What is faith?

Thank you everyone.

I won't do a long reply at the moment as today I've had some nasty side-effects from an antibiotic I'm taking.

I'm reading all the replies and really appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

For a while, when I was a teenager, we had a head of Cernunnos in the back garden. I had cut down a dead almond tree (it had peach-leaf curl), when I dug up the stump and roots, the root ball and roots, when turned upside down, suggested an antlered head. I carved a face, with lenticular eyes and down-curving mouth, on the stump and a torc round the 'neck. I mounted it on a wooden stake, with a painting of the 'ram-headed serpent' running down it. It must have puzzled visitors!

The face looked a lot like this: 

I am an agnostic, only a paper thin distance from atheism.

Yeah, I don't the notion of "worship".. am not putting anyone or myself in any sort of box. I have used the label as Celtic Pagan but I followed my heart to where my belief is now.. not based on others say so.

See me and other humans are not sociable and never have, me and animals are a different story, I rather be in the outdoors, deep in the woods or forest and not in a big room of people 

I see where you are coming from, however. I do not like the pagan that hate on irish catholic and christians that held onto the traiditions.. I hold nothing against those who held onto our traditions for a long time because they adapted them.. 

What I do not understand and get are those christians and catholics especially in America, that believe we are Satanist and go around as I seen via Tiktok where pagans have video replied to a christian or catholic that lead said comment "that pagan baby needs to bleed out"... like as pagans, we hold no judgement or dislike to any religion of anyone's else, yes we may speak like we do, but we speak in the fairness that is given to us by those who are of christianity and catholic.  I do not hate anyone.. as paganism states.  "do as you do, if no harm comes upon you". 

In fairness, the early Irish Christians (our ancestors) from the time of Saint Patrick onwards took the old Celtic and Pagan faith traditions and incorporated them into the newer Christian/Catholic faith - and the Irish Christian church held onto these for a very long time, despite being accused of heresy for doing so - it was probably a reason why, despite the chaos happening elsewhere in Europe, where for a time the faith in Europe was lost, we Irish Christians managed to hold onto our faith for so long - it is this Irish heritage and Christian faith tradition that defines our Irish identity that despite being occupied by foreign powers for over 800 years, we Irish still managed to hold onto our Catholic faith, a heritage and tradition that I am immensely proud of as an Irish Catholic Patriot 

Well, I'm not Catholic and never have been, so I'm in no rush to go to confession, especially since I don't believe things like tarot reading come from anywhere except the user's own mind.

Perhaps if I'd been raised differently I would also *feel* differently, but I'd like to think that since I'm not hurting anyone else or attempting to influence them, it's probably fine. It's forbidden in your faith, and I respect that- I don't expect you to get involved in things that make you uncomfortable- but it can't be forbidden in mine since I don't really have one.

Are you so sure? When I say human choice I include the human choice not to act and find solutions to difficult problems. The gap between what we can fix and what we do fix in medicine is immense.

For example we already have the means to almost compellable eradicate cancer. Just give every person a full body MRI every month. Any new tumour would be caught in stage 1 by comparing the scans and stage one tumours tend to be curable with minimal side effects. We don't do that, not because we lack the technology, but because of the expense.

I mean you'd need to put an MRI machine in every GPs surgery. Maybe more than one even. But in theory we could.

I used to look at things like tarot cards, fortune telling, etc until I realised that this is expressly forbidden in the traditional Catholic faith, as it is considered gravely sinful and very dangerous to faith and morals - in such cases, confession and penance for these mortal sins are required before a person is in a state of Grace to recieve Holy Communion 

It's the notion of "worship" that I find difficult. And putting myself in any sort of box.

I grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic background in Rural Ireland where all of the older people I knew back then constantly talked about the “simple” (unquestioning) Irish Catholic faith and the “assent” of faith”, which perhaps led many of us to take our faith for granted growing up and without realising it, without thinking about it (too much?) despite being born after Vatican II in 1962, I returned to the traditional Catholic faith Pre-Vatican II (Mass and Rosary in Latin) 18 years ago despite the fact that I’d left Vatican II after I’d come out as gay, but after my experiences on the gay scene, I eventually came back to my faith - Vatican II was in total disarray as I very quickly discovered and so I returned to the faith of my grandparents generation, connecting with the history of our Irish saints - when Covid hit, all of us had to re-evaluate our relationship with our faith and I found that my faith not only deepened, but became a source of inner strength to me, despite being derided in our current times, as I began to realise that we need God in our lives more than ever - the man-made institutional structures of the Vatican II Catholic Church are known to be totally corrupt just as they were before Vatican II and people like Hitler, Napoleon and many others in history were quick to recognise this and call out such corruption and rightly so - I listen to a lot of Baptist Preachers in America and elsewhere, as well as looking at the teachings of other religions such as Islam and I find that this strengthens my Catholic faith - to me, reciting the Rosary in Latin is entering into a meditative state and also, Latin is known to be a language that is very powerful against demonic and satanic forces (just like Arabic in Islam) 

I tend towards secular paganism myself- environmentalism, belief in gods as representations rather than individuals, and the idea that things like spells and tarot readings are about your personal outlook on your internal and external world as opposed to harnessing some kind of external power.

I am very fond of Thor and his big hammer, but I don't think he's an actual person ambling about, because I don't believe in any literal interpretation of any gods. I do think that some religious figures have existed in the past, but I don't really believe in their divinity even when I believe the same things as them ethically/morally- for example, I don't feel that I have to believe Jesus was the son of God to agree with some of his teachings.

I think this stuff probably puts me firmly in the category of 'no faith just vibes'!

Mine is celtic pagan belief. I don't have one god but many deities that don't require worship to feel belief. 

We are nature, we are all brothers and sisters humans and animals. In life and spirit. And all are blessed to livw how we all are and love freely to who and whom to love, where it 1 on 1 or multiple partners. And sexuality is free.of judgement. That the earth provide us with everything to survive that when we die wr provide back to the earth in our spirit to run free and wild. 

Oh and to me faith is a personal choice that gives you hope.

I'm a Faith. My mum chose my name.

Generally I lurk. It's been 3 years since I last made a comment but I saw this thread and for a second I thought it was about me...

Oh well. Back to lurking.

*slithers in to the shadows*

Interesting thread. Thanks for making it Debbie.

I'm finding it interesting reading everyone's opinions on faith and God.

I've always thought of myself as a bit of a God but I'm told that's a mental delusion.

I have faith but it's often misplaced.

There are a lot of religions in the world.  They can't all be right, can they?

I don't see why not to be honest. A better question is why can't they all be right? There could be more than one God. Perhaps they are all a family, created different beings with their own beliefs? Maybe not. But who knows?

As for allowing pain and suffering, maybe the rules are they aren't allowed to intervene or perhaps they just choose not to which sounds awful but then a lot of humans see and know a lot of what happens and choose to look the other way... Humans are the biggest monsters of them all really.

Faith brings people hope. Religious faith brings comfort that there's something after death, that God is always with them etc. I don't know if it's true. I don't really have a religious belief but I don't rule it out either.

Even if it isn't there's nothing wrong with having faith in something.

This is heartbreaking I’m so sorry

There is a lot of suffering that is not explained by stupidity, or human choice. I know this from working in a neonatal unit

If I may offer an alternate interpretation. I have never been particularly enamoured of the theological theory of predestination. The notion that everything that happens in the world is gods will. there is far too much pain and suffering to accept that as a premise. And anyway a world in which human beings couldn’t hurt themselves and others would be a world in which human choice was affectively meaningless. I don’t think God wanted a world where human choice was meaningless I think God wanted us to be better people.

there is a section in the book of proverbs which talks about the spirit of wisdom standing on the roadside screaming hey stupid how long are you going to be stupid come and learn. So much human suffering is not merely malevolence what probably kills more people is stupidity.

earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do by falling on their heads yet we still stupidly build buildings that are earthquake prone in earthquake hotspots.

so when people suffer and die needlessly and everybody blames God I have to wonder how long God has been trying to get through our  thick skulls that if only we were a bit smarter and more careful and willing to help our fellow man all of this suffering could’ve been avoided in the first place.

as one of his friends said to Job God is always speaking to us trying to save us sometimes in dreams or sometimes with an angel but human beings do not understand and do not pay attention.

I think faith provides comfort during difficult times, wether that be praying for a miracle or conversely believing that loved ones have gone to a better place. I often think what if we’re all like a game of sims haha but I think overall faith allows people to get through the ups and downs of life