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Christian minister's faith unravels
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
Comments
But blind faith is stupid; it just leads to the blind leading the blind.
as long as they can separate faith from fact, and faith from politics, and faith from judgement... Other than that, more power to ya!
The problem here in this forum is that some whose faith is primarily blind faith, don't see it as blind faith...just because they're Buddhist.
Still, a very interesting undevelopment.
I cannot say that my politics is not influenced by my religion in any way.
your faith and religion influencing YOUR personal political decisions is one thing- but making policy / laws / and or holding politicians to your specific religious standards; trying to make that the standard for everyone - well, that's where things go wonky.
In essence its an ego issue, everyone thinks they know whats best for themselves and others, now even the government(which is the people, or at least a product of them) with this nanny state.
God created the world in six days; no problem, unless you think it is science.
Buddha could fly and materialize in multiple places at the same time; okay but don’t try this at home.
But what about the idea that non-believers will go to hell? I know people who suffer because they fear that’s what will happen to their loved ones.
Or what if someone believes there’s a religious foundation for the idea of a superior race?
My 40 years of Buddhist practice have been 30 in Buddhist conditioning & the last 10 in letting everything go but the bare meditation
so i definitely relate to the utility side of the faith equation...
but
whether in faith or utility...it's whatever way any of us can best manifest compassion, love and wisdom, that is my answer.
Some questions I do have is...
If everything changes, is faith is just our attempt at finding stability amidst the chaos?
Is a practice predicated on faith, more vulnerable to changing conditions than a practice predicated on utility?
I'd still like to know just what we mean by faith and especially blind faith. These words get bandied about a lot, but it seems like everyone is talking about something different.
It's also portrayed in the negative, but those offering negative opinions never seem to offer anything to support negative. It's quite obvious that they think it's wrong, but never seem to demonstrate why. It may be that faith is something the find personally doisagreeable, that isn't clear either.
People cause their own suffering for a large variety of reasons, mostly imagined.
People also cause the suffering of others for a large variety of reasons, mostly imagined.
The methods used and the reasons are as vast as the stars, but this simple fact remains.
There's also nothing "wrong" with blind faith, either. It may not be condusive to awakening but that doesn't mean it's wrong. There's no law about this in Buddhism. They won't come and take away your birthday if you demonstrate blind faith.
You may have people with strong opinions that denigrate you for having any sort of faith, but that's ok. They don't teach a path of awakening. Tell them to go piss up a rope.
My Zen teacher once told me that faith and hope had a role to play in practice: "For the first four or five years, hope and belief are necessary .... After that, they are not so necessary." Hope and belief and perhaps what is called faith inspire practice, fire up the will to investigate, and buttress determination. But once experience starts to kick in, the need for such excitements diminishes ... or anyway that's my take. The need to be a "Buddhist" or a "Christian" or an "atheist" or a "Republican" runs out of steam where experience kicks in.
FWIW
@Chaz
Well shooting from the hip....
I think that faith describes a self propelled inertia that helps one maintain a specific direction but doesn't respond well to new data suggesting the need for any course changes.
Whether it is good for one or not, depends on what one values most.
In a Buddhist context - one that would be most apropos - faith is called saddhā which is taught to mean a conviction that something is, a determination to accomplish one's goals and a sense of joy deriving from the other two (from wikipedia).
So if you hold the word to one thing and someone else follows another, can you see the problems to be encountered? This is because, in fact, two people are talking about two entirely different things.
And "self-propelled inertia" is something of an oxymoron, dontcha think?
This is a bit difficult because it is a Buddhist discussion about a audio tape of someone questioning their Christian faith.
Christian faith is a belief with strong conviction in something for which there may be no tangible proof of. I, like genkaku, marvelled at how difficult a process it must have been to transit from the former belief system to the latter.
Your Buddhist explanation of faith....nicely defined as a determination to accomplish one's goals.. to me is still just a self determined inertia as in when a force is started and directed in a particular direction...it continues to keep moving in that direction
and that isn't an oxymoron to me..yet.
My complaint about Buddhist faith is really only where such a self directed momentum becomes an attachment. Where worldly attachments lost, simply become exchanged for it's spiritual counterpart. Simple delusion transformed into complex delusion where the source of the resulting suffering is no longer so easily seen.
If a course remains unaltered, that doesn't necessarily mean intertia.
But still. You talk about faith-as-inertia (which is fine) and I talk about it as per the Buddhist difference cited previously, and sort of productive discussion of the matter is, actually, impossible, because we're talking about different things.
And unless I have the presence of mind to inquire, which I did, then how in the hell am I supposed to know? And even if I do know, as I do, what if I prefer to dismiss your definition because it's inadequate from my POV.
These things should be clearly defined from the outset so we can, at least, have some semblance of a reasonable discussion about it. Otherwise, it's nothing more than inane chatter.
Yes, exploration is really cool, but we don't do that around here. We end up taking our position, uncaring to the perception of others and just hammer away.
It gets nowhere and that's inane. A waste of time.
I think you are describing the difference between faith based exploration and utility
based exploration because what I read here is always considered to be as potentially true as my own views and in such examinations I simply adopt which ever one bears up best under objective observation.
I learn/ I get to question the basis for my understanding of this moment/the self get's challenged/ How is such a practice a waste of time.
I cannot enjoy someone's loss of faith purely because it is not the same as mine. I don't think the Buddha would either (mind you I'm no expert on what the Buddha thought/thinks).
In metta,
Raven
Hmmm.
Where I only saw a transition from one faith to another, you saw only a loss of faith.
Why?
This seems mostly a discussion about faith based practice being threatened by alternatives.
My think is that we (you and me & .......) discuss something like "faith" we use the word but often have different ways of defining it. You can call it whatever you like for your own purpose, but as soon as you start talking about something with someone else, it's best that all parties concerned are on the same page.
Just when it's getting interesting. work calls..
chao.
In Sufism, poetry, Kabbalah, alchemy, many religions, life in general etc. words have a variety of levels and meanings. You can take that on Faith or find it out . . .
Some Buddhists like to define and insist on absolute meanings. Maybe they have no faith/confidence in the path to Nowhere . . . ?
The faithless are those who grow in confidence in their 'righteousness' which they understand as an absolute. Many mid range dharma practitioners have this blind spot dilemma, thus have I heard . . .
The Christian missionary in the video lost his faith when he realised he never had any real confidence anyway. His 'faith' in the need to undermine others was shaken by those who had no need for Jeezuz (the well known poster boy of God).
For most of us confidence in Buddhism is experiential. We don't have faith in the unknown or do we? Do we for example have confidence in sutra, lama, sangha etc and their knowledge of what we do not yet know?
I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dharma.
I take refuge in the Sangha.
oops
off to rinse my mouth out with mantra . . .
Yours in the Faith/Dharma :wave:
OM YA HA HUM
One way of looking at awakening is that it is a gradual path of losing - losing layers of ignorance and delusion.
Pealing an onion; ending up with nothing left to lose; that isn’t sad.
Posing in zen robes is apparently ok.
It is often the case, particularly on Buddhist boards, to find contributors who reject the notion out of hand whilst, at the same time, putting their "faith" in the legends of the Buddha and the practices of Buddhism. We humans are just so good at self-deception.
As far as I can see, "faith", like "God", is a word which presses some people's red button. They associate it with the ranting of minor, if vocal, Christian sects of the Puritan persuasion which have rather hijacked the word, making it mean what they want it to mean (like Alice's Humpty Dumpty).
In many cases, "faith"is taken to mean a body of beliefs - not the same thing at all, although the two may complement each other along with "hope". Where "faith" generally refers to what is deem to be in the here and now, "hope" refers to a future time, thus both imply time as their context. In this way, I may have faith in the efficacy of my practice and hope for some form of "enlightenment" or perfect future state (or non-state) both being mental/spiritual optimisms rather than certainties. Because neither is certain, they differ in kind from, for example, mathematical proofs which, once demonstrated, stand for all time.
Two stories to illustrate:
1) A child is asked by a bishop at Confirmation, "What is the Holy Trinity?" replies "Tree-in-wun-n-wun-in-tree". "I don't understand," says the bishop. "You're not supposed to," replies the precocious child, "It's a mystery."
2) The child is asked in class, "What is two plus two", replies "Four". "Good," the teacher says. "Good?" the child replies"It's perfect."