void]

*Are these just pirated Christian "words"? Or do they have any meaning to you at all?

**1. Can you have Faith in anything/anyone (as an anti-?), or is it just a word? ***Is having Faith(in anything) always a let-down, as so many claim?

****2. And Hope? Is that just another word like Faith, or does it mean something very different? Hope is very powerful to many people with, and w/o religion. *****Is it "false" hope that keeps them going? Or is it real in any sense?

******3. Love. What is that? Isn't it more than an emotion ....really? *******Is there any amount of words, phrases, adjectives that can truly describe LOVE, other than the experience itself? I mean, love can do so many things, on so many levels! And effect/affect us in so many ways! It's probably the strongest experience we will ever know besides death itself.

********Why are these: virtues/values/emotions/words etc. so important to everyone regardless of religion?

*********Is it logical to have these virtues; with the many things they spawn? **********Is it a function of social necessity? Or a tool to manipulate for personal gain and profit? ************Would we be better off w/o them? Would we be human w/o them. ************Where do they fit in your evolution of man? i.e. Did one day the "ape" wake-up and not want to eat its young?

*************Whats your take on these very powerful words, and their effect on our lives? Gut, not textbook, please!

1- I will take my time to give You my non-believing perspective on these controversial cornerstones of mankind, but I question your usage of the terms "pirated Christian words". Nobody is hijacking anyone's religion, except for other religions. Yes, these words do have meaning to me. Not on a high level but still some impact.

I could argue however that religions like christianity simply viewed emotions like love, saw the attractiveness of them and bastardized them under god's name.

2- You can have faith in the bible, and You can have faith in a god. You can have faith in a jigsaw and also faith in the worker using the jigsaw. The word "faith" is just coined off of trust. This kind of trust is specific to completing some sort of goal without failure. If I ever had faith in a jigsaw to cut through a hundred planks of wood for furniture as an example, all I do is trust that the jigsaw does not fail me. Faith should be based on an understanding of reproducible experiments, as You have some sort of expectation from past experience. Faith should also go with an open mind. Perhaps the jigsaw has an old motor and it is no longer reliable. In doubt, your faith becomes hope. Now You expect the possibility of another outcome... failure.

3- Faith is subjectively a letdown and not. Faith should be used scientifically; have an understanding of the tactical information before declaring a positive outcome. Learn of any discriminating factors that may harass the end goal in mind and work to eliminate them. If I have a jigsaw with an old motor and I have spare parts for a new jigsaw motor, I have a stronger probability or rather a greater success rate for splitting planks knowing that I have a jigsaw with 1 less factor that was hindering progress.

4- Hope... is just a comfort. An ecstasy. If You have hope You feel "good" about something. Unlike faith, hope includes and accepts the possibility of a negative outcome, but the difference is You can feel good even when progress is slow or frozen. Hope, besides being a comfort, is a motivating factor. If I was stuck in a collapsed mine without light for a few days I might consider just giving up. I might refrain from scavenging for food and water thus starving myself. But if I had hope that sometime, somewhere, somehow that someone was digging into the mine to rescue me... I might bother collecting water and eating moss or bugs even though the idea is unappealing to me. Hope is based on the drive behind prospering... surviving.

5- Well, You have stupid hope and smart hope. It depends on the person really. Are they being rational? How so? If I pray that god will bring sunshine tomorrow but never does I am not being rational because the schematics of weather are beyond my simple wishes. If I had hope that could solder a gps chip to a rocket without damaging the circuitry I would be rational because logic would be more agreeable to steady hands than clasped hands communicating to something that cannot be understood equally person to person.

6- Love is 1 of 2 things. Infatuation for another in the intimate or sexual sense. Ie: "Oh baby I love you". It can also be understood as a close social relationship between any 2 people. Ie: brothers, a couple, groups of friends, penpals, children, etc... It really depends on what specific love that society has coined that You would be asking about.

7- How does 1 truly know that love is the strongest feeling/experience out there. Emotions are subjective: they vary between people. Even though fictional, is it fair to say that your love is stronger than Albedo's torment of immortality?





No it is not fair, there is no measurable scale that anyone could rank experiences on.

8- Virtues are not valuable to everyone, because they are not shared. Values the same. Emotions are not always important to everyone but they are shared, having a human brain and face to express some of them. Importance is also subjective. And non-measurable. Unfounded. Words are not shared, but the intent is.

9- Stop it. They are not virtues to everyone. At the most they are something We feel, or a method/paradigm to manage a certain scenario where deduction and mathematical solving are superseded from being incapable. Brain farts.

10- They are necessary for any mind but are not necessary for developing a society. No reason to think so. They can be anything You want them to be.

11- We might be better off without ignorance instead of the 3 mentioned. And no, We would not be human today without those emotional reactions / thought processes.

12- In the evolution of man, think way back. Before humans were primal apes, We were single-celled organisms. These organisms do not even have brain cells, because they are 1 cell. Bacteria for instance. A nucleus at the core, but the nucleus does not constitute for a brain. A cell's nucleus contains genetic material. Now, think back to us. Complex multi-celled organisms. Wonder and ask how something like bacteria could become a human over the years? Well, to start, cells would have to join together as an organism. But how do cells do this You may ask? Certainly, random bacteria or viruses do not simply band together and form a... tower, for instance. No. A good place to start this search is to look at things like coral. Not a plant, coral is an amalgamation of various animal cells. Animal cells do not produce their own nutrients, they need to absorb material from outside their self to survive. Coral can reproduce asexually, and interestingly enough, sexually via egg and sperm. Meiosis. Bundles of cells joined together to form a "body". Much like our own. Exciting.

13- My take on these words is not to take them so seriously. They are words, shitty shit shit, just like the word yahweh. Vocal or literal communication. Simple building blocks.