Fatal misconceptions – Faithlessness
To err in the physical realm is to suffer physical consequences. To err in the conceptual realm is to suffer eternal consequences.
There is no such thing as faithlessness.
We all put our faith in something or someone. It may be reason, it may be Christ, it may be gods, it may be material things. However make no mistakes about this; faith is inseparable from human living.
People tend to have the misconception that faith is something religious or have an exclusive usage for the supernatural aspects. UTTER RUBBISH! Faith is defined as believing in what we do not see. Understandably, many make the mental link between faith and supernatural because the supernatural realm tends to be invisible thus requiring frequent practices of faith. However, even in the natural world, faith is called into play.
If you were to look at the definition above, anything that you have not seen personally, and yet you believe, has already called upon the element of faith. For example, have any of you seen Antarctica with your own eyes? Yet why do you believe in Antarctica? People can lie, photos can be doctored. (There are still people that belief that the earth is flat. They think the photos are part of an elaborate hoax to deceive them from the truth.) Someone could even bring you to Greenland and claim it to be Antarctica or even Atlantis. Why believe him?
Let’s have another example. Antarctica was one of the simpler ones. If a nut refuses to believe in Antarctica, we can strap him to a plane and fly him there. At least it is observable with the five senses. It is empirical. (Even then, we have already encountered so much issues already.)
How about love? Can you see love? Can you touch love? Can you smell love? Can you hear love?
Yet we know love exists… is that not putting faith into the unseen?
Okay, let’s say some smart guy found the loop hope in this argument. Love can be considered to be similar to time. Unobservable with the five senses yet measureable. So my question would be this. Can you quantify love with units? Ever heard of 3 hours worth of love? Even if that stubborn nut were to say that spending time is a way of showing love, the truth is love may be measured with time, but it cannot be measured in time. There is no length of love, time of love, weight of love. Unquantifiable, yet it exists
Unseen. Unobservable. Unquantifiable. Yet love exists.
I guess Paul used the right words when he declared that God is love.
Simply the perfect description.
All emotions and feelings are of the same nature as Love. Existing not in the physical form n unquantifiable.. so does it make it a perfect description to say that God is.. say perhaps.. jealousy? or Anger? it does not wad.. the description cant b perfect cos of the form in which it exists in.. it shuld b perfect cos of the nature of this love.. of this emotion.
True. However, love would be the pinnacle of all emotions isn’t it? So i think if u need to compare God to an emotion, love would be the unanimous vote, to me at least.
With regards to what Pun mentioned, the Bible mentions is 1 John 4:16 (NIV) that “God is love.” The Bible however makes no mention that God is jealousy or anger, etc. Love is God’s character. Jealousy & Anger are not, though God does get jealous and angry in the Bible(for justified causes).
hmm.. is jealousy n anger ever justified? cos a fren n i were saying if killing another is ever justified? even in self defence? cos if killing is nv justified, how can one actually claim tt jealousy n anger are justified? if u are going by the same logic n all.
I beg to differ on the analogy of killing in self-defence. If someone tries to kill you and your ONLY way out is to kill him, would you do it? I would, and in the eyes for the law, you would not be convicted for any offence. With respect to anger and jealousy, if you see your boyfriend or spouse making out with another girl, isn’t it justified for you to get angry and jealous?
It is the same with God: when people choose to worship idols, He gets jealous. When people disobeys Him, He gets angry.
That’s what I thought too, there is no absolute right or wrong. There’re always exceptions right? So where do the ten commandments come in? THou shall not kill? cos the debate whether killing is ever justified was between a friend who thinks that in God’s law, there’s always an absolute right or wrong.
I strongly believe that there are moral absolutes. In the Ten Commandments, God says “You shall not MURDER.” Murder comes with the deliberate intention of taking one’s life.
Ultimately, it is not just the action we are looking at, but at the Principle above the action and the Consequence beyond it.
aren’t moral of human construct? founded on the basic idea that thou shall not do unto others wat thou do not want to be done onto thyself? so suppose, if I dun wish to b murdered, n there’s a general consensus of not wanting to b murdered, then the morality of murdering is wrong rite? so in the past, it might be immoral to divorce for another, and now it’s quite morally acceptable. is there, then, a reasonable doubt that morality is fluid and depends on the evolution of the society? So say, hypothetically, people do not mind getting murdered in the future, then would the morality that’s against murdering be redundant?
Morals are not a product of social biological evolution. The basic idea you mentioned “thou shall not do unto others wat thou do not want to be done onto thyself” is against the evolutionary theory of survival of the fitest. It is in fact a moral law, though not everyone subscribes to it.
Even if 99 out of 100 people choose an option, that does not endorse the option to be right & the 1 person wrong.
If as you suggested that morality is subjective, the world would be unlivable. There will be no basis of law and chaos will ensue.
If we agree that there is absolute Good & Evil, we must then conclude that there is a moral law and hence a moral law giver, God.
are u sure tt if 99 out of 100 pple choose an option, then they’re not considered as right? don’t you think history’s made up of the side of the stories of the pple who won the wars? do u ever think that it’s possible for anyone to get to The Truth? if we have no complete assess to the truth, then how do we know for sure that what we thin kis Right is really The Truthful Right and not, just an agreement among people? Friedrich Nietzsche in his “Beyond good and evil” wrote a whole book on mrality, religion etc. n he wrote that “fear is again the mother of morals”. high n independent spirituality, the will to stand alone, even a powerful reason are experienced as dangers; everything that elevates an individual above the herd and intimidates the neighbor is henceforth called evil; and the fair, modest, submissive, conforming mentality, the mediocrity of desires attain moral designations and honors.”
If there is no objective truth then everything would be relative and a matter of preference isn’t it? It is alright if the issues affect only the individual say like food or colour. However if it infringes into another person’s rights, there must be an objective arbiter. Nietzsche had influence Hitler’s search for the Übermensch(Superman). This philosophy Hitler adopted drove him to pursue the creation of the Aryan race. If there is no basis of right or wrong, can we say then that the Nazis during World War 2 were right to commit all the atrocities? After all, at that point in time, all of them believed that they were doing the right thing. Such is the power of ideology without regulation.
Fear is not a moral. Fear is a reaction. Human nature is not wired for mediocrity. Conformity is not the solution to the eradiction of fear, for people fear conformity itself, of Marxism & Communism. What we need is unity in diversity.
Nietzsche himself is an existentialist, the many ideas that he propagated has resulted in much of the chaos we have in the post-modern world. In one instance, he preaches about conformity and in another he preaches the creation of the Superman. I believe his twisted, contradictory beliefs are what drove him insane towards the end of his life.
Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules.
I believe that there is absolute truth and it is found in God.
John14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
In Christ lies the answer to life’s orgin, meaning, morality & destiny.
compare the holocaust w the two bombs on hiroshima n nagasaki.. equally atrocious?
I think we are going way off topic here. We’ll discuss another time, if we have the chance.
haha.. yeaps
done enuff spamming.. 
“Yet we know love exists… is that not putting faith into the unseen?”
Love is an abstraction, God is not. The concept of “faith” in love is doing different semantic work from the concept of faith in God.