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A "Leap of Faith"
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16-06-2006 10:56amStemming on from some of the conversation in the Strength of Islam V. Christianity thread, I'd like to ask some of the theists amongst us a question:
What is your motivation to make the leap of faith to believe in your god(s)?
This to me seems to be the biggest difference between atheists/agnostics and the religious. While many of us non-believers can see the value in having a religion (moral, social, psychological support and even financial) we just can't take that leap of faith to decide to believe in spite of all logic and reason.
In the past I've usually attributed this leap of faith to ignorance, mental weakness or fear of one's own mortality. I realise how arrogant that sounds but I just can't see any other logical motivations for taking that leap of faith. Care to enlighten me?0
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Interesting question.
For me personally, I was raised a Catholic and for a large part of my life, it was just a given. You didnt question the existence of God, God just was. None of my family were ever forceful about religion, and never tried to make us believe, we just naturally did. This was reinfored with the ceremonies like communion and confirmation.
My religion was never a major church based thing anyway, it was always more of a direct relation ship with God. The church only really became invovled for us as a ceremonial thing for the likes of weddings and funerals.
In recent years, I have started looking more and more into the faith I got by default, and I personally began to see cracks and question those things that should have been "givens". That is the reason why now I am investigating other paths and belief systems, as I am beginning to find the concept of God, in a Catholic sense, a little bit hard to swallow. I would rather focus my energies now on the here and now, and the reduction of suffering of others, as opposed to an angry God shaking his fists at me from Heaven beacuse I done something that used to be okay, and now isnt, or vice versa.
I suppose, for me, I could say that my belief in God was based on a laziness to try and find something that proved otherwise, and a "lalala I'm not listening" approach when others tried to tell me. I feel better now to have began investigating what I believe and I think it will help me make better more informed opinions in the future. A large part of my wanting to believe in God is due to the fact that I fear mortality, both my own and that of those I love. The concept of heaven and a forgiving God makes the thought of death easier to deal with.0 -
For me, being a Muslim, it's about having things to back you up to help you believe like the scientific miracles in the Quran that were revealed over 14 centuries ago whilst at the same time the technology to confirm them was only available recently. Other things are how things in life seem to go along so well that it's too good to just be a case of coincedence (like someone appearing out of nowhere in the location you can least expect it when you really need their help). Also, the beauty of the world and such makes me concious of a Higher Being but I guess that an athiest could just put that down to nature.
Personally speaking, I believe that people shouldn't just accept their faith without questions. Thank God, I have no problems in the core belief of my religion.
I think that a lot of people that would classify themselves athiests, agnostics or just non-religious think that people who believe themselves to be religious feel the presence of God in the same way a Jedi feels in the force in the star wars films So, they think that it's a case of either you feel it or you don't but it's just not like that. I guess you could say that it's a mix of faith and logical reasoning.0 -
Hmm maybe this should be in spirituality.
I was brought up as a christian and I never doubted that there was a chirstian god but him and his messagea and ideals never sat right with me.
I began searching and researching other faiths to see what else there was.
I am a panthiest and my gods all guide me and communicate wth me in many ways, mostly which define logic and reason.
Some people have a leap of faith other's find that have have been pushed or shoved or even tripped up.0 -
the_new_mr - I'm afraid I'm not that familiar with the Quran, what are these scientific miracles you describe? I think that drawing the conclusion that there must be a great scheme or order to things that has been created by God/Allah/Whoever because of coincidences or because of the beauty of nature is a little puzzling tbh. Why do either of these things suggest the intervention of a god? Probability and Chaos theory suggest that the most unlikely of events cans occur, they can be highly improbable but in a long enough time scale, most things will happen. I think we're essentially hard-wired to appreciate the beauty of nature since we're part of it ourselves, though nature can create incredibly ugly things too.
Thaed, what do you mean by "I am a panthiest and my gods all guide me and communicate wth me in many ways, mostly which define logic and reason"? When choosing a new faith, how did you decide that pantheism was the 'correct' path and realise that you believed in it? What allowed you to take the leap of faith to say that "this is the truth"?0 -
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I was raised Catholic so it was a given for most of my childhood that there was a God.
Over the last fifteen years or so I've questioned what I was taught and little by little I've come to my own set of beliefs. Now, not only do I no longer describe myself as Catholic, I don't even describe myself as Christian, and I do not know of any organised religion that suits my particular set of beliefs.
But though I've disregarded a lot of what I was taught, the idea of God is still there. Maybe one day I will disregard that too, but for the moment I do believe in God. But my image of God is not of the traditional sense - a great man in white sitting on his throne in heaven answering prayers and creating miracles. The God I believe in is more the God of nature. When I walk on the beach, or in a park, I just can't NOT believe in God.0 -
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What is a leap of faith? To examine that we probably have to look at how we reason to begin with - that is to say, logic. Logic is an immensely powerful process for arriving at conclusions, but that is not to say that it is foolproof. This is because logic, much like any other process, has one potentially fatal flaw in that it is axiomatic.
This essentially means that it is based upon an initial premise, an assumption. And if this assumption is wrong, then no matter (or perhaps precisely because of) how perfect your logic is thereafter then your conclusion will also be wrong - if one plus one is not equal to two, then all of mathematics would probably fall apart.
Religion is no different; it relies of a number of axioms (most notably the existence of one or more supernatural beings), after which it tends to be as logical as any other system. It is the acceptance of these axioms that are what we call ‘a leap of faith’.
Are they any better than those that modern science gives us? Perhaps - certainly the larger the leap, the larger the greater the possibility that the axiom is flawed. But is modern science any better? Probably not - after all, what we believed to be true through science has changed repeatedly over the centuries and there is no reason to believe that we will not change our minds further.
My2c.0 -
Sleepy wrote:Thaed, what do you mean by "I am a panthiest and my gods all guide me and communicate wth me in many ways, mostly which define logic and reason"?
Sorry that should have said defied 'logic and reason'Sleepy wrote:When choosing a new faith, how did you decide that pantheism was the 'correct' path and realise that you believed in it?
Simple did I belive in more then one god and can I acknowlegde that there are more then one god and can I 'work' with more then one god.
There is a realtionship with a patron deity and then others after that that I have a connection to.Sleepy wrote:What allowed you to take the leap of faith to say that "this is the truth"?
There is no leap of faith to " this is the true" you know what is true, you know it the same way that the sky is blue and that you like icecream it is just is but accepting it can be hard.0 -
Sleepy wrote:the_new_mr - I'm afraid I'm not that familiar with the Quran, what are these scientific miracles you describe?
Flash website listing a number of miracles:
http://www.harunyahya.com/presentation/miraclesofthequran/index.html
Video that the website is based on:
http://www.harunyahya.com/m_video_miracles_quran.php0 -
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The Corinthian wrote:Religion is no different; it relies of a number of axioms (most notably the existence of one or more supernatural beings), after which it tends to be as logical as any other system. It is the acceptance of these axioms that are what we call ‘a leap of faith’.Are they any better than those that modern science gives us? Perhaps - certainly the larger the leap, the larger the greater the possibility that the axiom is flawed. But is modern science any better? Probably not - after all, what we believed to be true through science has changed repeatedly over the centuries and there is no reason to believe that we will not change our minds further.My2c.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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The Corinthian wrote:Religion is no different; it relies of a number of axioms (most notably the existence of one or more supernatural beings), after which it tends to be as logical as any other system. It is the acceptance of these axioms that are what we call ‘a leap of faith’.
Are they any better than those that modern science gives us? Perhaps - certainly the larger the leap, the larger the greater the possibility that the axiom is flawed. But is modern science any better? Probably not - after all, what we believed to be true through science has changed repeatedly over the centuries and there is no reason to believe that we will not change our minds further.
We make a similar axiomatic leap in real life every day. I assume that the chair I'm sitting on is real, I assume........e.t.c.
Essentially I assume that my senses aren't lying to me in a gross sense and although this is an axiom of how I interact with the world it is no way, I think, similar to the kind of axioms that religion takes.
No area of human thought can perform total metaphysical spring cleaning, but that doesn't immediately allow every area to be put on an equal level in terms of reasonableness.
Again in my opinion, this argument can be reduced to "We are not God, therefore everything is faith" and although strictly correct, I don't think it highlights the actual difference between religion and other areas.0 -
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Wibbs wrote:Without that initial faith, it doesn't mean much to non believers and can be easily dismissed as coincidence, over interpretation or just plain incorrect.While any new theory will have it's detractors, sometimes very vocal ones, the chances of Einstein being burnt at the stake or stoned to death were slim when he contradicted Newton. Religion doesn't have as good a history in that respect0
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Son Goku wrote:Again in my opinion, this argument can be reduced to "We are not God, therefore everything is faith" and although strictly correct, I don't think it highlights the actual difference between religion and other areas.0
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The Corinthian wrote:I wasn’t attempting to highlights the actual difference between religion and science - quite the opposite. As you put it, strictly speaking I am correct, however that does not mean that a scientific axiom and a religious one are of equal merit. But unless we can see that they share the same basic principle, it is impossible to compare them to ascertain this.0
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Some interesting points but not exactly what I was trying to get to. I'm trying to understand why people are prepared to make the leap of faith required to believe in a god because for me, it seems an unreasonably large leap to make based on reasoned decision making.
It's the motivation or rational behind the decision to make that leap of faith that intrigues me.0 -
I had written a really long post about what I felt it took to make a leap of faith and my computer froze:mad: :mad: :mad:
To sum it up I believe there are two periods of faith in everyones life. The pre-adolescent phase and the adult phase.
In the preadolescent phase, everything: God, Jesus (peace be upon him) the salat, or saints, mass, whatever you were taught, is accepted as fact. You go along with it.
For the adult phase to begin one needs to make a leap of faith. The adolesacent phase itself is where the leap of faith is usually made and is the transitional grey area.
I believe that what made me an adult believer was seeing how the faith that I learned in my pre-adolescent stage, when applied to my life in the adolescent stage worked, and made my life make sense and made me happy. Not applying Gods laws to my life also warned me of such dangers and made this leap of faith occur, so to speak.
I think our home environment perhaps individual characteristics are what make such a life-changing stance easy or difficult.
Anyway I hope I have explained my experience reasonably clearly, still made over the computer freezing tbh:) I had explained it better that time!0 -
Sleepy wrote:It's the motivation or rational behind the decision to make that leap of faith that intrigues me.
Because when you sum up what you know and the experiences you have had
and ruled out everything else then you are left with what is for you the most rational explaintion.
The leap of faith as I would see it is not figuring that out it is not ignoring or contunuingly discounting but accepting.0 -
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The Corinthian wrote:However the same can be said of Science. Bare in mind that a large proportion of modern science is entirely built on theories - evolution, the Big Bang, etc. There’s better circumstantial evidence and a smaller ‘leap’ of faith, but the same principle applies in the axiomatic basis of Science as it does with religion.
Maybe that's where the leap of faith lies in some and not others. Some need more or less critical mass to believe any theory, religious or scientific. Mine would be quite a high threshold with both science and religion. There are many theories of science I find dubious due to wishful fitting of evidence to a holy theory or indeed a lack of evidence at all(dark matter, string theory etc).
I would say that of the two philosophies, science tends towards more flexibility in that "faith" though. No theory of science will stand up for long, if a newer better theory comes along, or proof arrives to disprove the earlier stance. For religions that can be much harder. Christianity it could be argued only became more flexible in the face of the scientific enlightement.I don’t know how fair that is. Science has only become the dominant philosophy in the last two centuries and European (Western) culture had essentially already moved on from witch burnings by that stage.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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For me it was a gut feeling, like when you know that someone else is in the room, or even love itself...it is not tangeable but you know it to be true. Yes, the scientist and engineer in me would argue otherwise sometimes, but you see some things in nature - for me, especially in astronomy and it makes you realise. It is like taking the leap when you first swim. Look at the stars on a clear night and get the goosebumps down your spine when you see how small we are in the scale of things. I hope that this helps in some way.0
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Sleepy wrote:I'm trying to understand why people are prepared to make the leap of faith required to believe in a god because for me, it seems an unreasonably large leap to make based on reasoned decision making.
It's the motivation or rational behind the decision to make that leap of faith that intrigues me.
Well, I'm not really sure what to tell you For me, I see it as the truth and I feel like I would only want to be on the truth. Sorry if that doesn't help much.0 -
Sleepy wrote:
It's the motivation or rational behind the decision to make that leap of faith that intrigues me.
That also intrigues me.
I was brought up in a pagan household, there was no God. So when I got older I was exposed to this concept of God and I found it very hard to understand. I felt I should also have "God". But as I got older still I got comfotable with the no god model
But I feel the rational behind the decision is motivated by geography i.e. your birth place.
Why, well ask yourself this question. If the pope had been born in
Mecca to a devote muslim family, would he have decided to go against his family
and become the leader of the cathloic faith. I think not.
I think he would have found God in the quran. I know there will be exceptions
but on the whole people follow the religion of their birth. If you grow up
believing in God you will drift toward a God faith, be that Islam, christian or
Jewish based. It will just seem right. See quote below:Thaedydal wrote:Because when you sum up what you know and the experiences you have had
and ruled out everything else then you are left with what is for you the most rational explaintion.
The leap of faith as I would see it is not figuring that out it is not ignoring or contunuingly discounting but accepting.
I am also guilty of this. I grew up with no God and drifted toward a no god
belief0 -
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DinoBot wrote:If the pope had been born in Mecca to a devote muslim family, would he have decided to go against his family and become the leader of the cathloic faith. I think not.
If the faith is familiar, then it is not unreasonable that people will leave out the elements that they feel are incredible and keep the rest. So someone raised a Catholic might discount the idea that the Pope is infallible but feel that this is not actually all that essential to their practice of their faith.
I think the question of a 'leap' more arises when someone moves from one faith to another. If someone switches then at some level they saying they regard the idea that a religious text was dictated by an angel into a prophet’s ear as incredible, but the idea that a deity begat a son to impart his divine message is utterly fine or vice versa, or that truth is actually to be found by lurking in sacred woods or whatever. That I find a bit of a puzzle.
When people adopt faiths that seem manifestly unfounded, like scientology, I think the wonder is how much of this is down to faith and how much to hope.0 -
Schuhart wrote:
When people adopt faiths that seem manifestly unfounded, like scientology, I think the wonder is how much of this is down to faith and how much to hope.
Its not the whole picture.But I think a large part of people "buying-into" any faith is not really based on fact but a lifestyle choose. I dont think many people have had the talking bush or lightening strike.
I think people pick a religion which fits their worldview best.
And the reality of that is that they will accept some strange stuff on the way.0 -
Sleepy wrote:It's the motivation or rational behind the decision to make that leap of faith that intrigues me.the_new_mr wrote:Well, I'm not really sure what to tell you For me, I see it as the truth and I feel like I would only want to be on the truth. Sorry if that doesn't help much.
Simply saying that you see it as a truth because it’s truth is a circular argument and serves to sidestep and not respond to the question. If you don’t want to respond, that’s all right - most, if not all, religions discourage the questioning of their principle axioms, so I would imagine it’s not a comfortable examination.0 -
DinoBot wrote:I think a large part of people "buying-into" any faith is not really based on fact but a lifestyle choose.
The only problem is this means our picture of theism can be summed up by that line of Fr Dougal Maguire's that 'Its only a bit of a laugh, Ted, like all that stuff they taught us in the seminary'. I think most theists - including converts - would assert that they subscribe to a particular religion because they thinks its the truth.0 -
Schuhart wrote:I think most theists - including converts - would assert that they subscribe to a particular religion because they thinks its the truth.
Your average theist perhaps believes it is the truth simply in the absence of any other explanation.
Or another reality:
Faith is the belief in something you know ain't true. - Mark Twain0 -
The Corinthian wrote:I think a number of people have suggested reasons, principally environmental, for this. In the case of converts, they may also experience the sense of community that comes from a faith as a catalyst. The reasons no doubt vary - indeed; your own beliefs are, from observation, largely as a result of your own, aggressively, anti-clerical views. So it’s not only the religious who are shaped by their environment.
As far as I can see, environment can shape someone's childhood beliefs and if that person never thinks about what they've been taught they'll continue to accept it. Once they've questioned it though, once they've reached this point of having to take a 'leap of faith' I can't see why someone would choose to keep believing other than through a desire to do so. Which isn't a very sensible reason to believe something imho.0 -
Sleepy wrote:If environment was such a shaping factor, I would more than likely be Catholic. I was christened, edicated and confirmed as a Catholic. The Catholic Church never did me any direct harm so it's not simply my being anti-clerical (which undoubtedly I have become through observation of the Churches own failing to practice many of their own preachings though I was agnostic before I noticed this). My own beliefs stem from thinking about the principles involved and failing to find any sort of evidence or reason to support the theistic beliefs I have been taught and those I have learnt about through my own readings.As far as I can see, environment can shape someone's childhood beliefs and if that person never thinks about what they've been taught they'll continue to accept it. Once they've questioned it though, once they've reached this point of having to take a 'leap of faith' I can't see why someone would choose to keep believing other than through a desire to do so. Which isn't a very sensible reason to believe something imho.0
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The Corinthian wrote:the_new_mr wrote:Well, I'm not really sure what to tell you For me, I see it as the truth and I feel like I would only want to be on the truth. Sorry if that doesn't help much.
Simply saying that you see it as a truth because it’s truth is a circular argument and serves to sidestep and not respond to the question. If you don’t want to respond, that’s all right - most, if not all, religions discourage the questioning of their principle axioms, so I would imagine it’s not a comfortable examination.
I guess what I should have said is that I see my faith as air tight. I know that some others disagree with that but there you go. I'm not choosing to see it as air tight. It's just the way I see it. I'm sure some people would say that I am choosing on some sub-conscious level but when I have a book that non-believers believe was authored by an illiterate man that has scientific facts in it that scientists have only been able to verify recently and has a number of laws when abided by brings out an easier life for both the individual and the society then I see that it can't be from the illiterate man and must instead come from a Higher Being.
By the way, I'd just like to point out at this stage that there are no proper Islamic states in the world today.
And, as I've mentioned before, sometimes some life experiences can really give you a feeling of the presence of God. Some people think you're crazy when you relate things like this so perhaps I'll just leave it at that0 -
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the_new_mr wrote:I can see how that can be perceived as a circular argument. Sorry about that. Perhaps I should have ellaborated more. Questioning the principle axioms of your faith is something that everyone should do. If you get a question in your head and then say to yourself "No, no, just forget about it" then you're only fooling yourself into believing.I guess what I should have said is that I see my faith as air tight. I know that some others disagree with that but there you go.I'm not choosing to see it as air tight. It's just the way I see it.but when I have a book that non-believers believe was authored by an illiterate manthat has scientific facts in it that scientists have only been able to verify recentlyand has a number of laws when abided by brings out an easier life for both the individual and the societythen I see that it can't be from the illiterate man and must instead come from a Higher Being.By the way, I'd just like to point out at this stage that there are no proper Islamic states in the world today.And, as I've mentioned before, sometimes some life experiences can really give you a feeling of the presence of God. Some people think you're crazy when you relate things like this so perhaps I'll just leave it at thatRejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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the_new_mr wrote:I guess what I should have said is that I see my faith as air tight. I know that some others disagree with that but there you go.I'm not choosing to see it as air tight.
After all, if we did not choose, where would that leave the sin of apostasy?I'm sure some people would say that I am choosing on some sub-conscious level but when I have a book that non-believers believe was authored by an illiterate man that has scientific facts in it that scientists have only been able to verify recently and has a number of laws when abided by brings out an easier life for both the individual and the society then I see that it can't be from the illiterate man and must instead come from a Higher Being.
That’s not unlike many adherents to science who will see the evidence that proves that there’s something to this Science thing and then go on to accept Schrodinger's cat too without any further proof.By the way, I'd just like to point out at this stage that there are no proper Islamic states in the world today.And, as I've mentioned before, sometimes some life experiences can really give you a feeling of the presence of God. Some people think you're crazy when you relate things like this so perhaps I'll just leave it at that0
This discussion has been closed.
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