What faith is

This is so nice and touching I thought i'd share her wisdom with you.


Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

[edit on 31-1-2005 by TrueLies]

Very true.

Where did you get that piece from?






[edit on 31-1-2005 by Truth]

Originally posted by Truth
Very true.Where did you get that piece from?

I get beliefnet's newsletter's in my email... link to their site:
www.beliefnet.com...

Many many religious and spiritual information there... Stories, readings, inspirational quotes, ect...

Faith is........


Hope


Maybe someday you will credit the fireman rather than God for pulling a baby out of a burning building. Maybe someday you will credit that brave man for climbing into the the rubble after an earthquake to save the woman rather than God. Maybe someday you will credit the doctors for saving the life of the hospital patient.....

Naaaaa why would you actually give someone credit for doing something good because we are all infedelic pagan scumbags. We can do no good, so it must be God.....

Thats the inferiority complex that I refer to all the time. The one thats blatantly apparent even in a simple post like this.

Because thats Pride. Beliving in your own goodness but not remembering where that
goodness came from. All goodness we have is directly from the (grace) of God literally. Every breath we take is from
Gods grace and I can literally attest to this.


You can do noting without him, and hes the only one with goodness that he graciously gives us
by his graces through his teachings.



peace.

Double post by accident, sorry.

[edit on 1/31/2005 by Seapeople]

Of course......

I can do nothing good without him. I can assure you that God is not with me. I can also assure you that I have helped people in need before.

Wait, that was really God and not me, sorry......

I laugh at your open expression of your inferiority complex. Sorry.

Oh, and I should point out that God created all evil and bad as well. He may have given you your goodness, but he also gave you your evil. Furthermore, he planned out all your evil doings before you were ever born. He scripted your eventual trip to whereever...even if its hell. How lovely that guys seems to be!

Oh well, keep your HOPES up.

Originally posted by Seapeople
Faith is........
Hope

To you and nothing more.

Naaaaa why would you actually give someone credit for doing something good because we are all infedelic pagan scumbags. We can do no good, so it must be God.....

Pessimistic human... That's not the point of this thread.

Thats the inferiority complex that I refer to all the time. The one thats blatantly apparent even in a simple post like this.

I think pessimism and inferiority complexes are a result of a negative attitude.

Man cannot create a spirit, but he can break it.

[edit on 31-1-2005 by TrueLies]

I am not pessimistic, you are.

I see the good that people do for one another. I also give that credit to those brave individuals who often make sacrifices for others. Sometimes even their lives. Those men and women who have done such good for people like you are cast aside so you can worship your god. All the wile you wouldn't even have a right to do that if it wasn't for the bravery of those men and women period. That is a spit in the face if you asked me. I don't care what you think, when people sacrifice for others, they pay the consequences and sometimes those consequences are severe. I would never take that away from them as you do.

I see the good in people. You do not. You see original sin and evil.

Why do you come at me like this? I don't get an attitude with you. Im speaking from experience and from scriputre, but scripture
just confirms what ive personally seen.


You think you can do stuff without him but hes probably letting you wallow in your own pride, but if he were
to remove that grace from you and actually let satan go to work on you you would be pleading for his help, trust me ive experienced it.

Let me ask you, if God created the person you helped, then in a way you would be helping a creature of the God you give no credit to.



The root of pride is that I am the source of all I do, and you come completely non dependant on God who gave you life.

Originally posted by Seapeople
I am not pessimistic, you are.
I see the good in people. You do not. You see original sin and evil.

You don't even know who your talking to! You haven't even bothered to ask me what redeeming qualities I see in people and why...

I can tell you that you personally are overly negative and pessimistic by your posts in this thread, you converse with yourself and then try and tell me I am what you say I am when you don't even know cuz you didn't care to ask!

You totally had this conversation with yourself buddy, go get help and stop #ting in the rainforest.

the problem is much deeper here than we can see with you seapeople, you were on the fence last i talked to you! it seems you have made some heavy decisions have you not? where are you at? it looks like an angry place to me! the good in you is the good in me, we are all given life and soul and free will, i said before love has to have choice or it does not mean real love! if you were in a room with 1 monster and yourself, and a girl came in and said wow your the best looking guy in the room! would you think this was real love?? option my friend!! its where the rubber meets the road. god gave us choice, to love him, he did not create robots! without gods light shinning in this darkness you could not see at all.. and i said before hell is a place that people who spend their whole life trying to fight and flee from god can crawl, on their own, to get out of his presence..he is an all consuming fire! and those of us who do not shrink back will come before the mighty throne of grace boldly! because he has paid the price my friend! that is hope, and that is where i put my faith!! i will hope and have faith in the one who gives light to the darkness that licks all of our heels, i will enter his presence and grace because i have sought it here, hell is for those who ran from it........

i have to double post here sorry! truelies and truth how very refreshing to read your thoughts, i have been gone a while, and its nice to see someone has been speakin the truth in love while i was away...very cool!

Originally posted by TrueLies
Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

I completely agree with this sentence.. wherever it came from. Me.. I have faith in LIFE.. without it there would be no concept of god.
And before someone pipes up and says 'but there would be no life without god'.. don't. I believe the creation that we are came from the most basic of life forms and evolved into US. We are the miracle.. and I see nothing wrong with giving ourselves, eachother [no fighting over god] and our majestic, life giving planet the respect it is due.



[edit on 1-2-2005 by riley]

No....I have made no decisions. I was clear as to my beliefs. I could never be christian because I believe in free will. There may be a God....but in no way would I ever believe that he could exist in a way that would make him, control my life in all of its aspects, control my decisions, condemn me to hell for decisions I could have never made ect. I cannot believe that God is what you say because I am not about to take away my ability to think freely.

It bothers me so deeply that you are all too intentionally set on ignoring logic, to see where the problems rest in your thoughts. If you thank God for saving your sister who was in a car accident, when in reality that surgeon saved her life, then you are saying thank you god, for making that surgeon do it, and making those paramedics get their on time, and for making sure the accident didn't kill her. You are saying, thank god for completely controlling everything.

God is not responsible for our problems, hardships, joys, or anything at all. We are. Humans save each other and help each other. God does not. It is a twisted lie that people tell themselves to ease the fear of death. There may be an afterlife. There may be a God. I don't know. What I do know, is that he can in no way interfere with our lives. If he did at all, being that he is as all powerful as you each seem to think, then every interference, would predetermine our lives. Our decisions. Our thoughts.

God has no control over my thoughts. He has no control over my decisions. ( I love it when people say...no he doesn't, and then refer to their bible...because they are too busy trying to defend something to take a logical look at it.) Since God has no control over those thoughts, I am allowed to think that people do the good in the world, and people do the evil. Satan and God are not responsible whether they exist or not.

Go pray...and when your prayer does not get answered, claim....sing about how you thank God for unanswered prayers. Even though that would logically mean their is no reason to pray. If God hears you, and does not answer you all the time...and when he does, its not always the way you want (thats astounding!), that means he does what he wants and disregards your request anyway.

Rather than spending your time praying to a god who will do what he wants anyway, why don't you go down to a food kitchen and do some good. See the true horror of reality for some people. Stop again before you pray for them (cuz god may or may not help depending on his mood or whatever), and instead of praying, HELP THEM YOURSELF!

Instead of thanking God for those kids who got out of the fire, THANK THE FIREMAN! God had no parts in them saving those children, unless they did not have free will. If they did have free will, then they, NOT GOD trained. Then they, NOT GOD, braved the heat and flames.

Doctors, fireman, police, "good samaritans", neighbors, soldiers, laborers, leaders. Thank them for using their FREE WILL to make a conscious decision to make life better for you. To risk their own. To be brave. Thank them.

Your right, God is NOT responsible... We are responsible for our own lives....
Free will...........



Sure darwinism is awesome and it's a great theory of which I believe, but I can believe in a creator and for you to try and talk me out of that is beyond ignorant, you sir, don't want people thinking for themselves, your trying to tell people how to think and live and thats not cool.

Im glad that you agree, but astounded that you refuse to consider the consequences of your thoughts. It is not because you are too stupid or ignorant to see them. It is by refusal that you do not see them. A conscious choice to ignore logic and truth. A conscious choice to forbid intelligence.

Originally posted by Seapeople
It is by refusal that you do not see them. A conscious choice to ignore logic and truth. A conscious choice to forbid intelligence.

What is it that you think makes that so?

Originally posted by TrueLies

Originally posted by Seapeople
It is by refusal that you do not see them. A conscious choice to ignore logic and truth. A conscious choice to forbid intelligence.

What is it that you think makes that so?

If god knows your tomorrow, then your tomorrow already exists. Your "choices" for tomorrow exist. If God knows your tomorrow, then your tomorrow is not yours but Gods. If God knows your tomorrow, then YOUR CHOICES are not yours but Gods. He created you, knowing your tomorrow before he even created you according to christian documents. If your tomorrow is scripted in this way, then you have no choice in your actions. You have no free will.

If God in his power was to interfere with a human life in any way, the same applies. If he were responsible for a situation not killing someone (in other words, if he were listening to prayers and helping), then he would have to be responsible for the reasons that you recieved your help. Whether it is a squirrel that distracts you from something, or a human that pushes you out of the way of oncoming traffic, he would have to be controlling that in some level. He would have to be removing free will from somewhere.

The fact that you feel we have free will, and still believe in all these powers of God, is what makes this so. It is impossible to have both. The common answers from christians is "It is not up to me to speak for God", "I don't even try to understand how God makes it possible, I just believe", or "we have free will". Many more come to mind. All of them of course are intentional methods of hiding the truth from even yourself. Lying to yourself.... It is astounding to me.

I will never tell you that evolution or darwinism takes away from the possibility of a God. Believe in God if you will. There will always be questions that God easily fills the void for.

What makes a rock different from a person? We are all made of the same molecules and elements. What was before our time? ECT.

All these things leave plenty of room for the existence of a God. I never attempt to amke people look bad for thinking that. I could never rule it out. I can however, point out the obvious, which is what I try to do all the time. The obvious is not directed specifically at you or anyone, but rather an entire culture of people. A lot of these people will see this discussion. So this discussion is a good place to make points.

My first point on this topic was regarding faith. I said, faith is hope.

I have used the analogy of a boy riding a bike towards a jump he made. He may or may not be nervous when he gets to the jump, but one thing is for sure. He must be very confident that he will land that bike without getting hurt to do it. He has faith, that he will make it. Does he truly know? No, he doesn't. He could wreck his bike and break his hip. But he believes he will. If you believe their is a God, that is all well and good. Faith though, is nothing more than hope when all is said and done, because you truly do not know. If you knew for sure that there was a god, you wouldn't need faith as thomas learned.