Apos: I’d consider the question of what “belief in” might mean in answering your question. “Do you believe in God?” is not generally used in the same sense as “Do you believe I have milk in the fridge?” or even “Do you believe that someone can be born gay?” “Do you believe in God?” in this particular religious sense often means “Do you believe in the existence of, follow the precepts promulgated by, and generally revere the God I’m talking about?”
So if someone believes that a particular God has attributes that are despicable, they are quite likely to neither revere nor follow the precepts of that God, whether or not they believe in its existence or the possibility thereof, or believe in (in the sense of following the precepts of and revering) a different God entirely.
Personally, I’m inclined to believe that the tendency of some people to claim that their God has attributes that other people find despicable is a serious bug in any hypothetical system. It’s one of the major reasons I think monotheism is a crock.
Even if I knew for a certainty that a morally objectionable god existed, even if I believed intellectually that it existed, I would withhold my allegiance — my [symbol]pisteuo[/symbol]. It is a nonintellectual, heartfelt commitment of reliance and childlike trust, [symbol]pisteuo[/symbol], that Jesus spoke of when He spoke of belief in Him.
If you know French, it is similar to the difference between croire and penser.
I don’t know French, Lib. What are croire and penser and the difference between them? Wait a second, penser would be thought wouldn’t it? A quick search tells me yes.
croire:
acknowledge, recognize
believe, deem
penser:
think
I take it that you refer to croire 2? Hmm, no, I think because you mentioned allegiance you must mean 1.
I might see what you mean by pisteuo, but I wouldn’t mind a clearer picture if you find a spare moment.
I think that Lib is making a distinction between intellectual knowledge or awareness ([symbol]gnwsis[/symbol] in Greek) and the sense of confidence or faith implied by [symbol]pisteuo[/symbol].
In other words, knowing that an unjust deity exists does not mandate faith or devotion in said deity.
I posit that disbelief is the default state, for a person who has no knowledge of a certain assertion cannot hold a belief in it. The lack of belief is disbelief.
I’ll start off by saying that this is the first message board that I have ever come back to for even a second time, and it’s because of the thoughtful and informed posts that the Dopers never fail to produce. I have only been posting here briefly but have been lurking for several years, through many office jobs that offer little but unsupervised internet access. So although you don’t really know me, I kind of know you …
I have often been inspired to post by something I have read here, and then seen that someone else has posted it first - and far more intelligently than I!
This thread in particular seems to be mostly about religion, and I have learned a lot about that - in my life I don’t often get the opportunity to hear what religious people, of all stripes, think about things. The wealth of experience on this board is incredible.
But think of all the other things I’ve learned! Current events, metaphysical conundrums, virtual social interaction (I believe the revolution is here - we have a new generation of people who have never lived without the internet!), jokes, trivia … the list never ends. I think I learn something here every day.
Has my opinion been changed by anything? Yes, because I believe you can’t fail to be changed by interacting with (or lurking around!) intelligent, thoughtful, and curious people. I frequently find myself thinking about things I have read on the board while on the bus going home, reading the newspaper, writing an essay, talking to my mother …
I am also always impressed by the online exchanges which end with apologies or changed minds - the “I’m so sorry, I was wrong. I’ve really learned something.” It always takes courage to do this, and it happens all the time around here. These remain in my heart for much longer than the “You’ll never convince me, I’m leaving this stupid message board”.
<grin> And I posit that the default state is neither belief nor disbelief; a person who has no knowledge of a certain assertion cannot believe nor disbelieve it, they simply lack any knowledge of it.
That said, I refer you to the OP:
<grin> So much for good intentions. “The best laid plans of mice and men …”
I understand that last part. It’s just that I’ve never come across [symbol]pisteuo[/symbol] before. A new concept to me. And I’m interested in learning more about the idea itself and how it might relate to this thread.
I certainly hope it can. But if not, I personally wouldn’t care if I had to change from calling my belief system “Christian” to some other name. Though I don’t really see the need. Fundamentalism is as familiar as Buddhism to me, and that very different belief systems exist under one Christianity umbrella is not that alarming. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe differently from Catholics, Mormons from Southern Baptists, Quakers from Greek Orthodox and so on. So? If you were an environmentalist and then you happened to meet 19 eco-terrorists in a row, and they were jerks besides, would that shake your core environmentalism? That’s makes very little sense. Likewise, seeing tons of fundies doesn’t make my beliefs any less valid for me.
As to the OP: I haven’t had my mind changed recently, but I learn something new on every visit. Certain things I may know so little about that I have no opinion one way or another on them; those are the things I go looking for.
[symbol]Pisteuo[/symbol] is used 248 times in the New Testament. It usually translates as “believe”, but it connotes much more: a reliance or trust, a confident persuasion. Intellectual belief, by contrast, is the mere acknowledgment of a fact.
It is like the difference between having complete trust in a friend and merely knowing facts about him.
It relates to the thread in that, in my opinion, changes in intellectual belief are trivial. Any man who is not incalcitrant will, upon compelling evidence, change his mind about a fact.
But compelling argument and experience do not necessarily change the minds of many people. Belief as Jesus means it is a surrender, a cessation of resistance, a childlike trust.
—Even if I knew for a certainty that a morally objectionable god existed, even if I believed intellectually that it existed, I would withhold my allegiance — my pisteuo. It is a nonintellectual, heartfelt commitment of reliance and childlike trust, pisteuo, that Jesus spoke of when He spoke of belief in Him.—
Well, I would too: which is why my question was why coming to think that God must be objectionable would make people less likely to think it exists.
For instance, if an evil dictator took over my country, I’m not sure why I’d be more likely to think he exists. But a lot of wavering believers DO seem to think like that about God: they conclude, for whatever reason, that the God they’ve believed in must be bad, and then seem to assume that this is grounds for rejecting the belief that God exists. (we won’t even get into how this sort of progression seems to put exclusive focus on the possibility of the OT God existing, let alone on the idea that there is only one possible character for the OT God or any other ideas of the Christian god other than their idea of the strictly Biblical one)
—And I posit that the default state is neither belief nor disbelief; a person who has no knowledge of a certain assertion cannot believe nor disbelieve it, they simply lack any knowledge of it.—
…and lacks belief in it. This is, for some reason, seen as a BAD assertion among some believers. As far as I can tell, it’s a GOOD assertion, because it makes belief (which they already think is either laudable or moral) a victory, rather than a necessary reality.
I think that maybe the term “disbelief” could better be stated as “non-belief.” Disbelief (for some) seems to imply an opposite or negative belief. Non-belief might better convey the absence of belief ether way.
This is true because they equate symbolism with substance. In a way they are not that different than Biblical literalists in that they see the words on the page as being complete or consistent in describing “God.” The descriptions of God in the Bible (or any other book) are no more complete or accurate than a statue of Jesus or a painting on a plate glass window. The Bible is poetry, not prose. It expresses hundreds of different experiences, filtered through hundreds of different human beings, all of them flawed. If you change the word “God” to another abstract word like “love,” and then compile a collection of literature on the theme of love, written over the course of a thousand years, by hundreds of different contributors, you would get a portrait of “love” which was just as contradictory, beautiful, capricious, irrational, transcendent, terrifying and impossible as the character of “God” in the Bible.
The NT Greek scholar who introduced me to “pisteuo” was not satisfied with the usual translation as “I believe”; she tended to translate it as “I faith”, with “faith” being used as a verb. (And distinguished from “I have faith”, because the point is that one is faithing, not having this object called faith.)
I think she could have substituted the word “trust” for “have faith” if she wanted an active verb instead of a passive one. “I faith” just sounds stupid, and it’s really not accurate since “Pisteuo” is still passive in Greek. (literally “I am persuaded of, I have confidence in, I trust that…”)
[correction]After checking my old Greek grammar book, I realize that Pisteuo is, in fact, an active verb not a passive one (else it would be pisteomai. I knew that, really I did, I realized it as soon as I hit “submit”). The definition is the same though, and i still think that creating a verb out of “faith” is a little too precious for my taste[/correction]
So, Lib, using your conception of Christ as love, then trusting in love would be the key to salvation?
My views have changed considerably. Mostly due to the intelligence found here on this board.
I was a Catholic, but never really got into that groove.
So, I’ve been a ship at sea, wanting to port but not liking anything I see in any port that I’ve put in at. I’ve wanted to be happy and carefree and whatever like all of the people in those ports, but when I get to know them or what they beleive in, I think they are *just plain nuts * or *the phoniest thing I have ever laid eyes on * or *small minded people who like being taken advantage of * or *they do what they do because they don’t know any better or are afraid to think for themselves. *
So, in my 36 years on earth this is my Belief System:
There is a God.
He does not care about free throw shots.
Other than that, everything else is: Play nice. Curb your tongue and share when you have plenty, don’t whine when you don’t.
All of his biochemical tests use orgone accumulators to cast a spectrum off hair samples. If his program works, one unavoidable conclusion is that his orgone based biochemical analysis actually measures cancer percentage and rate or growth in the body.
