The nature of faith

[Fredl]

A couple of days ago, somebody suggested that I take a look at what has been already written on a similar subject and add my thoughts rather than start a new thread, but it just seems like my addled old brain just can't seem to put stuff together like it used to. Hopefully, all you smart young guys and gals here will indulge me in commenting on another subject that has probably already been done to death on other threads..

Actually, what I wanted to comment on was not "The Nature of Faith", but the nature of MY faith. Didn't think the real topic would attract much interest.

Back, 10 years ago, when my wife and I were investigating the church, I thought a lot about the subject of faith and eventually came up with a working definition of it which satified me at the time: Faith is the willing suspension of disbelief in those things we hope are true but can not prove". I have expressed this view to many of my friends in the church, both in and out of Sunday meetings and they all love it.

More recently, I seem to be coming to an altered version: Faith is a willing suspension of disbelief in those things that I know are unlikely but wish were true. Which seems to be rapidly morphing into a third version: Faith is the suspension of disbelief in those things that are highly unlikely to be true but that are useful.

During my lifetime, I've been enormously impressed by those clear-headed individuals who seem to be able to apply reason and logic to their lives in a consistent fashion. Wish I was one of them. Seems to me that I am more a person who misuses reason and logic to explain what I've done after the fact, primarily to justfy myself, but am pretty much driven by irrational foces which I understand not at all. Frequently, I'm off on some tangent that results from several forces coming from varying directions which is pretty dysfunctional, addressing non of the issues that cause it in a very effective way. The whole faith issue is one such. Gosh, I'd like to have it but the best I can do seems to be merely imitate friends that actually do!

Fred

[Jeff_Ricks]

A couple of days ago, somebody suggested that I take a look at what has been already written on a similar subject and add my thoughts rather than start a new thread, but it just seems like my addled old brain just can't seem to put stuff together like it used to. Hopefully, all you smart young guys and gals here will indulge me in commenting on another subject that has probably already been done to death on other threads..

Actually, what I wanted to comment on was not "The Nature of Faith", but the nature of MY faith. Didn't think the real topic would attract much interest.

Back, 10 years ago, when my wife and I were investigating the church, I thought a lot about the subject of faith and eventually came up with a working definition of it which satified me at the time: Faith is the willing suspension of disbelief in those things we hope are true but can not prove". I have expressed this view to many of my friends in the church, both in and out of Sunday meetings and they all love it.

More recently, I seem to be coming to an altered version: Faith is a willing suspension of disbelief in those things that I know are unlikely but wish were true. Which seems to be rapidly morphing into a third version: Faith is the suspension of disbelief in those things that are highly unlikely to be true but that are useful.

During my lifetime, I've been enormously impressed by those clear-headed individuals who seem to be able to apply reason and logic to their lives in a consistent fashion. Wish I was one of them. Seems to me that I am more a person who misuses reason and logic to explain what I've done after the fact, primarily to justfy myself, but am pretty much driven by irrational foces which I understand not at all. Frequently, I'm off on some tangent that results from several forces coming from varying directions which is pretty dysfunctional, addressing non of the issues that cause it in a very effective way. The whole faith issue is one such. Gosh, I'd like to have it but the best I can do seems to be merely imitate friends that actually do!

Fred
I like your definitions! My thoughts on faith are inline with yours. For what it's worth, and if you don't mind a shamless plug, I wrote an essay on the subject that's published on our Magazine section. Here's a link:

http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/essays/2004/10/03

Jeff

P.S. I need to get that essay replaced with something new and better from someone else. Trying to squeeze in the time to make that happen.

[Fredl]

Thanks for yur comment, Jeff. I enjoyed your article. It is reassuring to find another obviously intelligent and well meaning person with the same perception. Fie on those people that think we've got to be in disagreement to learn anything from each other!

Fred

[peter_mary]

"Faith is the suspension of disbelief in those things that are highly unlikely to be true but that are useful."

Fred

Can I just say that I LOVE this defenition of faith? Because I think that it acknowledges that sometimes the irrational notion serves a useful purpose for a person in need. For instance...the belief that a mother will have the opportunity in the hereafter to raise the child who died at birth is in no way rational. But if it inspires her to stand back up and continue to live for the children that are still living, then it is useful, at least to her and her children.

What's SO important is that "usefullness" is a relative term. What may be useful to one might not be useful to another. That makes faith a personal experience...and to me, that's exactly what it should be.

Love it...

Peter_Mary

[elder_nomo]

Fredl -
I found the evolution of your definition of "faith" to be very interesting. I was about to disagree with the last one, because I wasn't so sure that faith is always necessarily in something "useful." There seem to be so many cases of faith in things that are not useful, things that are, in fact, downright detrimental.

Peter_Mary said that "useful" is a relative term. But still that wasn't quite enought for me [not at first, anyway]. Because again, it seemed that sometimes faith requires you believe in things that are against your best interests. For example, Abraham was commanded to kill his son Isaac. He had to have faith that this was the right thing to do. Hard to see how such an act could be considered "useful" by Abraham. Yet he had "faith".

But the more I thought about that, the more I realized that I was taking the word "useful" too much in the immediate and obvious sense. In a bigger picture, it was indeed useful to Abraham to kill his son. It would serve the purpose of demonstrating his obedience to God. Very useful to Abraham.

So in the end, I guess I do agree with definition 3!

This thought process made me look at the definitions again, and reconsider both sides of each.....

1) hope are true..... cannot prove
2) unlikely to be true..... wish are true
3) highly unlikely..... are useful

Besides the drop in actual belief, or likelihood (on the left side), there seems to be a corresponding rise in the understanding of why the belief is held (on the right side).

Thanks for the interesting ideas, Fred.

ps. to Jeff - thanks to you for the great article on faith in the magazine. I hadn't taken the time to read it until now. Well done!

[peter_mary]

This thought process made me look at the definitions again, and reconsider both sides of each.....

1) hope are true..... cannot prove
2) unlikely to be true..... wish are true
3) highly unlikely..... are useful



This is cool, elder_nomo! Here's one possible refinement to the model:

1) Hope it's true---->Cannot prove it's true;

2) Acknowledge not likely to prove---->Wish you could;

3) Acknowledge just a wish---->But it provides something useful;

(WATCH THIS SLIPPERY SLOPE!!!)

4) Acknowledge usefulness is limited---->Abandon faith!


I don't know...probably doesn't contribute anything to the beautiful little summary you already provided...I just wanted to play in this party! :o

Peter_Mary

[elder_nomo]

This is cool, elder_nomo! Here's one possible refinement to the model:

1) Hope it's true---->Cannot prove it's true;
2) Acknowledge not likely to prove---->Wish you could;
3) Acknowledge just a wish---->But it provides something useful;
(WATCH THIS SLIPPERY SLOPE!!!)
4) Acknowledge usefulness is limited---->Abandon faith!

I don't know...probably doesn't contribute anything to the beautiful little summary you already provided...I just wanted to play in this party! :o

Peter_Mary
Peter_Mary -
I like the addition of your #4, if for no other reason than that's where I personally went. Maybe that's why I had some trouble with #3 - it didn't go far enough, or at least didn't go where I did.

Btw, not to derail the thread *too* much, but I have to comment on my own use of the story of Abraham and Isaac. It was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking of "non-useful" faith. The thing is, outside of using it as an example here, I find the story to be rather horrifying. I mean, if there is a god and if this is his way of testing people, well..... :(

[peter_mary]

The thing is, outside of using it [the story of Abraham and Isaac] as an example here, I find the story to be rather horrifying. I mean, if there is a god and if this is his way of testing people, well..... :(

Amen, Brother Elder_Nomo, Amen!

I've heard this story taught by ministers of several faiths, in a variety of contexts, as a beautiful story of faith and promise.

:Puking

Personally, I've always hated this story. Hated it, hated it, hated it. As one of the darkest stories of the bible, it helps remind me that the bible is a) cultural folk-lore of the Hebrew people, b) mythological, and c) something I don't need nor want as anything more than a window into pre-Christian thinking.

Gack...

::cleanses palat:: [here you should imagine Tom Hanks in the movie, "Big" wherein he unceremoniously digs caviar out of his mouth...]

Peter_Mary

[elder_nomo]

..... As one of the darkest stories of the bible, it helps remind me that the bible is a) cultural folk-lore of the Hebrew people, b) mythological, and c) something I don't need nor want as anything more than a window into pre-Christian thinking.

P-M - are you familiar with this web site?
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

I have to admit that when I was thinking of the guy who was commanded to kill his son, I couldn't remember their names. So I used this web site to find them. Just clicked on "Cruelty and Violence" and paged down a bit. This site has become my bible bible.

[peter_mary]

P-M - are you familiar with this web site?
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/



**choke**

Nope, I wasn't familiar with that site, but wow...organizing the themes in that manner is CERTAINLY an eye-opener, eh? I was familiar with this sort of thinking, but the shear volume (I perused the "intolerance" theme) is enough to make a grown man cry.

Thanks for pointing this out!

Peter_Mary