My friends and relatives told me that my faith is degrading. I have to go to church regularly again to gain my faith back. They told me that devils are everywhere to keep my faith to god away! I told them that I no longer want to be a catholic and don't want to belong to any religion. I still believe in god but not the god in any religion. They won't listen to me. They told me that it's just about faith and I need to renew my faith to god. Lol, such word is deafening, why they always reason lack of faith when a person denies his religion? What do you think about faith
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I think you can have faith in anything. It doesnt have to be faith in god or jesus, it could be faith in humanity or in a specific person. Obviously those taken by religious doctrines are not able to understand that faith encompases many things.
Pepople telling that you need to go to church to gain your faith back are just clueless. Like walker said, your faith has nothing to do with religion. Having faith in god is one of the many aspects of faith. Having no faith in god or anything related to religion does not mean you have no faith in anything else.
Here's a point to consider - faith is a preservation of belief in spite of and in the face of contrary evidence. The more overwhelming that evidence, the stronger your faith. With that in mind, if you retain your faith in God without even the support of a church trying to convince you to have faith; if you maintain faith purely the value you alone hold in it; surely sure faith is even stronger than that of your family, who require attendance of church to have faith?
Belief in spite of contrary evidence isn't religion, it's insanity. Schizoid delusion.
I almost agree with Matty 100% here but this I how I would have said it - Faith can be belief in any person thing or even any point of view or actions yet to come or even actions yet to come of any any person or thing. To have faith you can have proof but no proof is needed. That being said, you can have proof to the contrary. If you have proof to the contrary of your faith, the more overwhelming the evidence and unshakable the faith the stronger it is. With this in mind if you can maintain faith in something like God for example with no outside influence, your faith is stronger than that of those who need the help of others to maintain their faith. So don't stop......believing .....unless you want of course you don't, in which case you don't have faith!
Hey Mystic, if your faith is degrading and I would appear from the outside it has degraded. (In my opinion at least that's perfectly fine. But also in my opinion its just your opinion so as long as it is not hurting anybody what ever floats your boat.) I am not saying your faith in there being some sort of god or God is degrading but it would appear that at one point you had faith in the teachings of this deity that seems to want you back are. (O.K., I am going to seem mean here, they probably want you back for something you bring to the table like i.e. money work or some other form of contribution.) The reason I say your faith in this religion seems to be degrading is at least from their perspective you once were found but from their eyes you now seemingly lost. I am sure the opposite is quite true to you. Just know your God is your God and it can be everyone else's god to whether they except it or not but your faith belongs to you as much as you belong to it and between you and your god, well as long as you believe without a doubt, then you have solid faith. If you find yourself believing less and less of the teachings belonging to your deity, then it is true you have lost faith in your Deity but your deity may have little or much to do with your god.
When you deny your religion obviously it means you don't have faith in it anymore but i tell you,to build up your faith you need to get close to the religion you believe in,faith simply means what you have belief on.
Hmm... sounds like circular logic to me.
My relatives indeed pertains to my faith to the god that the bible describes. I just can't attend to a church I no longer believe and I think even if I still attend it will have no effect on my current point of view.
It's sometimes said that faith is a virtue. Conveniently, that statement itself is an article of faith, but that's beside the point.
My take is that faith is the poor substitute you are stuck with when you lack knowledge - pretty much a fear-based reaction to uncertainty. Seems to me that celebrating a lack of knowledge is a dangerous path.
faith - and I'm not necessarily talking in a religious context here - does bring a certain piece of mind. Being able to believe and trust several things in your life kind of anchors you, and takes those things off of your mental plate while you go handle life's less certain challenges.
For instance, I have faith in my coffeemaker. When I go to bed, I know it's going to be there to make my coffee in the morning. If my coffee maker were faulty, or if I lived in a neighborhood where it might be stolen at any minute, then I would not be able to have faith, and I would probably have worry instead.
I can understand faith a a valuable tool in some ways - but in my experience, knowledge builds a similar, and for me, much more stable trust.
I draw a distinction between faith and reasonable expectation. IMO, what you have in your coffee maker is more reasonable expectation than faith. Reasonable expectation is based on evidence and past experience, whereas faith is based on appeal to authority without evidence, at least as I define it. I reserve the right to be wrong though. :)
Good distinction. Let's see if I got it...
Now, suppose I have had the same coffee maker for 45 years, and it has made me coffee every morning without fail even though it is dangerously old and the wiring worn to the point where it just might burn down the house. Being as this coffee has, by my past experience, proven to be reliable belief that it will continue to make me coffee tomorrow morning and every morning thereafter is a reasonable expectation.
Buying a shiny new coffee maker that I have never brewed with before in my life and expecting it to work based merely on the sales-pitchy promises written on the side of the box - that's faith.
Gotcha :)
The faith server didn't respond in time.....please try another time....ect.
Mystic, if I may (I speak theist fluently) - I believe I can translate that message for you - loosely translated, it goes something like this: "Mystic, we're worried about you, we can see that your brainwashing is beginning to wear off, and we think you should come back in for a booster shot!"
LOL! That was funny Archaeopteryx! Unfortunately I no longer want another shot! I just found out that it's poisonous! I would rather die faithless than to die ignorant!
The archeopteryx was always my favorite dinosaur when I was a kid :) I love the name!
I agree that faith can start and can be nourished on any place not just on churches or other specific places. A person could have more faith compared to some who regularly attend masses or rituals.
Yet religious people believe that non-religious individuals have lesser faith than them. I would rather be called as faithless than to be hypocrite in showing of some faith just like some hardcore religious people are.
I'm still havingg a hard time understanding why we think faith is a universally good thing?