''Interesting'' questions...

[mondeluz]

These questions popped into my head, and i would like to see a different view on it.

why is faith relevant?

what relevance does it hold to this moment, right now, at which you are living your life in?

[Strange]

 

These questions popped into my head, and i would like to see a different view on it.

why is faith relevant?

 

 

Relevant to what?

[Phi for All]

why is faith relevant?

 

FTFY.

[KipIngram]

I don't see how that can be answered - whether it's relevant or not is a deeply personal question. Also, I think "faith" in a concept or idea has nothing to do with whether the concept or idea is factually true or not - it has only to do with whether the person in questions believes it's true or not. If that person believes the concept is true, and if that belief affects his or her behavior / actions, then that faith is relevant to them.

 

So to tie Phi for All's comment in, the question "Why is faith relevant" presumes an answer of "Yes" to the prior question "Is faith relevant (to you)?" Anyone for whom faith is not relevant can't give you an answer to your question.

I can't answer your question, myself. I don't know for sure that anything divine exists. I also don't know for sure that it doesn't. And I really don't sit around wracking my brain over it, either - I just go about my business and try to be a decent person. If it turns out that that the Christian God does exist and takes the hard line that some people say he will, then I'm sort of hosed. :-|

[mondeluz]

I don't see how that can be answered - whether it's relevant or not is a deeply personal question. Also, I think "faith" in a concept or idea has nothing to do with whether the concept or idea is factually true or not - it has only to do with whether the person in questions believes it's true or not. If that person believes the concept is true, and if that belief affects his or her behavior / actions, then that faith is relevant to them.

 

So to tie Phi for All's comment in, the question "Why is faith relevant" presumes an answer of "Yes" to the prior question "Is faith relevant (to you)?" Anyone for whom faith is not relevant can't give you an answer to your question.

I can't answer your question, myself. I don't know for sure that anything divine exists. I also don't know for sure that it doesn't. And I really don't sit around wracking my brain over it, either - I just go about my business and try to be a decent person. If it turns out that that the Christian God does exist and takes the hard line that some people say he will, then I'm sort of hosed. :-|

Apologies, im a foreigner (english isnt my native language). And when the question popped into my head i didnt think it through all the way.

So the question is addressed to those who are actually religious, and rephrasing should sound like this....I hope:

why is faith relevant to you?

what relevance does it hold to this moment, right now, at which you are living your life in?

I guess the reason why i found these questions so interesting is because i cant answer them as well, simply because it has no relevance to me and im curious to know what would be the answer of a person that finds it relevant.

Im guessing i made more then one grammar mistake in that previous sentence. XD

[EdEarl]

Faith: confidence or trust in a person or thing

 

A child learns to have faith in their parents, which is good, because parents try to keep their children safe and well. However, if a parent is overly critical and teaches a normal child they are weak, ugly, stupid, and clumsy, the child will have faith they are weak, ugly, stupid, and clumsy. That's bad.

 

Religious faith leads people to do good (Mother Teresa) and bad (the Inquisition). Political faith can be good (Gandhi) or bad (Hitler).

 

I personally think rational thinking is better than faith.

[Manticore]

Faith: confidence or trust in a person or thing

 

A child learns to have faith in their parents, which is good, because parents try to keep their children safe and well. However, if a parent is overly critical and teaches a normal child they are weak, ugly, stupid, and clumsy, the child will have faith they are weak, ugly, stupid, and clumsy. That's bad.

 

Religious faith leads people to do good (Mother Teresa) and bad (the Inquisition). Political faith can be good (Gandhi) or bad (Hitler).

 

I personally think rational thinking is better than faith.

From what I've read, Mother Teresa was pretty horrible - refusing to give pain killers, blocking others from starting medical aid centres etc.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Manticore

[DrP]

She also spent a heck of a lot of money given to her to help the poor on campaigns to stop people using condoms... because, yea, more unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are just what the slums of Calcutta needs.

[Phi for All]

Faith: confidence or trust in a person or thing

 

I don't accept that definition from religious people. We have words like confidence and trust to define such an acceptance concept. When people use "faith", I assume they mean the kind of religious trust in their deity that isn't based on reasoning and critical thinking. There isn't any evidence of their god(s), so they must take explanations about them on faith.

 

Trust is more of a reasoned, accumulated, thoughtful form of belief. Experience and observation let us come to trust certain explanations. It's the strongest form of belief because it requires lots of evidence to support it. Faith claims to be the strongest form of belief, capable of great miracles, but it's worse than hope as far as being based in reality. Hope is more like wishing, but faith asks us to believe without question, especially about things we've evolved to be smart enough to question.

[EdEarl]

OK, Mother Teresa did both good and bad because of her faith.

 

Phi, I just used a dictionary definition of faith. Another definition is, "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion." True, there is no evidence for them to have confidence God exists and affects their lives, and no reason they should trust God will affect them in positive ways.

 

I'm not a wordsmith, but I didn't think I'd changed the subject of this thread.

Edited June 15, 2017 by EdEarl

[Phi for All]

Phi, I just used a dictionary definition of faith. Another definition is, "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion." True, there is no evidence for them to have confidence God exists and affects their lives, and no reason they should trust God will affect them in positive ways.

 

I'm not a wordsmith, but I didn't think I'd changed the subject of this thread.

 

I think what you said was perfectly on topic. I'm just saying, in an argument, I don't let religious people get away with some sloppy definition of their belief system. They usually want everything to be taken on faith, including science (usually because they don't understand it either), and I try to impose some precision to the language. Faith, trust, and hope are all types of belief, and I think the differences between them are extremely important. They tell me how confident I can be in what I believe.

[beecee]

On 6/15/2017 at 7:08 AM, mondeluz said:

These questions popped into my head, and i would like to see a different view on it.

 

why is faith relevant?

what relevance does it hold to this moment, right now, at which you are living your life in?

It's not. But many people need something to cling to, some hope for what they see as the afterlife: It's similar in many ways to a child with his teddy bear, or a baby with a dummy in its mouth. They in essence cannot or will not face what empirical scientific evidence and observation has shown. That is we are simply just star stuff, born in the belly of stars that went supernova, and the stars themselves formed simply through the force of gravity, and that life is simply an accident of chemistry.