How does "hope" differ from wishful thinking?

[Zzyzx]

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Christians and their bible define "faith" as "(Hebrews 11:1, KJV) "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Hoping for things with "evidence not seen" appears to be nothing more than wishing.

Does belief by ancient religion promoters transform "hope" into something more than wishful thinking?

[Divine Insight]

I'm personally quite happy with wishful thinking.

That works for me.

If I die when I die and the secular materialists were right, then I've lost nothing. Plus I've enjoyed a lifetime of wishful thinking.

But then again, I don't need to go around condemning everyone who doesn't join in my wishful thinking as being heathen immoral sinners who aren't worth a pooh.

I don't see where it benefits my wishful thinking to go around degrading others.

This is where I part ways from ancient religious texts who aren't happy until they have condemned everyone around them.

I don't need to believe that other people will experience unthinkable horrors upon their deaths just to pacify my hobby of witchful thinking, er, I mean wishful thinking.

[connermt]

How does "hope" differ from wishful thinking?

It doesn't in reality. It's the same basic principle which you outlined in your post. The only perceptible difference is in how people with faith want to define the term in order to set them apart from the crowd.
Meaning, based on my experience, many christians like to think themselves very different from 'the common man'. They tend to, many times, have a sense of self grandeur. Even the bible says christians are 'in this world but not of it'.
So christians tend to like to take a word, twist/add/change/redefine the definition &/or how it's perceived by others to make them seem 'special'.
So it's of no surprise that many christians would likely consider faith 'different' in definition that hope but in reality, it's the same thing.
Again, based on my experience.

[dianaiad]

Your wishful thinking ia my belief.

Your purchase of a lottery ticket in the hope that (even though the odds against your winning the lottery are approximately the population of the United States...doubled...) you'll actually win it is my faith that my future, even after my death, depends upon how I behave now.

Hope is hope...the same feeling, whether it's based upon evidence credible to anybody else or not.

A drug addict's mom will always hope that her baby will get his act together. No matter what.

The residents of Paris, Idaho, have hoped for at least half a century that their school team will win a basketball game. Fruitlessly so far, but they live in hope anyway.

I hope that my beliefs are true, and I show faith in it by behaving as if they are true.

Hope I'm right.

[Divine Insight]

it is my faith that my future, even after my death, depends upon how I behave now.

I hope that my beliefs are true, and I show faith in it by behaving as if they are true.

Hope I'm right.

I hope you're right too, but at the same time it seems quite strange to me. In fact, it seems to me that if you are behaving in a particular way simply because you hope that your behavior will pay off in another life that doesn't really say much at all for your character in general.

I mean, it basically sounds like you are suggesting that if you didn't believe that your behavior would affect your next life then you might behave differently?

That brings up the question of what your are "really" like in character.

Now I don't mean to imply any personal suggestions or innuendos in saying that. But it just seems to me that people who hope their next life will depend on how they behave in this one and this is the reason why they try to behave nicely doesn't say much for their character.

I have hope that there will be a life after this one too. And yes, I hope that I'm treated well in that life potentially because I just happen to treat others well in this life.

But that's not the driving force behind my character. I wouldn't behave one bit differently if I knew with absolute certainty that there is no after life.

So I'm not "being good" in this life in the hope that it will pay off in some imagined next life.

In fact, for me this is an extreme problem with Christianity. Christianity claims that if a person doesn't believe in God and Jesus then they are doomed no matter how good they might be.

I've always thought that if there is a God who cares about good behavior then this God should be far more impressed by atheists who just naturally want to be good people than by religious people who are only being good because they think that's going to result in some sort of reward.

A good atheist would clearly be a good person because this is innately who they are.

But a good Christian could merely be choosing to be good because they fear punishment or lust for a reward.

In fact, I've often heard Christians proclaim that if there is no God there would be no reason to be moral. Sheesh! That's the same as saying that they have absolutely no sense of morality of their own.

Anyone who believes that it would be justified to act poorly in a purely materialistic finite existence just because it's temporary and there is no supreme being passing judgements on it, is IMHO, basically an immoral person.

And therefore, if that same person would be good just because they think there is a God who delves out punishment or rewards, how would that make them any more moral?

They would still be the same person who has no moral values if there is no God.

It seems to me that people who have moral values when they don't even believe in a God are on far higher moral ground than religious people who are merely being good because they think a God will judge them.

[dianaiad]

it is my faith that my future, even after my death, depends upon how I behave now.

I hope that my beliefs are true, and I show faith in it by behaving as if they are true.

Hope I'm right.

I hope you're right too, but at the same time it seems quite strange to me. In fact, it seems to me that if you are behaving in a particular way simply because you hope that your behavior will pay off in another life that doesn't really say much at all for your character in general.

I mean, it basically sounds like you are suggesting that if you didn't believe that your behavior would affect your next life then you might behave differently?

That brings up the question of what your are "really" like in character.

Well now. THAT'S insulting.

What part of "it is my faith that my future, even after my death, depends upon how I behave now. " went whoosh?

Doesn't everybody's future depend upon what they do now? isn't your character shown by what your actions are now? Your decisions now? Never mind possible rewards and punishments; aren't your future choices affected by the choices and decisions you make now?

Now I don't mean to imply any personal suggestions or innuendos in saying that. -

Don't worry about it. You didn't imply a thing. You flat out said it.

I find that the argument you are using here is pretty standard:

Anybody who believes in a life after death and a deity Who issues life instructions for behavior while here is only being 'good' because they want something.

The only people who can honestly be considered to have good characters are those who don't believe in a life after death, because they can't be accused of aiming for a reward of some sort.

Very standard.

And yet you claim to hope for a life after death in which you will be rewarded for being good to your neighbor. You don't believe in it, mind you, so you can't be accused of doing good only for that reward.

I don't know about you, but hoping for something you don't actually believe in has got to be the epitome of 'wishful thinking.'

So tell me: what SHOULD a theist do who honestly believes that God has rules for behavior in this life, and that those rules are for the well being of His believers (and everybody else, for that matter) and, by the way, living according to those rules will gain rewards for you in this life and the next one? Should he prove his 'good character' to you by disobeying them, just to show that he's not doing anything for a reward?

Gahhhhh...........

Do you know what true courage is, in things like this?

It's not to do the right thing when others oppose it.
It'd doing the right thing when your opponent will see doing so as a point in his favor and call it a win for his side.

A good Christian will live according to the Golden Rule, whether YOU think he's being a hypocrite and 'only doing it for the reward' or not. It really doesn't matter what you think of my character, DI. It matters what I think...and in my world view, it matters what God thinks. You don't get a vote.

[Divine Insight]

What part of "it is my faith that my future, even after my death, depends upon how I behave now. " went whoosh?

The part where you said:

I hope that my beliefs are true, and I show faith in it by behaving as if they are true.

This suggests that if you didn't have faith in it you wouldn't necessarily behave this way.

I behave as a good person too. Does that "show my faith" that I believe I will be rewarded for good behavior?

I don't think so.

[dianaiad]

What part of "it is my faith that my future, even after my death, depends upon how I behave now. " went whoosh?

The part where you said:

I hope that my beliefs are true, and I show faith in it by behaving as if they are true.

This suggests that if you didn't have faith in it you wouldn't necessarily behave this way.

I behave as a good person too. Does that "show my faith" that I believe I will be rewarded for good behavior?

I don't think so.

No, and nothing I wrote means that, either. What your behaving as a good person shows is your faith that your personal code of ethics and morals is the right one to follow.

At least, I hope that it shows this. I hope that you are not behaving according to a code of ethics and morals that you do not think is the right one to follow.

[Divine Insight]

No, and nothing I wrote means that, either. What your behaving as a good person shows is your faith that your personal code of ethics and morals is the right one to follow.

At least, I hope that it shows this. I hope that you are not behaving according to a code of ethics and morals that you do not think is the right one to follow.

I don't follow a "code of ethics". I just go by what innate feels good to me. And it just happens that what feels good to me coincidentally turns out to be what the overwhelming majority of people agree is "moral".

Of course not every individual will agree with me. But that just proves that human morality is indeed subjective and not absolute, because not everyone agrees on what constitutes moral behavior.

~~~~

But you have actually opened a very large can of worms here.

Do you agree with the morality taught by Jesus?

If you do, then obviously this is what you consider to be innately moral and there's no need for you to "follow" his code of ethics since you are already in agreement with them. His code of ethics must have already been your code of ethics since you are in agreement with him.

On the other hand, if you disagree with moral code of ethics of Jesus, then why follow them? Why follow a supposed God who you don't even agree with when it comes to moral issues?

So the bottom line is that you are either following something that doesn't sit well with you just to appease some God, or you are in agreement with the moral ethics of this God which means that God has the same views on morality as you do.

In other words, if you approve of your God's ethics, then you are giving this God your own seal of approval on the subject of ethics.

And if you disapprove of your God's ethics then you are following a God that even you believe is unethical.

There is no getting around this conundrum.

We necessarily need to give God our personal subjective seal of approval or confess that we do not believe God to be moral.

And the irony here is that if we approve of God's moral ethics, then clearly we are the ones who have a subjective moral standard by which we are judging God, and all we have done is give God a passing grade. We have given God our personal approval in matters of morality.

In fact, this is precisely why many atheists refuse to believe in the Biblical God. The God of the Old Testament does not represent what most people consider to be moral behavior. It's takes a lot of extreme apologies and excuses to even try to condone the behavior of the God of the Old Testament.

It's far easier to defend the morality taught by Jesus since most humans will agree with many of the moral ideals that he taught. However, when it comes to the crucifixion of Jesus as God's sacrificial lamb to pay for the sin of men, the question of morality arises again and many people object to this blood sacrifice to pay for the sin of other people, etc. (especially considering that way it was incited by unruly hypocritical evil priests.)

It seems like every time the God of the Old Testament enters the picture morality takes a nose dive.

~~~~

I realized early on that there is no question that I am the one who judges God, not the other way around. And this is true of all of us.

You yourself are judging Allah and Islam to either be immoral or simply false. That's your judgement on Allah.

And in precisely the same way you are judging Yahweh and Jesus to have passed your litmus test of approval. So you are the one who has judged the God that you believe in to be worthy of your "faith".

If you know proclaim that you are living your life for this God to satisfy his moral code of ethics, then in the end all you are doing is suggesting that you believe that you have found a code of ethics within a religion that you feel you can personally endorse and place your own personal seal of approval on.

Otherwise you are in big trouble.

If you claim that you are merely behaving according to the Bible in an effort to please this God as a show of faith (as you have just done), then the question that I have bought up becomes important? How would you then live your life if you didn't believe in this God?

What would YOUR code of ethics be if you didn't have this God's ethics upon which to place your personal subjective seal of approval?

And if you claim that your ethics would be the same as this God's even if this God didn't exist then my point has been made. You don't need a God in order to support the ethics that you subjectively approve of. Nor could your behavior be said to be a "show of faith" by behaving as this God supposedly wants you to behave since you would have had these same moral values anyway, even without the God.

So it's useless to say that you are behaving in a way to please a God as a show of faith unless you are indeed proclaiming that you would behave quite differently if you didn't believe in the God.

And if the latter is true, then you are proclaiming to the world that you are indeed an immoral person who is just being moral to please a God.

There are of course, many Christians who do feel this way. They passionately demand that if they knew there was no God they would have no reason to be moral and they would cheat, steal, and take whatever they could before death finally catches up with them.

Actually those types of Christians are more in line with the Biblical thesis since that's precisely what the Bible claims. It claims that without this God everyone would be a horribly immoral sinner who can doeth no good. That's what the Bible actually says.

But ironically many Christians prefer to think that they truly are moral people. But actually this flies in the face with Biblical theology.

In truth every Christian must confess that they are a horribly immoral person. Only then can they be "saved".

[dianaiad]

No, and nothing I wrote means that, either. What your behaving as a good person shows is your faith that your personal code of ethics and morals is the right one to follow.

At least, I hope that it shows this. I hope that you are not behaving according to a code of ethics and morals that you do not think is the right one to follow.

I don't follow a "code of ethics". I just go by what innate feels good to me. And it just happens that what feels good to me coincidentally turns out to be what the overwhelming majority of people agree is "moral".

That IS a 'code of ethics,' DI. It's your code of ethics; 'that which feels right' to you.

Of course not every individual will agree with me. But that just proves that human morality is indeed subjective and not absolute, because not everyone agrees on what constitutes moral behavior.

OK.....you are right. How does that make your own personal set of 'that which is right' rules NOT a 'code of ethics?"

But you have actually opened a very large can of worms here.

Do you agree with the morality taught by Jesus?

If you do, then obviously this is what you consider to be innately moral and there's no need for you to "follow" his code of ethics since you are already in agreement with them. His code of ethics must have already been your code of ethics since you are in agreement with him.

On the other hand, if you disagree with moral code of ethics of Jesus, then why follow them? Why follow a supposed God who you don't even agree with when it comes to moral issues?

So the bottom line is that you are either following something that doesn't sit well with you just to appease some God, or you are in agreement with the moral ethics of this God which means that God has the same views on morality as you do.

In other words, if you approve of your God's ethics, then you are giving this God your own seal of approval on the subject of ethics.

And if you disapprove of your God's ethics then you are following a God that even you believe is unethical.

There is no getting around this conundrum.

False dichotomy.

NOBODY is born with an innate code of ethics; they are all learned, and then chosen. So your choice, above, between my already having a code of ethics that just happens to agree with that of Jesus, or my own personal code of ethics NOT agreeing with that of Jesus, but I follow His because I want the bennies or want to avoid the punishments? Definitely a false dichotomy.

There is also: I learned that code of ethics, it became 'my' code of ethics, and I have also come to see that it is the best code of ethics. Therefore I follow it.

I would hope that people follow whatever code of ethics they do follow because they feel it is the best one. To do otherwise is hypocrisy.

However, to ascribe such hypocrisy to others because they follow a different code than you do is illogical; please try to accept that those who disagree with you, and honestly follow a different code than you do, are indeed sincere believers in that code and not simply following it for nefarious reasons since of course they would HAVE to know that yours was better.

[/quote]...and snip to here:

In truth every Christian must confess that they are a horribly immoral person. Only then can they be "saved".

Some Christians believe this. Not all do. I do wish you would stop defining Christianity for Christians. Since you are not one, you don't get a vote.

In point of fact, salvation is determined only by Jesus Christ, and only He can know if someone is 'saved' or not. Perhaps the one 'saved' can know this, but given the sort of Christian I am, I rather doubt that. Certainly neither you nor I can make any judgments about someone else's 'saved' status.

Not our call. Nor is it our call as to what must be done, in any individual case, to be 'saved.' My own opinion of salvation and what it is, for instance, does not include confessing that I am a horribly immoral person.

It includes the concept of repentance, certainly...that everybody will screw up and that life can, and should be, a constant attempt to improve our characters and repent of former sins, but that takes a little more time and effort than to simply beat my breast, claim that I'm awful and expect Christ to do all the work.

You will think as you will, however, and respond as you wish. I will be interested in seeing if your response reflects a thing that I actually wrote.