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[theinevitable]

Linnea, I enjoyed reading that a lot.

A question that I find worth discussing, from my own religious-ness (or lack of it) is the exact question y'all are discussing. The issue of where faith comes from.

It is obvious, of course, that there is a basic human impulse to faith-- whether it's a faith in the forces of nature, or the Judeo-Christian God, or just that everything will turn out OK in the end. Personally, I have been raised to be essentially irreligious-- my parents are both the classic Bitter Lapsed Catholics, and I am the only child in my family who was baptised. The only reason I even was baptised was pressure from my grandparents.

So, raised to be irreligious, holidays like Christmas and Easter and such have always been about a big dinner with the extended family, exchanging gifts, etc. My parents are not anti-religion, and they have always told us to respect the Faith of others. however, it seems that the effect of being raised without any religion leads to, big surprise, a lack of faith. And so, while my parents both have a vague faith in "something" God-like, my siblings and I don't really have anything. I don't feel any great loss at this. Earlier in my life, I rejoiced in it. But, without some kind of Spiritual Awakening-type moment, like Linnea just wrote about, how does faith grow? No matter how reasonable a specific faith may sound-- Judaism, for me, makes so much sense that... I almost believe all of it-- I cannot let myself have Faith. It is just not how I'm wired. So, do I pretend to believe it, and hope that one day I will? Do I keep reading, keep questioning, and maybe never find it? There was a point, a month or two ago, when I thought I had it all down. It was all making so much sense-- and then I got to a passage in the book I was reading about The Big Guy. "Who is this? God? What?" I thought-- and then I remembered. I don't believe in that guy! (obviously I did not literally forget what God meant. I am trying to illustrate my moment of recognition.) And there went that. If I don't believe in the guy, why should I follow all of his rules? Especially if I was following a lot of them anyway.

This has kind of petered out. I was trying to get it to a question-- the question of where Faith comes from. Of course, the answer that is easiest is "From God."

and I had some great concept to end this whole diatribe/statement, but I forget it. Sorry if this was rambling and non-sensical. My writing style is basically that I pretend I'm writing a paper... and then I remember that this is an Internet Message Board, and I try to be funny or something.

-Dan

[Ben-San]

WARNING: I'm going to say some stuff about faith and Judaism. Jough may think it is ridiculous, but I think Jough usually thinks I'm pretty ridiculous anyway. Also, what is said below may or may not reflect the opinions of any given Jewish congregation or organization. Very possibly not, although I think most of it can be supported by a reading of the teachers. Also, I'll probably ramble. This is brought on by theinevitable's post, so I suppose it cannot be prevented, only prepared for.

So you may be aware of Will Eisner's A Contract With God. It's one of the classic graphic novels, often considered the first true graphic novel (rather than "comic book"), and the title story is possibly the finest work of short Jewish fiction produced in the second half of the twentieth century.

Anyone who reads the story will see the titular contract; it is written on a stone by Frimme Hersh at the beginning of the story. This is not the only contract with God to which the title refers, however. Judaism itself is, in fairly literal and doctrinally-accepted terms, a contract with God. You've probably heard the term "the Ark of the Covenant". A covenant, as you probably know if you stop to think about it, is essentially a notarized contract. The Ark was the stamp of authenticity on the contract between God and the Jews.

(As a possibly-interesting and relevant note, "The Ten Commandments" is a bit of a mistranslation. Jews often translate it as "The Ten Utterances", but it could just as validly be called "The Ten Contractual Terms". The very first is "I Am The Lord Your God" - hardly a commandment, but a pretty clear statement of who exactly the party of the first part is.)

Here's the part where it gets into the matter of faith: None of the terms of the contract demand a belief in God, His absolute power, or the truth of the Torah's stories about the creation of the world and the history of Israel. Obviously, someone who follows the 613 terms of contract presumably has at least a faint belief that they are in some way valid, but there is no demand of unshakeable faith in God or unswerving love thereto. I only believe in God sometimes myself. He is a better Jew who follows the commandments constantly without ever believing that God exists than he who is blind with religious ecstasies and fails to put forth the slightest effort towards the commandments.

Sometimes Christians, who typically put more weight on faith than Jews, are offended by this and think of it as lip service or materialism. To a Jew, lip service is claiming to love God but not following His commandments, while someone who does not believe in God but dutifully follows the mitzvot is much more devoted to the covenant than anyone who is certain of his final reward could be said to be.

I don't know if this is interesting or useful to anyone, but theinev's talk about almost believing Judaism but not having "Faith" made me want to type this up. If all that's stopping you is not being Certain Of God, well, don't let that get in your way. Of course, if you just don't want to or don't feel comfortable with it, then obviously don't. I'm just saying, while a Religious Experience may be nice, it's not everything. (But you'd probably want to stick with "New Reform" or Reconstructionist congregations. Despite my feelings about among the commandments being to learn and question the commandments so we can understand them better, the Orthodox would probably give me long disapproving glares.)

[slink]

I've been avoiding this thread, although reading it avidly, as I tend to feel I would come across like a huge jackass here. I dug into the old religion threads we had, but... That was then. And Linnea's post brought up so many thoughts on the subject.

My parents are of the scientific side of the gamut. I have enough arguments with my father trying to teach him about quantum entanglement, that's how rooted to scientific evidence he is! And so i was brought up an atheist, but spent an awful long time as an agnostic. And yet now I find it more and more difficult to comprehend religion, hence my growing interest in this thread. As others here, I just want to understand.
I had an... acquaintance who believed she was being spoken to by Jesus and God constantly, that they instructed her as voices in what to do. She knew she heard other voices, those that told her to do bad things, and she could never give me an answer as to why these two sets of voices were distinguishable, other than by the things they told her to do. Now, I'm not by any means claiming that all religious people are clinically insane, but those who hear voices in their head? Apparently a certain crazy President?
And I can't help but think that kind of religion is very dangerous. I personally don't believe certain choices based on religious belief are what I would call rational.
I had chosen to leave this out, but it makes it back in based on my last point.
I heard an argument recently (trite but interesting nonetheless) that this guy who was an atheist, should be elligible to not sign up for a Draft because he was an atheist. He wanted to claim that as he believed he would not exist after death, that his life was more important to him than a religious person's is to them. As I say, it's certainly a greatly flawed, and trite argument, don't get me at all wrong here! But, consider suicide bombers. Is it a rational decision to blow yourself up, for any reason, because you believe you will die a martyr and be rewarded in your heaven? I'd say clearly not.
I want to understand religion, I even would like very much to have faith in something. I would like most to have faith that the human race could set up social standards based purely on morals and ethics, but then I guess that's the kind of thing that would mean disproving the existence of a god first.

I could go on, but I am trying not to say things that would frustrate anyone. 'Cause I care about y'all, and more than anything I do think it's a prerequisite moral to allow anyone to think or believe whatever they want. That said, I think it's important to be able to discuss these things openly, as otherwise it becomes a minefield, and if there
s anything the subject of religion needs less of, it's scary backlashes.

Now, here's my cartoon of Mohammed...

[Doc]

I'm with inev that the more I hear about Judaism the more sense it makes to me and what Ben-san just described really re-inforced that, they seem like a people who have managed to figure out how to incorporate rational thinking into religion so that they are not governed by faith alone and that is really cool.

While we are sharing...
Though I wouldn't have described myself as such at the time for my generation and my country I was a fairly religious kid. During high school I (voluntarily) went to a short mass every other week (about 20 minutes before school), I used to say the Hail Mary literally every day when I passed a statue of the blessed virgin by the entrance to my school. It was a catholic school (christian brothers actually) but not exactly the type of place that crams the religion down your throat, after year 9 I think it was religious lessons were voluntary and even before that they weren't particularly full on or anything. Suffice to say that going to mass once a week and praying regularly would qualify you as unusually religious.
The thing I wanted to talk about was the Hail Mary: Basically that felt to me like a moment in my day when I could talk to God or Mary or whoever and as much ask them to look out for the people in my life as to get my own thoughts in order. I never believed in a literal interpretation of the bible and I was quite fascinated by the historical figure of jesus (as opposed to the guy in the books) but I enjoyed this feeling of just talking to someone who understood me and who I could just speak to.
Anyway like Linnea I had this weird moment of spiritual awakening in my case it was during my first year of uni when I was filling out a survey for the evangelical society and realised how totally irrelevant to faith and living a good life everything they were concerned with was (generally literal interpretations of the bible).
I'm not going to pretend like I suddenly realised I'd been being an idiot my whole life, rather it gradually dawned on me that the things I thought were important about religion were things that were part of my core values anyway and they would continue to exist whether I was religious or not. Basically it came down to accepting that without any evidence for G-d etc. being religious seemed to me like trying to find an excuse for living a good life and I didn't need that because I thought I should be doing that anyway.
I still go to midnight mass at christmas every year and I still feel in the atmosphere what I used to but now I think it's coming from the people around me not from a beard in the sky.

Yeah, becuase you all needed to read that.

[misterqueue]

I think I'm going to become an Epicurean!

(Man that is a different meaning of that word than I knew.  Education!)

I'm not certain how accurate those numbers are but as far as fast facts go it's vaguely interesting.  (this is only mildly related, I just happened to run across it today.)

[jough]

WARNING: I'm going to say some stuff about faith and Judaism. Jough may think it is ridiculous, but I think Jough usually thinks I'm pretty ridiculous anyway.

Dang, I never said you were ridiculous!  What is it with people thinking that I DO NOT LIKE THEM lately?

Anyway, just work with me for a second.  Putting your own beliefs aside for a second, if someone came up to you and said that they believed in an invisible being who always watched over them and that same being also made the universe in like, a week, you would think that they were being silly.  That's all I'm saying.  The very idea of God is akin to something a child would invent when he felt lonely.  It's a grand idea, but it's an idea with no basis in anything.  It was pulled completely out of someone's ass a long time ago and somehow lots of other people said "Sounds good to me!"

Judaism itself is, in fairly literal and doctrinally-accepted terms, a contract with God. You've probably heard the term "the Ark of the Covenant". A covenant, as you probably know if you stop to think about it, is essentially a notarized contract. The Ark was the stamp of authenticity on the contract between God and the Jews.

But what do you do if God doesn't keep up his end of the bargain?

He can smite your ass, because he's all-powerful, but we're not, so the contract is one-sided. 

The very first is "I Am The Lord Your God" - hardly a commandment, but a pretty clear statement of who exactly the party of the first part is.)

Isn't the commandment "...and you shall have no other gods before me?"  I see your point, though, that the first commandment definitely defines Party the First.

He is a better Jew who follows the commandments constantly without ever believing that God exists than he who is blind with religious ecstasies and fails to put forth the slightest effort towards the commandments.

This brings up the difference between actions and intentions, though.  Is someone a good person only because they fail to do bad or hurtful things out of fear of otherworldly punishment?  Wouldn't the person who felt compassion and concern for his fellow man and who WANTED in his heart to be honourable be "more good" than someone who was acting good because he was afraid of some big guy beating the shit out of him?

To a Jew, lip service is claiming to love God but not following His commandments

This is true for Christians too.

I'm just saying, while a Religious Experience may be nice, it's not everything.

Well, without the faith you don't have religion, you have human morality.  You don't have to believe in god to Do The Right Thing and lead a good life.

While I don't believe that Jesus was god, I still wouldn't discount his teachings (or at least, whatever teachings are attributed to him - it's not really clear that he actually ever said the things that were written in the chrsitian bible many decades after his death - and when you take into account the discrepencies in the books of the bible that were conveniently left out by a VOTE by Catholic bishops, well, it starts to look less like a holy book and more like a work of competent fiction).

Jesus was a Jew and found that his brethren weren't living up to their contract with god.  He dumbed it down for the fast-living jetset of his time by offering up two new commandments: love god with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself.

I don't know how the first one has any meaning to the second, but the second one is a pretty good idea (neighbour in this case just meaning "other people").  You'd have a hard time breaking the original commandments if you keep that ONE in mind.

[linnea]

Dang, I never said you were ridiculous!  What is it with people thinking that I DO NOT LIKE THEM lately?

Anyway, just work with me for a second.  Putting your own beliefs aside for a second, if someone came up to you and said that they believed in an invisible being who always watched over them and that same being also made the universe in like, a week, you would think that they were being silly.  That's all I'm saying.  The very idea of God is akin to something a child would invent when he felt lonely.  It's a grand idea, but it's an idea with no basis in anything.  It was pulled completely out of someone's ass a long time ago and somehow lots of other people said "Sounds good to me!"

But what do you do if God doesn't keep up his end of the bargain?

Dude, God is faithful and he loves us. That's the point, is that he always holds up his end of the bargain. He's not the one who keeps fuck*ng up. We're the ones who wage war and do other terrible stuff.

[theinevitable]

q-- as of that pronouncement, you are the exact person my Latin teacher warned us we would meet out in the "real world."
epicureanism... man. talk about an idea that everyone in the Roman Empire totally screwed up. Am I right? Am I right?



Ben-san-- that is reallly, really interesting. I can't really say it any better than that. I will certainly keep up my inquiries into Judaism.

Jough-- if you believe in an "invisible man in the sky who loves us," it isn't that much of a leap to imagine that he's perfect and will not break a contract.

[jough]

Yeah, I guess once you believe in an invisible magick being you'll believe in fuck*ng anything.

Still, no one has ever been able to answer this simple question: why believe in God/Allah/Whatever and not in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?  They all make about as much sense as the other.  Why choose?  How do you choose?  Everyone believes that their God is the One True God but of course not everyone can be right.

What if you're a Christian and Islam is really the true religion?  You're pretty much fucked then, right, heathen?

[AugustWest]

What if you're a Christian and Islam is really the true religion?  You're pretty much fucked then, right, heathen?

This is the problem I have with "religion" as opposed to "faith" or "spirituality".   I don't think they are all the same thing.

To me, "faith" is the feeling that there is a higher power or higher order of existence and the desire to learn more about and become closer to that higher power or order.  I believe faith of this sort is innate in human beings.

"Religion" is a human social construct.  It's a set of rules, practices or ideas designed to enhance faith.  Relgions are cultural institutions. Relgions can be a way for people to join together to enhance their faith.  Relgions can be a way for elites to control the thoughts and actions of the masses of their culture.

To be religious is to say "I believe this is the set of rules that will lead me to God."  I don't think there is a single set of rules/practices/actions that will lead one closer to God.  I do think there is a higher power.  I do think that it's vital to try to get learn more about/live in harmony with/get closer to that higher power.  But I don't count of religion to be of much help to me in that quest, so I don't put my faith in it.

[misterqueue]

q-- as of that pronouncement, you are the exact person my Latin teacher warned us we would meet out in the "real world."
epicureanism... man. talk about an idea that everyone in the Roman Empire totally screwed up. Am I right? Am I right?

Heh.. man, I believe I already said that all the Latin I know came through vigorous beatings at the Catholic church.

[Ben-San]

Still, no one has ever been able to answer this simple question: why believe in God/Allah/Whatever and not in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?  They all make about as much sense as the other.  Why choose?  How do you choose?  Everyone believes that their God is the One True God but of course not everyone can be right.

Because you don't choose what you believe. When you choose a religion, you choose the one that most closely matches what you already believe, however you have come to believe it.

I can't wake up one morning and decide to believe with absolute faith that God exists, or that meat is murder, or that the Patriot Act really has my best interests in mind. At best, I can try to convince myself of these things by appealing to evidence (the practices of much of the meat industry) or to things I already believe more strongly (I believe that sheep and chickens are cute, so if I think about that I'm less likely to want to eat them).

As to why I think you think I'm ridiculous, it's either (a) because I am strongly espousing a point of view that you have repeatedly stated in this thread that you believe to be ridiculous, or (b) because I always assume you are thinking somebody to be ridiculous in much the same way I always assume Bobby is drunk when he's in the chat channel. Take your pick.

[misterqueue]

As to why I think you think I'm ridiculous, it's either (a) because I am strongly espousing a point of view that you have repeatedly stated in this thread that you believe to be ridiculous, or (b) because I always assume you are thinking somebody to be ridiculous in much the same way I always assume Bobby is drunk when he's in the chat channel. Take your pick.

I think, and I'm only jumping in because I concurred with Herr Jough earlier, that one can hold a belief to be ridiculous and yet still feel that the believers of said belief aren't ridiculous.  I mean, back in High School I wore some ridiculous things.  My Dad might have said "that is a ridiculous outfit" but I don't think he would've thought me a "ridiculous person" simply for wearing the outfit. 

There is an exception to this rule of course, I will never understand people who can eat cheesecake and I hate the stuff and by extension hate all cheesecake eaters.  Death to cheesecake eaters!

[AugustWest]

Q hates cheesecake eaters.  Hates them to hell!

[Ben-San]

There is an exception to this rule of course, I will never understand people who can eat cheesecake and I hate the stuff and by extension hate all cheesecake eaters.  Death to cheesecake eaters!

You and your cheesecake-not-eating ways will Learn in the end.


Also, going through the thread there's some stuff I didn't address, so MORE INCOMING
God holds up His end of the contract. He's omnipotent, so what motivation does He have to welch?
God also does not smite people for failing to uphold the contract. He offers the contract, and it's up to the individual to accept or decline it. Declining the contract, or even breaking it off, does not get you smited, it gets you ignored; you are no longer favored or disfavored by God. Traditionally, an actual smiting would involve actually pissing God off rather than just quitting the contract.