Date: 1/3/2004 10:44:00 AM
From Authorid: 30742
The definition that I would like to use is from the Bible. I was at one time a atheist, who converted to being agnostic and now I am a born again bible believing christian. The Bible describes faith in this way : "What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot see." Hebrews 11:1. We use faith everyday. Jesus once said, we don't need alot of faith. (Matt 17 0). Because our faith is a gift from God. (Ephesians 2 ) God wants us to seek truth, and He will do the rest , "Seek with all your heart, mind and soul" ( Dueteronomy 4 ). And God tells us, come, let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18). So , its misconception , that Christianity requires blind faith. God rewards and gives the gift of faith when we seek the truth will all our heart, mind and soul.  |
Date: 1/3/2004 10:46:00 AM
From Authorid: 16671
The bible tells us that Faith is the substance of things HOPED for, the evidence of things not seen. ""
We hope for the thing we can not see, we keep faith in the ability of God to make this thing manifest. He knows our needs, and he is able to deliever.  |
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Date: 1/3/2004 10:54:00 AM ( From Author )
From Authorid: 62510
Yes, but in your opinions, and in your own words what where exactley does faith come from, and what does faith fight against? |
Date: 1/3/2004 10:58:00 AM
From Authorid: 15394
faith is belief in that which cannot be proven...  |
Date: 1/3/2004 11:06:00 AM
From Authorid: 11240
The word "faith" I have always used in the sense of "belief". I don't feel that it needs to be used only in the category of religious faith. Some people have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow without any regard as to whether their belief is centered or due to Our Creator having set that phenomenon in place or not. (I am answering both a and b with the above God Bless.  |
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Date: 1/3/2004 11:06:00 AM
From Authorid: 16671
God has given us a measure of Faith but its up to us to see that it grows and Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The more I hear the word of God, the more I read the word of God, the more I preach the word of God, the more faith that I have. The dark forces would try to come against ones faith, but if you truely know the word of God you can use it against the dark forces that would try and take faith away. |
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Date: 1/3/2004 11:15:00 AM ( From Author )
From Authorid: 62510
But Firstborn, where does your faith come from, and what is it based on? |
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Date: 1/3/2004 11:17:00 AM ( From Author )
From Authorid: 62510
Faith is not synonamous with belief because you would never say "I faith in Him." Rather you believe because you have faith, and where does that come from. Thank you Deb. |
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Date: 1/3/2004 11:18:00 AM ( From Author )
From Authorid: 62510
...sorry don't mean to be picky, just want to understand exactly what everyone thinks. |
Date: 1/3/2004 11:18:00 AM
From Authorid: 55297
(a) "faith" i think it means: to beleive in sometimg with your whole heart, or parts of it... (b) if someoen says "have faith" then it means, just beleive.---- or if someone asks "are you faithful?" it means are you true to your lover?--- or if someone asks you "do you have faith?" it means, do you beleive... thats what i think anyways...   |
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Date: 1/3/2004 11:21:00 AM
From Authorid: 55297
i am a Christian and i beleive what Firstborn has stated. Way To Go Firstborn! you said it perfectly! but as you can see, my defintion of faith is different, but it means the same. Im a Luthren, with is one step down from a Catholic. we worship God and Jesus, not the Virgin Mary. but on to what i was saying... my faith comes fromt he Bible. i beleive what it says, and what its meanings are even though there isnt any physical proof that anyof those people existed. i put myself in to Gods hands and I beleive... I beleive. |
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Date: 1/3/2004 11:25:00 AM ( From Author )
From Authorid: 62510
(please don't think I'm fighting against Christianity here)...no proof at all!? |
Date: 1/3/2004 12:07:00 PM
From Authorid: 31841
"physical proof that anyof those people existed. i put myself in to Gods hands and I beleive... I beleive". Hevenly poet, that is not true. You would be wonderfully surprized that the Christian faith is not a book of fables, but a historical truth. I could love to give you some resources if your interested.  |
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Date: 1/3/2004 12:12:00 PM
From Authorid: 54247
My old dictionary says Faith is: "to trust, confide" and "unquestioning belief" and "unquestioning belief in God." I agree that in Church, probably different views. However, "trust and confide" helps me in interactions with others. And, I have an "unquestioned belief in God" OK? He speaks to all of us in different ways! RAT |
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Date: 1/3/2004 12:39:00 PM ( From Author )
From Authorid: 62510
Maybe, I don't know. First and foremost however, I am a lover of the truth. I would not believe it if I couldn't know it. But yes I have found a good deal of evidence. |
Date: 1/3/2004 12:59:00 PM
From Authorid: 3125
Good post Jadd..I am not sure if this is what you are asking, but here goes. True faith in God produces obedience to the gospel of Christ. A Christian shows his faith by his actions. He believes he will be admitted into heaven just as God says he will be, IF he continues in doing the will of God as God has set forth for him to do. Under the influence of faith a Christian allows the righteousness of God to control him as he attempts to do all things that are pleasing unto God. If we do all we can to be pleasing unto God, we are assured a home with God. Through faith, we must believe that Jesus is the Son of God and we must be obedient to God's Word. We must study the scriptures and ask God for wisdom in order to become stronger in our faith.  |
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Date: 1/3/2004 1:30:00 PM
From Authorid: 11240
No I would not say that. I would say my belief in God comes from Him. That is, He Has Gifted me with the knowledge of His Existence. I believe that God Gifts people in at least one of those ways in which we are imaged after Him, i.e., spirit, soul, physical body. What I mean by this is: I beleive our spirit is our mind. If a person has come to have faith in God due to the ability to reason logically for themselves that He Exists, then He Has Gifted them spiritually. I believe a person's soul is their heart (not the beating organ, but the "feeling" center). I frankly believe that God Has Gifted all of us in giving us a Portion of His Soul. People who accept this gift unquestionally (perhaps those people who were brought up in a home where Jesus' example was lived and demonstrated on a daily basis) give rise to these people's faith. The third gift is what I was Given By God. An actual physcial experience has given me personal proof of His Existence. Now, I am not saying that these Gifts occur exclusively of the others, or that having one type of Gift doesn't give rise to realizing another. What I am saying that if one understands that God's soul resides in us (accepts the gift of being a part of God) and elicits their faith from that irrespective of having a reasoned logic or a physical experience, their faith is just as valid as those of us who garnered our faith by logical reasoning and/or physcial experience. God Bless. |
Date: 1/3/2004 1:31:00 PM
From Authorid: 19220
Ok, I'm going to reply and then look. My def. of faith would be believing in something/someone who you can not see nor touch. Faith is trust. Ok now I'm going to go peek.  |
Date: 1/3/2004 2:45:00 PM
From Authorid: 58030
i'm too tired to read all the replies right now, so i'm going to say what i think, i skimmed the replies, but anyways, Faith IMO is something that cannot be proven yet cannot be disproven so therefore will always be believed, faith is something that you believe in, be it God, the Goddess and God, Allah, whatever, this faith comes from someplace inside you, and it is the core of your being,  |
Date: 1/3/2004 3:41:00 PM
From Authorid: 55967
Faith is the gateway to the experience of the Higher. I like Ms. Morality's response. And I don't believe that faith was ever meant to be a lifelone thing. It is only meant to be temporary, until you know. And you can know while still alive. When Jesus asked the sick if they had faith, and they did, Jesus did not say "good. Hang onto it, and you'll get well one of these days. Just wait and see." No, that level of faith ended right there after Jesus cured them, and then they simply knew from experience. The same can happen to anyone. I guess you can call "higher faith" that which is actually knowing with your inner being what reality is; it is beyond simply hoping for something. Doesn't the Bible say that faith is "the EVIDENCE of things we cannot see?" (seeing being done with physical eyes as opposed to spiritual ones).  |
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Date: 1/3/2004 6:08:00 PM
From Authorid: 16671
OK, I'll tell ya I CHOOSE to have the faith to believe that Jesus was the son of God, and after I CHOSE to do that, then more of my faith came from seeing the wonderful things that God did in my life and others. Seeing people healed and being healed myself, RAISED my faith as well as other things that God by his mercy and grace has shown me. |
Date: 1/3/2004 6:14:00 PM
From Authorid: 16671
JF, your right, in telling Heavenly Poet that there is LOTS of proof that those places and those people exsisted as they do and the towns that are talked about in the bible are very real places as well as the people have been historically proven.
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Date: 1/3/2004 6:24:00 PM
From Authorid: 54987
To have faith in terms of christian belief means that you stay steadfast in your belief regardless of the mounting evidence to the contrary. We all indulge in our own faith based beliefs. Without absolute proof how can we do otherwise?  |
Date: 1/3/2004 6:25:00 PM
From Authorid: 47296
People can have faith if they wish. I have found it wise to not only have faith, but also a plan.  |
Date: 1/4/2004 7:51:00 AM
From Authorid: 48809
It is always easy to say we have faith when we are happy and things are going our way. It is quite another thing though to retain that faith when.. for instance .. we have asked God to not allow a loved one to die and we see them slipping away from us and things look very black indeed . This is when we must exhibit TRUE Faith ... a faith that does not fail.. no matter what happens and know that God will always do what is best for us all in all situations... even when there seems to be no shred of hope and the sun no longer shines.It is only when we can maintain our faith under these conditions then that we can truly say that we have True Faith.  |
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Date: 1/4/2004 10:49:00 AM
From Authorid: 16671
Koolade, I'm sorry but there is lots of proof, seek and ye shall find. Posey, I do know what you mean, I've had lots of adverse things happen, however My faith in God shall not fail. |
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Date: 1/4/2004 12:28:00 PM
From Authorid: 48809
Thank you Firstborn, I am glad you agree with me. |
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Date: 1/4/2004 2:27:00 PM
From Authorid: 54987
what do you call proof FB? And I am talking about the biblical faith, not God. To me there is no proof that a biblical god exists. That is why biblicals believers say you have to have faith. Personal proof isn't proof of anyone. Good enough for you maybe, but not for everyone. |
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Date: 1/4/2004 4:48:00 PM
From Authorid: 16671
Koolade, you said, " To have faith in terms of christian belief means that you stay steadfast in your belief regardless of the mounting evidence to the contrary. We all indulge in our own faith based beliefs. "" The Christian faith, after one does believe in the lord Jesus, does stem from the words of the Bible, which to us are the words of God given to men by unction of the holy spirit. So when you say, reguardless of the mounting evidence to the contrary, I'd like to know what evidence you are saying is contrary. NOT to God, but to the bible? As you say, Faith can not be proven nor can a God/Goddess, or any of that be proven as far as faith goes, However, the words in the bible can be proven if nothing more than by the historical evidence that the bible brings out and what historians, and archeoligist have brought forth today. There are many things in the bible that HAD not been found until recently, or with in the past fifty years. |
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Date: 1/4/2004 5:03:00 PM
From Authorid: 55967
Koolade, from what you've said here and elsewhere, I take it that you are a spiritual person who believes in a God, just not "the Biblical God." The thing is, if you really looked into Spirituality and the Bible at the same time, you will find that the Bible is chock FULL of True Spirituality. I know many may not agree with me on my next comment though, which is that I can see (and so can many great teachers) a thread of Truth that runs through the most ancient teachings and up through Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sufism. Just one of these Truths is spoken by Jesus when he says that "Whoever shall lose their life shall gain it," or something close to that. Other sayings like that are about how a seed in the ground must die before it can grow into a new life above ground. What they are all saying is that we have a lower self that consists of a conditioned mind and which is thus very worldly. This is what causes all of our internal strife. We also have, though, a Higher Self deep within us that we all can awaken to and live in above our conditioned thoughts. Here is the Kingdom of Heaven that can be experienced now. Jesus and the rest were referring to how to live your life now, as opposed to waiting until you die to "reap all the rewards" like many today believe. My point is that the Bible is actually a very Spiritual and True Book in spite of how it is presented by some people today. |
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Date: 1/4/2004 6:36:00 PM
From Authorid: 11240
See, no one is trying to state that their personal experiences gives rise to ANOTHER'S basis for belief. What it gives rise to is the question of crdibility; in other words, do I believe this person's account or not? Even though I had 'heard' of people's experiences that gave them proof of God, that didn't sway me until I, myself, had such an experience. I needed proof in the physical sense to be a believer. God Gifted me with that. Some of you may be the same way, i.e., you are not going to be able to intellectualize a belief in God, and you do not have the overwhelming "feeling" that God exists, so you need some sort of physical experience before you'll ever believe. Not one of us human beings here can give that to you. Only God can. Amen, GypsyHawk. God Bless. |
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Date: 1/4/2004 6:47:00 PM ( From Author )
From Authorid: 62510
Thank you very much Posey. Koolade, there is evidence, mounds of it. Not personal experience, but proof that the universe was made, not unmade. I can't fully explain it here, but I'll put it in another post, soon. |
Date: 1/4/2004 8:22:00 PM
From Authorid: 62146
Faith is beliveing something with no fear you know it is waht can save you so their is nothing to be afrid of what you belkive that is what faith is to me.  |
