Is Faith Moral?

[Husker_x]

If I may pose a question...

 

As a Christian I believed that God required faith from me; that is, there was a silent understanding that there was no way to prove his existence and so belief in things unseen was necessary. But let's think about that for a minute. Why would God give us reason, the only means by which human beings can or ever have come to an approximation of reality, and then consider it a virtue to believe in him not based on evidence or investigation, but on the whim of emotion or something which can't be discerned from emotion? This is only complicated by the fact that there are many religions and many sects within each religion, most of which also put faith in the category of virtue, yet at the same time demand exclusivity. If there is no way to actually confirm which of the myriad belief systems is correct, then it should be the standard practice of every religious person to assume as a matter of sheer probability that you've chosen wrongly and expect to suffer the consequences, whatever those happen to be.

 

They say you have to have faith. I ask, why? They say that believing in something in the absence of evidence (or even in the face of evidence to the contrary) is a moral virtue, and again I ask why? They say that you will be damned to hell for all eternity if you guess wrongly.

 

What do you say? Is faith moral?

[knapplc]

I have faith that my wife doesn't cuckold me. I don't go around checking up on her, I take her word for it. Is that immoral?

[Husker_x]

I have faith that my wife doesn't cuckold me. I don't go around checking up on her, I take her word for it. Is that immoral?

 

You also have, at least I hope, a lot of positive evidence that she's loyal to you. And if she was being unfaithful, you could probably devise a way of getting evidence for that. So you don't really have faith in your wife as much as trust based on the evidences of your everyday interactions, correct?

[knapplc]

That's all faith is. A conclusion based on a trusted source. You may not like my wife and you may not trust her, so you may not have the same faith in her I do. That's fine, but you can't force your beliefs about my wife on me. Just as you are free to have no faith in her, I'm free to have faith.

[Husker_x]

That's all faith is. A conclusion based on a trusted source. You may not like my wife and you may not trust her, so you may not have the same faith in her I do. That's fine, but you can't force your beliefs about my wife on me. Just as you are free to have no faith in her, I'm free to have faith.

 

I think we define faith differently. Your definition seems to be a reasonable but not necessarily definite result based off evidence. Mine would be belief in something in the absence of evidence. I don't interchange the words faith, belief, and trust. It's common enough to do that but for this particular conversation unhelpful.

[dubsker]

Faith is not moral but morality should come as a product of faith, or you're not really keeping said faith. You said, "believed (preterit)," so I'm not sure you want anyone to answer you with Bible verses or anything.

[Husker_x]

Faith is not moral but morality should come as a product of faith, or you're not really keeping said faith. You said, "believed (preterit)," so I'm not sure you want anyone to answer you with Bible verses or anything.

 

I suppose it's fine to quote the Bible but the premise of my question which I outlined above already sort of answers that. Which Bible? You mean the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon? And then how would you know yours is the right one?

[Landlord]

I think the cornerstone of Christian faith isn't really defined as believing in a heavenly being or a specific set of laws or rules when everything else tells you not to. The way I define it, at least in my life, is believing in God's promises for me, and in His holiness, righteousness and love, even when life is trying to bring me down (or, so to speak, to convince me they aren't real).

[knapplc]

The rules by which you want to have this conversation preclude any other outcome. Since I don't agree with your definition of faith, there's not much room for discussion, is there?

[Husker_x]

The rules by which you want to have this conversation preclude any other outcome. Since I don't agree with your definition of faith, there's not much room for discussion, is there?

 

I don't understand how you can consider faith in your wife who you interact with on a daily basis and could at any time simply ask if she's being faithful the same thing as having faith in a celestial entity who you've never seen, never spoken with, or had any demonstrable interaction with at all. If you have a better word to describe the difference I'm describing than faith, or an adjective that would help the separate them, I suppose I could handle it. But I don't accept that we're talking about the same experience in both cases.

[dubsker]

The rules by which you want to have this conversation preclude any other outcome. Since I don't agree with your definition of faith, there's not much room for discussion, is there?

 

That's what I'm kind of thinking, I'm not really sure how to proceed. The Christian answer is something akin to, "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." I could have quoted that incorrectly, it's been a while. I guess by that answer, it really doesn't matter what the OP thinks because faith is a personal thing. I don't mean that disrespectfully, by the way.

[dubsker]

The rules by which you want to have this conversation preclude any other outcome. Since I don't agree with your definition of faith, there's not much room for discussion, is there?

 

I don't understand how you can consider faith in your wife who you interact with on a daily basis and could at any time simply ask if she's being faithful the same thing as having faith in a celestial entity who you've never seen, never spoken with, or had any demonstrable interaction with at all. If you have a better word to describe the difference I'm describing than faith, or an adjective that would help the separate them, I suppose I could handle it. But I don't accept that we're talking about the same experience in both cases.

 

That seems to me like quite a bit of work to argue semantics.

[knapplc]

Welcome to a Husker_x religion thread.

[dubsker]

Welcome to a Husker_x religion thread.

 

I don't usually read this part of HB. This thread title caught my eye for some reason.

[knapplc]

The rules by which you want to have this conversation preclude any other outcome. Since I don't agree with your definition of faith, there's not much room for discussion, is there?

 

I don't understand how you can consider faith in your wife who you interact with on a daily basis and could at any time simply ask if she's being faithful the same thing as having faith in a celestial entity who you've never seen, never spoken with, or had any demonstrable interaction with at all. If you have a better word to describe the difference I'm describing than faith, or an adjective that would help the separate them, I suppose I could handle it. But I don't accept that we're talking about the same experience in both cases.

 

It's not a 1:1 analogy, sure, but analogies never are.