The Two Sides of Faith

[taoareyou]

The meanings evoked by the word faith are many. In this post, I define faith as accepting something as true without any solid evidence. Intellectually, this may first seem a pointless position for anyone to take. Isn’t it a risk to believe in something that may by all rights be false? I want to be clear that I am referring to believing in an unproven possibility as faith. Believing contrary to something that’s certain or even all but certain is delusional. Having faith that I will fly if I jump from a building is delusional.

Yet faith has a lot in common with trust and confidence. In a relationship, we say someone is faithful if they do not cheat on their partner. It means their partner trusts them and that trust is honored. If someone says, “I have faith in you”, it’s implying they believe you can accomplish whatever it is they are referring to at the time. They think you are capable and will be successful. They don’t actually know the outcome with certainty, but they have confidence in you.

Without faith, without accepting something will happen even though you cannot say with certainty it will happen, you cannot have trust. The fact that something has happened a certain way in the past is not solid evidence that it will happen again the same way. A simple example is crossing the street. I may cross the same street every day and every day there is never a car driving through my path. Yet each day, before I cross the street, I look for any incoming traffic. I don’t put trust in the crossing being clear, because being wrong could seriously injure or even kill me.

Faith in others is trusting them. It’s an important and valuable mental state required for many types of relationships, from business to love. Trust is a big deal. Trust is an essential element of freedom. As trust diminishes, so does freedom. When you don’t trust others, you live in a perpetual defensive state. When your government doesn’t trust you, you live in a police state. We need faith, we need trust if we want to live together in a society.

While faith is essential for society and can give you the personal confidence to overcome adversity, it can also be a very powerful weapon against you. It’s sometimes a weapon others will use to manipulate you for many reasons, but primarily for profit and control. Throughout history, religions have used faith to direct the masses based on their various social and political agendas. This isn’t something found only in history books, it’s still going strong all over the world.

Aside from religions, every day people fall prey to individuals who sell products and services that take advantage of faith: spiritual healers, people offering crystals that will affect your life in some positive way, people who channel angelic beings to write books and record DVDs for you to buy, people who will assert they have special psychic and paranormal abilities and for a price, will use these abilities for your benefit. The law of statistics ensures some people will be happy and will make whatever rationalizations they need to maintain their faith/trust/confidence. Unfortunately many more just find themselves a bit poorer for the experience. If you ever need a reality check, ask one of these people if they’ll guarantee the product or service in writing with a full refund option if the required results are not realized. Most of the time, those who use faith to take advantage of you will also blame your lack of faith for their failures.

The lesson here is to value your faith. Treat it as a treasure. It’s very personal and very powerful. Give it freely as much as you want, but don’t wield it blindly. Temper faith with intelligence or you will be left with delusion.

Edited September 14, 2012 by taoareyou

[Marblehead]

Nice post and advise. Thanks for sharing.

[deci belle]

taoareyou said:

In this post, I define faith as accepting something as true without any solid evidence.

 

What have you been accepting without evidence of efficacy, taoareyou?

[taoareyou]

What have you been accepting without evidence of efficacy, taoareyou?

 

Anytime trust is given, you place faith in someone without having absolute certainty of the desired results of that trust. Otherwise there would be no need for the world "betrayal".

 

Whenever you set a goal to accomplish something that you know has a possibility of not being reached, but you pursue it believing that you will in fact succeed, this confidence is also faith.

 

Faith, on some level, is something that not only drives us and inspires us, but it's also an essential trait of a free society.

[deci belle]

What have you been accepting without evidence of efficacy, taoareyou?

I'm not interested in hypothetical generalities.

What have you accepted?

[taoareyou]

I'm not interested in hypothetical generalities.

 

What have you accepted?

 

Your interests will have to remain unsatisfied. You may not have read the entire post. Allow me to quote myself:

 

"The lesson here is to value your faith. Treat it as a treasure. It’s very personal and very powerful."

 

My post was not an invitation to relate the elements of my personal faith to a stranger demanding details. If you wish to discuss the post, and not me personally, I will certainly enjoy such discourse.

[deci belle]

You can discuss the subject of your thread referring directly to your life experience without divulging any personal details, dear— or at least I hope you can. Does it have to be about you, too?

 

The title of your thread is "The Two Sides of Faith". Did you write it just for us, or is it part of a larger work?

 

You may have taught us about your valuing your personal faith as a thing, perhaps a capacity~ and also as vulnerability, but don't you at least still have the two sides to address, hmmmm, stranger?

 

I didn't think you meant faith is one side and (?) is the other side, because by your title it seems that faith itself has two sides.

 

I agree with Marblehead, nice work, but I'm actually interested in the subject because I don't believe in anything.

 

If you wish to elaborate about the subject of your thread as stated some day, please do.❤

[taoareyou]

You can discuss the subject of your thread referring directly to your life experience without divulging any personal details, dear— or at least I hope you can. Does it have to be about you, too?

 

The post was not about me specifically. Despite you repeatedly asking what things I have placed my faith in, I continue to make this not about me. For me, I don't feel the need to elaborate any further, because, for me, I feel I expressed what I intended.

 

I have a question for you now. You stated that you don't believe in anything. Do you believe that?

[三江源]

I'm not sure that faith is the same as belief. I dont feel that it is.

 

Faith could be a higher level stance than belief, if consciously adopted.

[taoareyou]

I'm not sure that faith is the same as belief. I dont feel that it is.

 

Faith could be a higher level stance than belief, if consciously adopted.

 

I agree, faith is not the same as belief. In fact, I defined faith for this post as: "accepting something as true without any solid evidence."

 

We can believe in something with lots of solid evidence as well as without. Belief alone is not faith.

[thelerner]

Too rational can be unhealthy for your psyche! Without giving up too much intellectual ground, I think faith can add spice and hope to life. Plus it may be more mysterious out there then we realize.