Do you see any benefits to religious faith?

[bennyboy]

The universe is not something from nothing....it's a relative nothing, within a sum thing, so that some things can experience movement/change/time/growth.

Yep.  And you've got LSD-inspired crayon drawing to prove it!

[Arkilogue]

Okay, back to faith: I'm in completely agreement with you all about the nature of "faith" as it is used today to mean strongly self willed belief to the ignore-ance of all else. I think you all have correctly intuited it's elemental function/operation in the human psyche as a watery, inebriating liquid.

Which is why it's important to rise above the water, stand upon it, calm the storms and learn to walk without drowning.

This gets into the original function of the mind/soul behind the meaning of "faith" and not just in the religious sense because people seek the same escapism through other means. Some inebriate themselves with money, others with power, some with their own misery, others with manic happiness, some with how good of a person they are, other's with how trollish they can be. And many with actual alcohol. Drowning in an emotion/perspective of their choice, as much as they like, as far as they want to take it. Or as far as they allow it to....if they have that much control any longer. Some have forgotten there is a surface border and clear air beyond.

Pick your poison....there's something for everyone. Until you decide they don't really satisfy and usually leave you feeling worse afterwards. This is from the over indulgence of any opinion.

The true function of "faith" is as knowledge. You might believe something is true that is actually true but outside confirmation is needed to turn that into something other than personal conjecture. It can confirm your belief or shatter it. Such is truth, such is God.

To me, science is the most successful faith on the surface of the planet. Hebrews 11:1 Now "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." Is all of science man-made belief? Of course not. Perhaps its currently held "truths" were one a belief in one person's mind but it's veracity is "proven" through external evidence and a crap ton of consensus. From outside man's mind. From "Divine" self evident persuasion of the nature of the creation around us, once we develop the technological facilities to gain greater insight and more data of what is already here, "waiting" for us to hail as "truth".

[Arkilogue]

I didn't say anything about persuasion of any type, self or otherwise.  Nor did I say that faith is belief.  Can you please stop quoting my posts, and then making up a bunch of bullshit that has no relation to what you quoted?  That's rude and annoying.

Or. . . just shut the fuck up and we can all spray salad on our monitors and PRETEND you posted.

No you didn't. Which is why I reminded you of it's original meaning. I could give a shit what what the bastardized telephone game says it is 2000 years later of 5000 years later or 10,000 years later. It's like civilizational thread drift and I'm trying to get back to the OP. I'm sure you can understand.

How about you suck on my balls and we call it even?

[bennyboy]

I didn't say anything about persuasion of any type, self or otherwise.  Nor did I say that faith is belief.  Can you please stop quoting my posts, and then making up a bunch of bullshit that has no relation to what you quoted?  That's rude and annoying.

Or. . . just shut the fuck up and we can all spray salad on our monitors and PRETEND you posted.

No you didn't.  Which is why I reminded you of it's original meaning. I could give a shit what what the bastardized telephone game says it is 2000 years later of 5000 years later or 10,000 years later. It's like civilizational thread drift and I'm trying to get back to the OP. I'm sure you can understand.

How about you suck on my balls and we call it even?

"Faith" comes from "fides" which means literally to trust or to believe.  There's nothing about spirits fucking reaching out to anybody.  But "having faith" means you hold the belief, and since it's not a logical belief, it's one based on either authority or feeling.

In no universe does it mean what you want it to mean.

As for your balls. . . although I'm old, I'm still worried there's always some danger in choking on small objects-- so I'll pass.

[Mr Greene]

Quote:
Light is also helpful to illustrate the relationship of God to the universe: Before the creation of space is like unified white light, the creation of space is like the prismation of light, the forces and material inside are like the spread out colors. They would be the "Elohim" expressive plurality of the originally unfed God.

The infinite unified God state of absolute being still exists outside the finite, mostly empty space universe.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
And the infinite God uses the dark energon to generate the omni-prism of warp energy, maintaining the power of the Planeteers long enough to complete Goku's spirit bomb and save Eternia from total protonic reversal, right? Am I following?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonation chamber!

[GUBU]

 The experience was not self generated, not produced out of one's own thoughts, it was an outside influence that persuaded them that something was so. And that something is usually described some kind of transcendental "God/heaven" experience that is way beyond one's normal everyday experience.

How do you know the experience was outside generated? And even grqnting that it were how can you say it was a being which breaks all known laws of the universe and which.is said to exist outside the universe (i.e. outsude reality), rather than a far more plausible and mundane explanation, luke a charismatic liar getting his bullshit past some gullible people?

And on your idea that descriptions of "god/heaven" being beyond what people exlerience normally, I call bullshit. I've read lots of descriptions of gods and paradises (including a full read of the bible) and at no stage have I ever seen a god described as anything other than a developmentally stunted human and a paradise as anything other than an equivalent of a rich man's estate in the period the description was given. There is a reason that paradise derives from the Pesrian word for garden, you know. The monotheistic Abrahamic conception of heaven is, essentially a rich and powerful king's pleasure palace.

[GUBU]

Woo, sir. Woo.

Is God literally light? Does it exist on the electromagnetic spectrum? Does God have a speed limit of 186,000 miles per second? Or are you parroting metaphors generated by sapient creatures that have evolved to depend on light?

It's allegorical of course, the "light" is consciousness. But creation of the circumstances required for EM radiation to propagate was created by God. EM propagation is not possible through absolute solid matter (quark matter aka quagma). Space must be created inside in a very specific manner to support electromagnetic phenomena.

Light is also helpful to illustrate the relationship of God to the universe: Before the creation of space is like unified white light, the creation of space is like the prismation of light, the forces and material inside are like the spread out colors. They would be the "Elohim" expressive plurality of the originally unfed God.

The infinite unified God state of absolute being still exists outside the finite, mostly empty space universe.

---

but I fail to see how any of this is relevant. Are you sure you posted in the correct section?

You began the jpg train, I simply hoped aboard.  Are you unsatisfied with your trajectory?

If the universe was all.light when it was a formless void, why was it that the first thing god said was "fiat lux"? If your speculation is right then what use would god have for crating light?

Ah well, better add the bible to the long list of things you know sweet Fanny Adams about, eh idiot?

[robvalue]

I'll fade away and classify myself as obselete...

[Arkilogue]

"Faith" comes from "fides" which means literally to trust or to believe.  There's nothing about spirits fucking reaching out to anybody.  But "having faith" means you hold the belief, and since it's not a logical belief, it's one based on either authority or feeling.

In no universe does it mean what you want it to mean.

As for your balls. . . although I'm old, I'm still worried there's always some danger in choking on small objects-- so I'll pass.

Oh does it? Was the NT originally written in Latin? Nope. Faith comes from pistis.


http://welldesignedfaith.net/tag/basics/

Hebrews 11:1 is the most famous definition of faith in the Bible: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Here, and in most other places translated as “faith”, the Greek word used is πίστις (pistis) or one of its related forms. This word can be translated as faith, belief, trust, confidence, or proof. Looking at secular Greek sources, Herodotus used it to refer to a pledge or military oath[1].

Other secular authors such as Aeschylus, Democritus, and Appian used the word to denote evidence from the senses or from eyewitness testimony, or proof of intent deduced from observed actions [2]. The Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo used the term pistis in his writings 156 times with the sense of evidence in over 50% of those instances [3]. Aristotle used the term to describe various “proofs” for convincing someone of your case through reason and logic [4]. This word for faith sounds like it was often used by secular sources as a justified belief based on observation, logical or philosophical reasoning, or testimony and solemn oaths. But we can dig a little deeper yet. The word pistis is derived from the Greek word πείθω (peitho), meaning “to persuade”.

Are you persuaded blindly by any assertion you hear, or by evidence, by sound reasoning,and by common sense? It makes sense then that Aristotle would use pistis to describe the proofs of the art of rhetoric (persuasion). It seems that Biblical faith is anything but blind. Rather, it is “God’s divine persuasion” [5]. It is also interesting that the word translated in Hebrew 11:1 as “conviction” in the NASB translation is ἔλεγχος (elegchos) which means proof, and is derived from ἐλέγχω (elegcho), a verb meaning “to convince with solid, compelling evidence; to expose, refute or prove wrong.” [6] Faith could be said to be God’s divine persuasion of the reality of the supernatural things we can’t observe with our natural senses.



In this universe, It means exactly what I have asserted it means, backed up with many biblical verse that show contextual usage and from scholars that uphold the same assertion.


Your kung fu is not strong.

[Mudhammam]

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Sounds (I dare not say looks) like blind faith is what they were going for to me.