Somebody answer this please...

[venator]

I would love to have a faith, but these are some of the contradictions and difficulties I can't sort out. Help would be appreciated


RC and Muslim friends in particular are confident that they are following the "true path" and that everyone else is wrong.

In world war 1, priests on each side told the soldiers that "God is on your side"

Hundreds of religions promised life after death only if you were of their particular faith. For instance, Egyptian Pharoahs went to extraordinary lengths to ensure this.. were they successful, or was the religion one of the best con tricks of all time?

When the dodgy popes sold indulgences, did the purchasers get what they paid for?

I could go on, but you should have the idea by now...

Straight factual answers would be good, not copy & pasted chunks of gunge...

[Psybbo]

I don't understand religion

[baza]

I believe for every drop of rain that falls, someone gets wet!

[dzug2]

There are no factual answers to the questions you put - that's the whole point of faith. It ignores or rather denies facts.

[woofgang]

You don't have to believe that crap to have a faith. And there are (in my experience) no factual answers. If you are serious about seeking then spend time alone and look into your heart and listen.

[venator]

"look into your heart and listen" - listen to what?

[mibn2cweus]

To have faith is to abandon reason. Once you've taken that initial step into the twilight zone you're mind is putty in the hands of those who find zombies useful to fulfilling their unconscionable purpose and achieving their unspeakable ends.

Faith is offered as a means of getting something for nothing by those who are all to willing to cash in on your greed and give you in exchange exactly what you have coming to you . . . or worse. What could possibly be worse than nothing?

Don't even think about it!

[boxtops]

Venator, study a few alternative religions, buy a book that outlines the concepts of the major faiths - then pick out the bits of each one which appeal to you. Most of them have common traits, mostly being good to each other, behaving decently - and so on.

[venator]

Yes, mibn2, that's where I am at the moment, but i do envy people with a faith, who don't have unanswerable questions -

So is there a faith which can answer my OP?

without saying I should suspend my brain?

[venator]

Boxie - I've done all that over 50 years - reciprocity appears in ancient China with Confucius...

Can anyone answer the simple questions in the OP?

[Marijn]

Aim for self belief and faith in yourself, then maybe you won't feel envious of peolpe with a faith in their religion.

[venator]

Perhaps I should become a Buddhist, and understand that it's all an illusion.

Then all those millions of people who died in the name of religion were wasting their time?

Big joke?

[venator]

Notafish - answers to questions, not advice to give up thinking...

[mibn2cweus]

Faith is not an answer, it's the willingness to believe you have already found it and that further questions can only lead to doubt and destroy the allusion that believing (having faith) is every bit as good as knowing . . . and understanding.

[Marijn]

People with religious belief will give you their opinions, but you know there are no definitive answers to your questions.

[beckersjay]

I don't believe there are any easy answers, certainly not in any established religions. The search for a faith is an individual one and no-one has a monopoly on the 'right' answers. Sadly, though most religions probably started with a sincere personal search, they are then too easily hijacked by humans who see opportunities for personal power or control, or who just miss the point and assume they alone have the ability to interpret their tiny insights into the eternal.

[beckersjay]

Incidentally, I include atheists in this - it's an honest attempt to make sense of the world/universe. Sadly they are as prone as the theists to think they have a monopoly on wisdom and to ridicule those with different beliefs.

[mibn2cweus]

Atheism is not a belief, it's an absence of belief regarding a specific issue, that of the existence of a god . . . or in some cases the refusal to believe in the absence of certain knowledge. Belief, simply for the sake of believing, can be a dangerous thing and is never a substitute for knowing and understanding through applied reason.

[naomi24]

I can see a couple of statements and two questions there - one relating to the Egyptian pharoahs and the other to dodgy popes - and my answer to both questions is I don't know, but I doubt it.

Why would you love to have faith?

[woofgang]

In my experience, having a faith doesn't do away with the unanswerable questions, and you don't need an organised religion to have a faith. I am with the atheists on this subject, I think that many organised religions discourage independent thought, which is one of the reasons why I don't belong to sny of them.

[naomi24]

Beckersjay, when non-believers confront beliefs that are demonstrably false, they do have the monopoly on wisdom.