Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm hoping, probably naively, that this won't turn into a bun fight.
So, I've not Googled the meaning of religious faith but I will just share some of my thoughts here.
There are a lot of religions in the world. They can't all be right, can they?
Surely if what a person of faith believes is true, that particular faith must be true for everyone?
After death we can't all be shooting off to different places, can we?
I haven't read about this but a friend of mine (autistic) has a special interest in faith and reads reams of books.
He is particularly interested in Shamanism and I find that quite fascinating.
I find ancient and 'Tribal' religions of great interest.
I'm agnostic.
However, I'm not sure which fence I sit on as all the major religions have something to offer but some of them have caused a lot of death and suffering too over the centuries.
My husband believes that the world was created by aliens. Is this a faith too, even if not a religious one?
People sometimes talk as though they know that their faith is true.
However, how can it be as the word 'faith' is explicitely saying it's a belief.
It can't be proven as what happens after death can't be known.
Also even if historical figures such as Jesus did live (and there is evidence that this is true) it's our interpretation of their signficance that is pertinent.
Hence the word 'faith'.
If you have a faith, please share why you believe if you care to.
Please also just share your thoughts on this.
Thanks.
Strong trust or strong confidence in something or someone.
This is faith. It's a belief, something or someone you strongly believe in. You can lose it, you can gain it back.
Everyone in the world, religious or not, exercises faith every day.
You have faith in yourself. Faith that your family will be ok. Faith you hospital tests will be ok. Faith that you'll pass that exam....
To me, this is faith, not necessarily religious though most people associate it with that. I associate it in my own way and know that it comes and goes for me.
Faith is the evidence of things and see and the substance of things hoped for. I can’t speak for other religions but in Christianity particularly the type of Christianity I see practised it’s not so much faith in what as faith in who.
we emphasise the importance of personal relationship with God, personal experience of God. Now there are other traditional aspects to Faith in the church. Faith in the Bible, Faith in the traditions and the knowledge is handed down throughout the centuries of church history. But as Jesus him self said we love because he first loved us. So a personal experience of God and gods love is very important to the Christian faith.
now a lot of this spiritual experience gets a very bad rap. People see pictures of charismatic Bible teachers leading huge services where people are convulsing and collapsing and screaming randomly and they say it’s mass hypnosis. Well sometimes personal experience of God can be public and in big groups but I have to say most of my most meaningful personal experience of God has been in the quietness and solitude of private moments.
that isn’t to say that the Bible and even to some extent tradition is totally unimportant, far from it. But a persons Faith often grows best and strongest in those times when they are on their knees before God on their own without anyone to impress or to tell them what they’re supposed to say or think. Again that isn’t to say I don’t think that time with other believers is not important as well. Just that there are things in a persons spiritual development and the growth of their faith that have to be achieved on one’s own with God.
You're brave Debbie! I think you might be asking for it with this thread.
You can have faith but not be religious.
I see faith as individual so can't see how it can be applied to everyone (unless you are saying that individual applies their own faith to everyone else).
I am not sure faith = truth. To me they are different things but I would need to think about this further. I see it more as "trusting".
I had faith once but I lost that faith.
My parents died in horrible circumstances and I've got my own issues now having been through that, abuse and a fire.
I did ask a vicar about it and why it happened and his response? God works in mysterious ways.
So yeah, I lost my faith.
I like the idea of aliens creating all this and watching us as we grow and evolve.