# the concept of faith **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 27, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270 "2013-08-27T02:07:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/261 "2013-10-12T22:42:53Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Repetition of affirmations will bring about a gradual growth of **self-confidence, self-approval and self-love**. This will prepare you for the reading and meditation to follow. Did I give you the impression that I’m lacking in any of those qualities? My mistake if I did. Look, I don’t want the Scientology program. Can’t I just get the accelerated version of whatever it is you’re selling? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2013, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/262 "2013-10-12T23:44:38Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I keep thinking that whether this event is all in the mind or something spiritual you will eventually experience it also. So it may mean something when it happens to you. Are you wishing I have an interesting dream like you did, or are you wishing that I come close enough to death to have what some call an “NDE”? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/263 "2013-10-13T00:33:53Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > . . . Can’t I just get the accelerated version of whatever it is you’re selling? He saw God. That’s pretty much it. He saw God, and so he knows that God is real, and that God is love, and nothing anyone can say will make him believe otherwise. The problem is, nothing he can say is at all convincing to anyone else. Makes me think of dear Uncle Ned, who once shot a moose in his pajamas, and who has retold the story at every Thanksgiving dinner for the last twenty nine years. Harmless, if a bit tiresome. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/264 "2013-10-13T03:00:22Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > He saw God. That’s pretty much it. He saw God, and so he knows that God is real, and that God is love, and nothing anyone can say will make him believe otherwise. The problem is, nothing he can say is at all convincing to anyone else. > > Makes me think of dear Uncle Ned, who once shot a moose in his pajamas, and who has retold the story at every Thanksgiving dinner for the last twenty nine years. Harmless, if a bit tiresome. How did the moose get in his pajamas? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/265 "2013-10-13T04:20:52Z")
You’ve met my uncle! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/266 "2013-10-13T05:01:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > You’ve met my uncle! 😉 Is he my dad? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/267 "2013-10-13T12:13:25Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Theories are statements of faith. Don’t get hung up on the word faith meaning religion all the time. It can be used in many different places. Where did suggest it was all faith in Religion? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/268 "2013-10-13T12:27:39Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > What turns faith into fact. Experience. There are thousands of people living in the US who have never seen an ocean. They have read about them and heard about them and seen pictures of them, but they have never experienced an ocean. They believe in oceans because of their exposure to the material about oceans. Now is this faith or fact? So you take them to an ocean and let them walk on the beach and wade in it. Put them on a ship and take them out beyond the horizon to experience the vastness of the waters, at night let them see the brightness of the stars hanging so close you can almost touch them. Now their believe in oceans changes to a knowing. Their perception has changed dramatically from whence the ocean was only a thought instead of a reality. When they speak of the ocean in the future their words carry feeling and meaning in them. Never more will the ocean just be a lot of water. So it is with the Creator and His love for His children. What was once faith is now fact. To be truthful, You do not know anything about the God you believe in. You bring no truth or proven facts, One can take a person to the ocean and show it to them, you can’t do that with God, just believe. You got the idea of a God from other people and they too went on faith, Believing some other human. Or used their own idea of what Got is. Because some one wrote that God said or did something is not a proven fact, and there is just as much reason to believe that an angel dictated a book to Muhammad as there is in the writers of the Bible. God would not be that contradictory nor that mean and spiteful, if he is all knowing ,loving and just. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/269 "2013-10-13T12:40:57Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > It certainly does for the one who has the experience. Don’t really care what others who didn’t have the experience think about it. No way they could know anything. What some call is experience is Illusion, alcoholics some times see rats etc. they are not experiencing anything real. Seeing an oasis in a desert as an oasis but a mirage, and they could well die of thirst if they followed that. So what one experiences is not necessarily truth ,just Belief or hope. the mind can be easily tricked! ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/270 "2013-10-13T13:43:13Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > To be truthful, You do not know anything about the God you believe in. You bring no truth or proven facts, One can take a person to the ocean and show it to them, you can’t do that with God, just believe. You got the idea of a God from other people and they too went on faith, Believing some other human. Or used their own idea of what Got is. Because some one wrote that God said or did something is not a proven fact, and there is just as much reason to believe that an angel dictated a book to Muhammad as there is in the writers of the Bible. God would not be that contradictory nor that mean and spiteful, if he is all knowing ,loving and just. :smack: God IS beyond belief but not beyond experience. Trust me. 😉 Aloha ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/271 "2013-10-13T14:00:47Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > God IS beyond belief but not beyond experience. Trust me. 😉 Why? Because you say so? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/272 "2013-10-13T14:24:20Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > :smack: > > God IS beyond belief but not beyond experience. Trust me. 😉 > > Aloha Evidence suggests it’s the other way around. To use the existing analogy, I can show you the ocean if you don’t believe that an ocean exists. But you cannot show me god. So how can I trust you? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/273 "2013-10-13T14:29:20Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > :smack: > > God IS beyond belief but not beyond experience. Trust me. 😉 > > Aloha thats a non-sequitor - “if it can be experienced, it can be believed” - just ask your buddy lekatt - but there in lies the rub - not every experience is ‘believable’ (again, refer to lekatt and dreams, illusions, etc) - I had a vision the other night of fighitng zombies on a starship with god - would you suggest that was a believable experience? it certainly felt real at the time I experienced it - and I’m fairly certain that if an EEG was hooked up - there would have been objective evidence that I ‘experienced’ something - So - this is yet another bit of nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/274 "2013-10-13T14:32:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Why? Because you say so? > [@QuickSilver](#): > > Evidence suggests it’s the other way around. > > To use the existing analogy, I can show you the ocean if you don’t believe that an ocean exists. But you cannot show me god. So how can I trust you? > [@simster](#): > > thats a non-sequitor - “if it can be experienced, it can be believed” - just ask your buddy lekatt - but there in lies the rub - not every experience is ‘believable’ (again, refer to lekatt and dreams, illusions, etc) - I had a vision the other night of fighitng zombies on a starship with god - would you suggest that was a believable experience? it certainly felt real at the time I experienced it - and I’m fairly certain that if an EEG was hooked up - there would have been objective evidence that I ‘experienced’ something - > > So - this is yet another bit of nonsense. See **lekatt**? Remember that video! Aloha ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/275 "2013-10-13T14:35:48Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > See **lekatt**? Remember that video! Aloha How about putting the pom-poms down, ceasing with the “Go **lekatt**! Go!” cheerleader chants, and responding directly to points others have been making? ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/276 "2013-10-13T18:47:51Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > How about putting the pom-poms down, ceasing with the “Go **lekatt**! Go!” cheerleader chants, and responding directly to points others have been making? It has always amazed me that people with no experience know what people with experience have experienced. It is like if I haven’t experienced it then it is impossible to experience. There is a higher level of awareness that you are missing and therefor believe doesn’t exist. In time, in time. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/277 "2013-10-13T19:14:28Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > It has always amazed me that people with no experience know what people with experience have experienced. It is like if I haven’t experienced it then it is impossible to experience. The pedantic reason is that if what you claim is true, it would be replicated. Ocam also explains why it is not amazing why other more simple explanations are more reliable to depend upon, so at that basic level you are wrong. > [@lekatt](#): > > There is a higher level of awareness that you are missing and therefor believe doesn’t exist. In time, in time. What time and history have showed me is that before many of those “higher” levels of awareness were also called mysteries, but then when anesthesia and cures for venereal diseases were found by science, those that claimed to be in contact with those higher powers told us that we should \*\*\*not \*\*\*cure or prevent pain as it was the deserved punishment for the sinners. After almost more than one hundred years of ignoring those higher powers I have to say that many that claim to be in close contact with those higher levels in reality do not have a clue. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/278 "2013-10-13T21:14:24Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The pedantic reason is that if what you claim is true, it would be replicated. Ocam also explains why it is not amazing why other more simple explanations are more reliable to depend upon, so at that basic level you are wrong. > What time and history have showed me is that before many of those “higher” levels of awareness were also called mysteries, but then when anesthesia and cures for venereal diseases were found by science, those that claimed to be in contact with those higher powers told us that we should \*\*\*not \*\*\*cure or prevent pain as it was the deserved punishment for the sinners. > > After almost more than one hundred years of ignoring those higher powers I have to say that many that claim to be in close contact with those higher levels in reality do not have a clue. Expected reply. The fact that you never asked one serious question is evidence. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/279 "2013-10-13T22:01:59Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Expected reply. The fact that you never asked one serious question is evidence. Where is the love in that rude reply? 🙂 I’m not asking questions, I’m only saying why it is silly to act as if there is no reason why many who investigate what you demand to be “experiences” have other simple explanations. And that is based on the recorded experience of phenomena that can be repeated, explained properly, and what history reports. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270/280 "2013-10-14T11:39:38Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > :smack: > > God IS beyond belief but not beyond experience. Trust me. 😉 > > Aloha That a belief of yours, so actually has no meaning to me. An experience can be the same as a dream. One can go to a mental hospital and see what they thought was experience. It is more possible for a called experience to be an illusion. If a person likes to live that way and think that, I have no quarrel with their beliefs, I personally like to have truth not fiction and if something is proven true then I accept it. Because some human thousands of years ago said God told him to kill his son, but the same God knew ahead of time that the human would do it if he hadn’t stopped it, seems more like what another human would do, not an All knowing ,l loving, and Just being would do. One has no way of knowing what is from God and what is from their or another human’s doing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-concept-of-faith/667270.md?page=15)