C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
How would others here distinguish between Faith and Belief - if at all.
Thank you
Thank you
Interesting, without looking them up ... I use them as having two meanings, and use them interchangeably. As both the action and or the thing.
Do you have belief in your faith or faith in your belief? Lol
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
Hi wil, please don't give me a headache!
My question came about from reading a post by a friend on Facebook. He asked if we had a "science head" or a "faith head". The "faith head" was described as:- Starting, Getting an Idea, Ignoring Contradicting Evidence, Keeping the Idea Forever, End. While the "Science Head" was all about testing ideas by experiment and thus leading to evolving theories.
Well, not my idea of Faith at all. But possibly my own idea is open to criticism in as much as it CANNOT be contradicted. I have faith/trust in Reality. Nothing is guaranteed.
Whether heading for the Pure Land
Or heading for hell
All is in Amida's hands.
As I see it, "belief" clings, anticipates results, seeks to "justify" our "selves". Faith lets go. And in a strange way I find this is not a passive state, but can be a catalyst for on-going transformation, beyond my calculations.
LOL, that's about the norm for 'blind faith atheists', that is those who criticise religion without really knowing or understanding what they're 'pontificating'
D) about!I'd say faith is to do with intellect (not intelligence), belief to do with will.
On an intellectual level:
- Faith: a mental gesture indicating confidence.
- Belief: a mental construct.
- Faith: a feeling of surrender
- Belief: a feeling of longing
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
That distinction was new to me (i.e. Intellect and intelligence) and I do not understand it. A quick Google gives:- Intellect = head = facts. Intelligence = heart = feelings.
Are you saying that belief "wills" that which the "intellect/head/facts" dictate? I'm a bit lost.
Thanks
:-
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
Hi Cino, by "longing" do you mean a wish for "another world", a wish to become someone else, a wish for things to be other than what they are.
Perhaps I should just ask what you mean by "longing".
I was using intellect in the Traditional, or perhaps Traditionalist sense.
This from Frithjof Schuon:
"The Intellect – which is precisely what makes evident to us the absoluteness of the Self and the relativity of “objectivations” – is only “human” to the extent that it is accessible to us, but it is not so in itself; it is essentially increatus et increabile (Eckhart), although “accidentally” created by virtue of its reverberations in the macrocosm and in microcosms; geometrically speaking, the Intellect is a ray rather than a circle, it “emanates” from God rather than “reflecting” Him.
"“Allah is known to Himself alone” say the Sufis; this saying, while it apparently excludes man from a direct and total knowledge, in reality enunciates the essential and mysterious divinity of pure Intellect; formulae of this kind are only fully understandable in the light of the often quoted hadith: “He who knows his soul knows his Lord”. Or, in the Christian Tradition: "And because you are (adopted) sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father." The Fathers taught that it is the Spirit who reveals the Son, and the Son who reveals the Father...
"Remove the passional element from the soul and the intelligence – remove “the rust from the mirror” or “from the heart” – and the Intellect will be released; it will reveal from within what religion reveals from without.
This release is strictly impossible – we must insist upon it – without the co-operation of a religion, an orthodoxy, a traditional esoterism with all that this implies."
This from Frithjof Schuon:
"The Intellect – which is precisely what makes evident to us the absoluteness of the Self and the relativity of “objectivations” – is only “human” to the extent that it is accessible to us, but it is not so in itself; it is essentially increatus et increabile (Eckhart), although “accidentally” created by virtue of its reverberations in the macrocosm and in microcosms; geometrically speaking, the Intellect is a ray rather than a circle, it “emanates” from God rather than “reflecting” Him.
"“Allah is known to Himself alone” say the Sufis; this saying, while it apparently excludes man from a direct and total knowledge, in reality enunciates the essential and mysterious divinity of pure Intellect; formulae of this kind are only fully understandable in the light of the often quoted hadith: “He who knows his soul knows his Lord”. Or, in the Christian Tradition: "And because you are (adopted) sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father." The Fathers taught that it is the Spirit who reveals the Son, and the Son who reveals the Father...
"Remove the passional element from the soul and the intelligence – remove “the rust from the mirror” or “from the heart” – and the Intellect will be released; it will reveal from within what religion reveals from without.
This release is strictly impossible – we must insist upon it – without the co-operation of a religion, an orthodoxy, a traditional esoterism with all that this implies."
I mean the emotion of yearning, longing.
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
Thank you Thomas and Cino.
The post by Thomas will take a bit of digesting.
The post by Thomas will take a bit of digesting.
I have a belief the scientific method works and thru repeated experimentation have faith if will work in the future.
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
Wil, which in a way was one of my thoughts on reading the initial post on Facebook, that faith/trust was necessary for anyone to pursue the scientific quest, which is surely dependant upon trust in the intelligibility of our Cosmos.
A bit of a tangent, but I think of Einstein saying "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility"
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
Just a quick word. This gets my gander up! A traditional "esoterism"? My own pure Land Faith is very egalitarian. Faith/trust/shinjin is open to all, can come via infinite ways, and is not in the hands of any privileged group.
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
I'm afraid that Mr Schuon is a bit above my head. He appears to be saying that an uncreated and uncreatable mode of "knowing", not human yet somehow ("accidentally") coming into being in a created world, and thus accessible to us, has the potential to act as our insight into "reality". This if we remove our own passions, a "removal" only possible if we "co-operate" with an established Religion, even an esoteric understanding of it.
If I misunderstand of have misrepresented what was posted I apologise.
If I misunderstand of have misrepresented what was posted I apologise.
I believe I can fly.
I jump off a cliff because I have faith in that belief?
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
Yes, a belief can be right or wrong.
In a sense, I believe my GPS is accurate, so I have the faith to use it? If it doesn't work, faith did not conform belief? There may be a deep philospical importance here -- in the shades of meaning of these two English language words?
I believe, but how long should I continue to believe when my faith, put to the test, does not confirm my belief?
C
CobblersApprentice
Guest
Oh, I thought I was being excluded from editing because I was a newcomer!
Thank you for the welcome.