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EvskiG
20:26 / 20.04.07
In 1999 John Paul II said

The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. More than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject: "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called 'hell'"

And here's the Catechism:

Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire," and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"

The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
 
 
This Sunday
20:48 / 20.04.07
Well, that's that, then. Either I, or possibly CNN, put a spin on that of the damned turning around at some point, going 'Holy fuck there's God right behind me' and everything working out.

That doesn't work so well with the 'eternal' bit.
 
 
Princess
21:44 / 21.04.07
When I told my Mom about the babies and limbo she, being a midwife, said it was horrific.

After a few minutes taking at cross purposes I managed to explain I meant the place not the dance.

Anyway, my researches into Christianity continue. I've attended two masses, spoke to the priest a few tims and enroled on the RCIA.

I've also been praying a lot. I made myself some prayer beads, and prayed with them.

The results have been interesting. Today, after spending some time in the (open access) C of E church and assigning prayers/psalms to my beads, I went outside and prayed through the beads. For those who don't know, Anglican prayer beads are a bit like a rosary but constructed with a different number of beads.



The picture above is not the best example, but it will do for quick explanations. There is, obviously, a cross. After that is a bead called the invitatory bead. The user starts on the cross or the invitatory and works there way onto the circle. The beads in the circle are the four cruciform beads and the twenty eight weeks.After going round the circle three times the user exits via the invitatory and ends on the cross. That's 100 prayers.

You can assign whatever prayers you like to the beads, so after making my, frankly stunning, prayer beads I started scanning through the Psalms looking for the right words to use. I prayed for guidance as I did this.

The prayers I used where:
Cross self.

Cross- "Hear my prayer, Oh Lord; let my cry come unto thee. Do not hide your face from me on the day of my distress." Psalm 102

Invitatory- "Incine your ear, Oh Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy." Psalm 86

Cruciforms- "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion; slow to anger and of great mercy. The lord is good to all and his mercies are over all his works. Psalm 145

Weeks - "The lord will guide me. His love is unending" (I made it up, so I'm not putting it in bold)

After praying this (as it turns out, clunky) set of prayers I got this feeling all over me. Like, that fuzzy feeling. I knew that I didn't have to pray like that anymore. My prayer, I suppose, was answered. God was apparent to me. I was given the gift of Faith.

Later, after Mass, (which was a bit boring. The priest, though lovely, is no great showman. And some of the congregation, when offering me the peace, seemed to be a bit apethetic about my peace tbh) I walked home and had a sudden revelation. These words appeared in my head, really clearly. I could write what they said, but the words wouldn't put it all across, so I won't bother.

But, suffice to say, am converted. I'm still working out how I feel about that and what effect I think it will have on me, but right now I feel good.
 
 
Unconditional Love
11:52 / 22.04.07
All of this descending into hell bit, which i have just been hit with recently, just made me think, oh well, if thats my lot, time to prove just how evil i am.

Its really not a good strategy, if a person feels condemned and is condemned, there really is not a point in trying. Not at all. If i am a sinner then i may as well sin and enjoy it.

Surely, well at least for me an entirely self serving attitude begins to appear on the horizon.
 
 
NyteMuse
00:00 / 23.04.07
Princess: Congrats on a successful convert I was baptized and raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools most of my life but decided it just wasn't my flavor and went Pagan. If you're really into rosaries, there's a decent YahooGroup just for discussing construction and use of rosaries and prayer beads from all parts of the world and traditions. I got some great tips on there for starting my Pagan type prayer beads
http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/MysticRosary
 
 
grant
01:51 / 23.04.07
The rosary is one of the things that works.

You might also be interested in some prior discussions of traditional prayers in their original Aramaic.
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:47 / 23.04.07
I am glad you found what you need princess, i was talking only about myself in relation to a comment above.
 
 
Princess
18:00 / 10.06.07
Sooo, I'm continuing my journey into Chrisitianity. And I'm doing my RCIA thing. But I thought I'd report back here and maybe ask for a bit more help.

Basically, I'm really enjoying this. I feel I'm making progress and I'm seeing results in my life. I've visited the shrine of St. Cuthbert and that was lovely. I really feel the Saints are working (but also being worked through, if that makes sense) for me. My life has had a major, potentially traumatic but actually wonderful, change in it and I put it all down to God and his doodz.


But I'm having a slightly harder time understanding some of the rules about Mass. Once I become a fully comped up Catholic, the Church doesn't want me to take the eucharist with other Christians. And we don't offer the eucharist to them either. Which just seems a bit of a harsh rule really.

I asked the mentor people at my RCIA meeting about it, but I still don't think I get it. Anyone here got an opinion about it?

A second, possibly stupid question, but in some of the written prayers there is an R. and a V. before some of the lines. What do those mean? I'll ask at the next meet, but if someone could give me the heads up now that would be great.
 
 
grant
17:58 / 11.06.07
Once I become a fully comped up Catholic, the Church doesn't want me to take the eucharist with other Christians. And we don't offer the eucharist to them either. Which just seems a bit of a harsh rule really.

It's because only the RC believes in a literal (or "literal") transubstantiation. The Lutherans and Anglicans, for all that the services seem similar, accept the transformation of bread and wine into body and blood as a metaphor. In Catholicism, this is a mystery, not a symbolic reenactment. It's an actual transformation of the substance of these things - only the accidents remain ("substance" means the stuff that really makes a thing, something not unlike Platonic forms, while "accidents" are the qualities of a substance - so it looks and feels like unleavened bread, but is in fact flesh).

I'm not sure if the Eastern Orthodox would be considered kosher for eucharist, as far as the Catholics are concerned. The belief is the same, but the priests aren't necessarily recognized as being quite right, which means they might not be suitable to celebrate the Mass and perform the act (or guide the process, more like) of transubstantiation.

A second, possibly stupid question, but in some of the written prayers there is an R. and a V. before some of the lines. What do those mean? I'll ask at the next meet, but if someone could give me the heads up now that would be great.

I should totally know that and I don't.
 
 
electric monk
11:40 / 12.06.07
The "V" is for "versicle" and the "R" is for "response". According to Wikipedia: "A versicle is the first half of one of a set of preces (prayers), said or sung by an officiant or cantor and answered with a said or sung response by the congregation or choir."
 
 
Princess
16:28 / 12.06.07
Thanks Monk. I thought it might be something like that. Which makes me wonder how I'm meant to do a response when there is only one person praying.

I assume I'm just meant to read both parts to myself?
 
 
electric monk
16:53 / 12.06.07
You could always speak one part and sing the other.
 
 
Princess
15:50 / 13.06.07
Hmm, not so sure. My voice isn't terribly seraphic.
Will think it over and nag my Catholic friends.
 
 
Lucida Waters
17:17 / 15.06.07
When I was doing daily office from the Book of Common Prayer, I just spoke both parts.
 
 
Princess
20:30 / 26.08.07
(Hoping this post isn't too much like a blog entry, but...)

Well, four months into all this and still working out how to integrate it and make sense of it. It is hard. I think part of what I was looking for when I joined up was certainty and simplicity. But I'm realising that *I* am not certain and *I* am not simple, and so any relationships I enter (with God, communities or trains of thought) will not be either of those things either.

I'm realising (having read it somewhere once, admittedly) that "faith" is a gift, not an ability. I can sit and try and play mental gymnastics all I want, but it is up to God to give or take away faith. So whilst I do believe, unreservedly, in the supernatural and the divine, I do still have doubts about the path and about who I am meant to be. I have to keep reminding myself about the "good news" part of the Bible. About how God loves us and how the universe/source is trying to lead us back to the centre. About how no amount of sin (which I'm reading as blindness, rather than any sort of moral thing) is a barrier to the love of God.

It takes rather a lot of pressure off.

I'm still reading a lot, and it's helping. There's some really cool stuff on the Lith. This thread is so full of beautiful posting and I read it for solace. Mr Coffee Bean, who I believe has now been banned, starts vomiting all over it on page two but until then it's lovely. I'm also buying and googling Christian Literature, which turns out to be suprisingly good.

I say suprisingly because my experience of Christian writing had been, apart from the Screwtape Letters, almost entirely negative. I had only read extreme right wing hate rants and bad evangelical tracts written by people who's logic and comparitive religion was shaky.

But now I'm finding eloquent, unsure, honest and personal writing. And I'm finding it beautiful. I'm finding there is a big difference between the writer who respects there audience's intelligence and the ones who don't.

I'm still balancing out just how my magical practice and strong desire for polytheism fit into it all. But, yes, generally I like it.
 
 
Princess
20:41 / 26.08.07
Also, entirely unrelated and probably trivial.

But I looked at the picture above and I saw it in lots of rosary adverts too.

What's up with cloisonne beads? They just look rubbish. Why would anyone want that damned brothel glass in their life?
 
 
EvskiG
01:11 / 27.08.07
You might want to check out the Spiritual Guide of Miguel de Molinos.

Eventually deemed a heretic, but one of the leading lights of Quietism, a form of Christian meditation that's very close to Zen.

Surprisingly enough, Crowley was a big fan.
 
 
grant
13:45 / 27.08.07
Faith = work. Not a gift, except inasmuch as, like, an ability to pole vault can be described as a gift.
Witness, for instance, the recent proof of Mother Teresa's doubts. Taken out of context, it looks like hypocrisy, but in context, it's what faith *is*.

Cloisonne beads = it might be a tactile thing, since rosaries are meant to be handled. I dunno - different tastes.

Quietism sounds interesting. I went to a thing at a local Episcopal (read "Anglican") church a while back that called itself "Contemplative Prayer" but was really just meditation by another name. Same techniques. Same endpoint.
 
 
EvskiG
17:33 / 27.08.07
Faith = work.

I've heard this before, but it seems almost unimaginably strange to me: "It takes great effort to believe something that (by its very definition) is unsupported by evidence."

I don't understand why anyone would struggle with faith -- to believe something without proof -- unless he or she feels a need to justify a proposition with which he or she was indoctrinated, or that he or she intuitively feels is right.

Faith = gift.

This baffles me, too.

It's a GOOD thing to be able to believe things without proof?
 
 
grant
18:27 / 27.08.07
I don't understand why anyone would struggle with faith -- to believe something without proof -- unless he or she feels a need to justify a proposition with which he or she was indoctrinated, or that he or she intuitively feels is right.

Or both, or both. I suppose it comes down to what kind of universe one wants to live in (or, more like, suspects one lives in already).

I'm probably not the best person to be making this argument, by the way. Certainly not the best example.
 
 
iconoplast
20:46 / 05.09.07
Faith = Work

Well, this is going to start off super pedantic, so please bear with me, i swear I'm going somewhere with this. I'm going to do kind of an extended analogy here. One the one side is the material, physics textbook stuff, and on the other side of the :: is the spiritual faith-type stuff.

Work (Mass * Acceleration * Distance) is a really useful description not of having faith, but of the process of acquiring and maintaining faith.

Having Faith is like having a clean room. It's pretty static. Getting faith is like keeping your room clean - that's all about mass, acceleration, and distance.

See, I've got all this 'stuff' in my life. Fears, Worries, all the events of my life, combined with the way in which I interpret them, I've got a whole little lego universe inside me where I'm constantly constructing the story of the things I have experienced.

As a goal, I would like to think of that story as oriented in a certain way - to have all the little pieces aligned the way magnets align iron filings. Because I have been told by people I trust that when I tell my story to myself in that particular way, I am better able to cope with new events. In fact, I have been told that when I tell my story to myself in this way, the story itself changes; miracles, quite literally, begin to happen.

Anyway - here's the analogy: the Work is in taking these events and feelings and interpretations and psychically moving them. I am engaged in refiling my experiences so as to (by labelling them differently) actually experience them in a different way.

Eventually, when this task in undertaken and I'm engaged with rethinking the way you organize your experience, the Faith = Gift stuff starts to coalesce.

Because as part of the mental reorganization, I separate actions and outcomes. I am responsible for effort. Results are a different department entirely, and I've got nothing to do with them. So I start to look at having faith as a result, not an action, and then I start to see the faith itself as a gift.

If I invite God into my life (effort), I am given the gift of Faith (outcome); with that gift, further events in my life fall into place and my life, viewed as a whole, becomes comprehensible.

I can make sense of it, I can trust that I will be cared for, and I can view the events of my life as learning experiences and spend my resources trying to learn something from my situation, rather than on bemoaning it.

Anyway - here's a horoscope I read around this time, twelve years ago. I liked it a lot then, and like it more now:


SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21):

Here's an old Rosicrucian affirmation you might be interested in trying out: "I vow to interpret every event in my life as a direct communication from God to my soul." If you do this right, every ad on the side of a passing bus becomes a pithy omen; every eavesdropped conversation blesses you with a tantalizing bit of divine guidance.

I've never recommended this exercise before because I didn't think it would mean anything to you. Now, suddenly, you're more than ready.
-Rob Brezny
 
 
EmberLeo
22:35 / 05.09.07
It's a GOOD thing to be able to believe things without proof?

I know you're talking about divinity here, but let me give you an example that's more psychological than religious:

I can have all the proof in the world that I'm a good, honest, competent person, but if my underlying self esteem is crap, it takes serious work to stay connected to my faith in myself.

In a religious context, where much of what is concerned is essentially unknowable, Faith can mean both Belief AND Trust. From a Scientific perspective, folks seem to focus on the idea that spiritual Faith is primarily about Belief. But that very belief takes trust. It is the trust that takes work.

--Ember--
 
 
Unconditional Love
05:39 / 06.09.07
Are we talking dogmatic faith or just faith, because it could be argued that there is a faith free of dogma behind pretty much everything we do including reasoning.
 
 
Unconditional Love
06:06 / 06.09.07
A more practical example, i have met several people over the years whom through the childhood programming of religion have quite literally had there lives saved. When they had given up on everything else, this baseline kept them alive and helped them recover from the crisis in there life, having something to believe in literally kept them alive.

Not all of them remain faithful to whatever cultural faith script they received, but many of them acknowledge how it has made an effective safety net when crisis of one kind or another has brought them close to death. Being in such a state of crisis is going to make faith or belief a much more desirable quality.

We have the luxury of appearing faithless because many of our immediate needs are catered for, but behind that is a faith and trust that that state will remain operative.

On another note behind every curiosity of understanding there is the faith or trust in a feeling that something is worth understanding to begin with. Behind this question - It's a GOOD thing to be able to believe things without proof? - is the notion that the question is worth asking, worth implies a trust or faith in the value of asking questions.
 
 
EmberLeo
22:50 / 07.09.07
We have the luxury of appearing faithless because many of our immediate needs are catered for, but behind that is a faith and trust that that state will remain operative.

Well put. I suppose there is a fine line between a sense of entitlement and unarticulated faith.

The main difficulty I have with the question "Is it good to be able to believe without proof?" is that the word "proof" has a lot of baggage attached to it. Scientific proof. Legal proof. Is it enough for you to think I'm not an idiot if personal proof is enough for me to have faith?

I've been burned too much by people who equate having faith with an inability to use logic properly.

--Ember--
 
 
EvskiG
16:12 / 08.09.07
Seems to me that there are at least two different kinds of faith: (1) belief without evidence -- the kind of faith generally referred to in religion, and (2) trust -- that is, an assumption or calculated gamble, generally based on past experience.

It's a mistake to conflate the two and use the second kind (which I'll call trust) to justify the first kind (which I'll call religious faith).

it could be argued that there is a faith free of dogma behind pretty much everything we do including reasoning.

No, not really.

Religious faith is belief without evidence. Trust is an assumption or calculated gamble, often supported by evidence. And "reasoning" generally is a deduction or induction based on and supported by evidence or experience.

If reasoning isn't based on evidence, it's simply playing with ideas that don't actually have external referents. Speculating about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Or speculating about the nature of the Trinity.

A more practical example, i have met several people over the years whom through the childhood programming of religion have quite literally had there lives saved.

Good for them. That's one argument for the utility of faith. But it doesn't, of course, prove the truth of anything they've believed.

We have the luxury of appearing faithless because many of our immediate needs are catered for, but behind that is a faith and trust that that state will remain operative.

You're conflating religious faith and trust.

On another note behind every curiosity of understanding there is the faith or trust in a feeling that something is worth understanding to begin with. Behind this question - It's a GOOD thing to be able to believe things without proof? - is the notion that the question is worth asking, worth implies a trust or faith in the value of asking questions.

Again, you're conflating religious faith and trust.

And my notion that questions are worth asking is based on my past experience, not either kind of faith.

Is it enough for you to think I'm not an idiot if personal proof is enough for me to have faith?

Tricky question. If you come to a conclusion because of personal proof, it isn't religious faith -- it's a decision based on evidence (for example, your sensory experience).

Of course, your personal experience might cause you to have religious faith OR trust that something outside your experience is true: for example, the feeling that you have been possessed by something that you interpret as Odin could lead you to believe -- through religious faith OR trust -- that Odin has some sort of objective existence.

Of course, that's not enough to convince me or other people that your personal experience reflects any sort of universal truth.

I've been burned too much by people who equate having faith with an inability to use logic properly.

Unfortunately, too many people with what they describe as (religious) faith are unable to use logic properly. (For example: "It's in the Bible, and that proves it's true.") Of course, plenty of people without faith can't use logic properly, either.

Naturally, someone can have faith and use logic properly. But, by definition, they can't use logic properly in the realm of religious faith.
 
 
Unconditional Love
21:21 / 08.09.07
The paragraph below taken from the wikipedia article on faith.

>>>>>It is sometimes argued that even scientific knowledge is dependent on 'faith' - for example, faith that the researcher responsible for an empirical conclusion is competent, and honest. Indeed, distinguished chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi argued that scientific discovery begins with a scientist's faith that an unknown discovery is possible. Scientific discovery thus requires a passionate commitment to a result that is unknowable at the outset. Polanyi argued that the scientific method is not an objective method removed from man's passion. On the contrary, scientific progress depends primarily on the unique capability of free man to notice and investigate patterns and connections, and on the individual scientist's willingness to commit time and resources to such investigation, which usually must begin before the truth is known or the benefits of the discovery are imagined, let alone understood fully. It could then be argued that until one possesses all knowledge in totality, one will need faith in order to believe an understanding to be correct or incorrect in total affirmation.<<<<<

The above sounds very much like devotion to something to me.
 
 
EvskiG
22:31 / 08.09.07
It is sometimes argued that even scientific knowledge is dependent on 'faith' - for example, faith that the researcher responsible for an empirical conclusion is competent, and honest.

Yes, it is "sometimes argued." (Note the passive voice.)

Generally by people who conflate the two definitions of faith noted above -- (1) belief without evidence and (2) trust.

Seems to me that the scientific inquiry you're discussing is trust "that the researcher responsible for an empirical conclusion is competent, and honest."

distinguished chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi argued that scientific discovery begins with a scientist's faith that an unknown discovery is possible.

I hate to contend with a "distinguished chemist and philosopher," but I'd say it's more (1) trust that previous work in the field was reliable and (2) reasoning that extrapolates from that work and empirical fact.

Scientific discovery thus requires a passionate commitment to a result that is unknowable at the outset.

Naturally science can involve passion and passionate commitment. But I wouldn't call it devotion (in a religious sense) and I wouldn't call it faith (in a religious sense).
 
 
Unconditional Love
12:06 / 09.09.07
I do not think they are faith in a religous sense, but i would contend that faith is very important to all forms of experimentation.

I would use a tarot deck as a model to try to show why the synthesis in nessecary at least in regards to magickal practice. To put ones trust in reason and logic alone would be like using only the sword suit, or having a tarot deck made of swords.

There is a good reason why there is a synthesis of five elelments in a tarot deck, as this is a more rounded model or representation that brings other human qualities to the proof it tries to contend.

In a working sense a devotional faith is nessecary at least for the time of a working. To be religious it is needed all of the time, whatever one may face, in a magickal sense it is required at the point of practice.

Getting the balance between those elements involved in that particular representation is the tricky part of the process, take the thoth deck for example i would really not want to work with only the sword suit, it would be highly unbalanced and would lead to a bias in my proof.

When emphasis is placed upon any one element of an operation and then raised as the prime cause of perception an incredible amount of data that does not fit into the bounds of the particular tool being used becomes unseen.

which is why a synthesis of faith and reason is required along with the many other elements that provide a window on proof within a magickal practice. Raising only faith is just as much a mistake but so is neglecting it entirely.
 
 
EmberLeo
11:53 / 10.09.07
Ev, Trust isn't sepparate from Faith, it's one of the major definitions of Faith. The distinction you are making is between Trust and Belief. Faith means both those, and several other things, and it usually means more than one at a time - as it does when referring to religion. You don't get to define the word more narrowly for everyone else just because you like your lines drawn more cleanly between objective proof and personal experience.

--Ember--
 
 
EvskiG
14:20 / 10.09.07
Naturally trust isn't separate from faith. As I noted above, I see it as one definition of faith.

But it seems to me that when faith is used to mean trust based on past experience or evidence (and despite the uncertainty of future conditions), it's somewhat different from when faith is used to mean belief without any evidence.

(For example, faith that my job will be here for me tomorrow is essentially different than faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father.)

And it seems to me that some people try to use the two definitions of faith interchangeably to argue that the latter should be treated identically to the former. I disagree.

And of course I'm not the guy who gets to define what faith is for everyone else.

But since we're trying to communicate with each other here, it seems to me that it's useful to tease out distinctions that some people -- but not others -- might have in mind when they use certain words.
 
 
iconoplast
17:48 / 10.09.07
But it seems to me that when faith is used to mean trust based on past experience or evidence (and despite the uncertainty of future conditions), it's somewhat different from when faith is used to mean belief without any evidence.

The thing is... it's the first kind of Faith is the kind that describes my relationship with the God of my understanding. Trust based on past experience. God has not abandoned me yet, God has always provided for me in the past, so I try to remember to trust that ze will probably continue to do so.

I think part of the problem is that it's hard to explain what a spiritual experience is. But peoples faiths very often are not out-of-the-blue fantastic constructions, or propsitions suddenly decided upon and clung to blindly. Peoples relationships with divinity unfold slowly, based on a series of distinct and personal spiritual experiences.

That said, I think I should let Princess know that I'm sort of investigating Catholicism as well, having fallen in with a couple of friends who are involved ith the Jesuits - one still en route to ordination, and one who is no longer on that path. Both have extemely interesting takes on Catholic dogma.

I feel like every time I ask a question about one of the deal-breakers (objective disorder, quietism, gnosticism, liberation theology, Ratsinger, the whole fairy-tale part of the religion) they look sort of uncomfortable, shrug, and say "We don't really deal with that."

The Church is, apparently, far less homogeneous than I thought, and contains within it whole traditions of dissent.

The 'Devil's Advocate'? He is the guy whose job it is to argue that so-and-so was not actually a saint, and that those weren't really miracles. I like that that job exists.
 
 
EvskiG
18:18 / 10.09.07
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that your trust that God will continue to provide for you in the future is based on your experience that "God has always provided for me in the past."

Fair enough, but -- if you don't mind the question -- I'd ask what if anything is the evidence or experience that leads you to believe that (1) you were provided for in the past (including what "provided for" means in this context), and (2) that what did the providing was "God" (including what "God" means in this context).

Personally, I'll readily concede that I am and have been alive and generally happy, and that I've resolved unfortunate situations I've encountered in the past, but I don't think that inevitably -- or even logically -- offers any evidence that I've been provided for by God.
 
 
EmberLeo
18:19 / 10.09.07
For example, faith that my job will be here for me tomorrow is essentially different than faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father.

I don't think it is, for somebody who has actual faith - as opposed to adhering to the social construct of faith without any particular personal faith. In my experience, those Christians (or Jews, or Pagans, or whatever, but you used Jesus as the example, so I am too) who actually describe themselves as having faith or being a person of faith got that way because of personal experiences of God and Jesus.

The folks I know who essentially go to church to be social don't talk about having faith. They just talk about going to church.

But I admit, around here I don't encounter people who feel obliged for social reasons to profess and cling to faith they don't actually have.

And maybe I am, from my own end, a bit dubious that anyone can have actual faith - be it belief or trust - in something they have no personal connection with directly.

I will point out one thing that probably reinforces your point, but is largely overlooked. When something is "common knowledge" that everyone in your immediate environment accepts as a fact, feeling a need for outside confirmation of that fact is actually pretty unusual. We learn it the way we learn everything else around us, growing up, and unless something comes up to contradict it on a personal level, there's neither need nor cause to edit ourselves.

For folks who grew up with Christianity being the ubiquitous answer that's simply common knowledge, it would take active faith to believe anything else.

--Ember--
 
 
EvskiG
18:50 / 10.09.07
For example, faith that my job will be here for me tomorrow is essentially different than faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father.

I don't think it is, for somebody who has actual faith - as opposed to adhering to the social construct of faith without any particular personal faith.

I see these as different.

I believe my job will be here tomorrow because it's reliably been here for years and I have no reason to believe otherwise.

But even someone who has had a mystical encounter with something they describe as God the Father or Jesus or the Holy Spirit is unlikely to have had some sort of experience -- or to be able to cite any evidence other than, say, the Bible or other Church writings -- that supports the points of dogma I noted above (which the Catholic Church expressly says must be taken on faith): for example, that Jesus is the only begotten son of God the Father, and that his essence is the essence of the Father.

In my experience, those Christians (or Jews, or Pagans, or whatever, but you used Jesus as the example, so I am too) who actually describe themselves as having faith or being a person of faith got that way because of personal experiences of God and Jesus.

Remarkably enough, I don't think that's always the case.

Many people who struggle with faith, for example, are people who WANT to believe (for social or other reasons) but haven't had personal mystical experiences that would provide evidence in support of the desired belief.

Like Mother Teresa, discussed above.
 
  

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