Recently someone said, when discussing knowledge, "It would have been much easier, less painful, to know by listening to God and by letting him explain it." Outside of God never explaining much of anything, it got my mind wondering if faith, itself, equates to (at least partial) lack of knowledge or the need to understand more.
A few things people don't know but accept by faith:
how God came to be
what God is
how God forgives
what lies beyond the reached of our universe
how God created all things - even things we don't know about yet
how can all of the earth save for one family be guilty enough to drown in a flood (even babies that were just being born - as it's a good assumptions that this was happening without the bible specifying)
why animals need to suffer for what people did and be drowned in the flood
The list can continue but this one is what I want to discuss:
Why did God not want Adam and Eve to eat from the knowledge of good and evil?
Christians say God doesn't want robots, but when Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they weren't acting like robots, but pure individuals. Yet, they (the story goes) condemned mankind for wanting to know the knowledge the tree held.
People could counter by saying they simple wanted to disobey God - they would have eaten from any tree - but because the bible points to this particular tree and its title or name, I don't believe it was simple rebellion.
God doesn't seem to want us to know more as outlined by this story of the tree, but he does want faith. So it seems, at least in part, God doesn't want us to know certain things and rely almost strictly on faith in him.
If that doesn't sound like robots.....
So what did that tree hold, exactly, that God didn't want them to know?
Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #181Not faith as described in scripture, it isn,'t.
Biblical faith is believing in realities that we cannot at present see, based on the evidence that we can.
A genuine search for knowlege is looking for something that we at present do not have (see) and is based on the belief that finding is indeed possible. Indeed true scientific enquiry and invention is based on a similar belief that what is presently impossible can be done.
I think of the planets that have been discovered because the data pointed to them being there.
Biblical faith is simply taking knowledge and using it to take the next step.
JW
Did eating the fruit from the tree affect Adam and Eve's thinking?
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #182I can accept that there are times when the mind appears to come into contact with something real through an experience. Our definitions of faith are probably different here. Having had an experience then I would say that you need faith merely to accept a particular experience as a reality. It is only by faith that one can assume that our minds can actually think and perceive reality. Also assume that you have 5 different experiences of frogs and in each experience the frog is green. One might think that it is true that all frogs are green but one can only do this by faith. If one had an experience of a frog which is not green then one would abandon one's belief that all frogs are green but until that happens than one can keep believing (having faith) that all frogs are green. It is not possible to prove that all frogs are green since one would need to check every frog in the universe which is impossible, at least to be sure that have found them all.William wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:42 pmNo of course not. This is because things are not ideas. Things are facts of matter.chriss wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 11:59 amActually, I think we may agree on this. My argument is that everything else apart from our consciousness has to be believed by faith. I am not sure whether you agree with that?William wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 11:18 am [Replying to chriss in post #172]
Well if "consciousness" can be referred to as a "thing" then that would be the example I would give to answer your question. It is certainly real though.If belief is irrelevant to determining reality, how can we determine what reality is? Please give an example of something that is real which is independent of one's belief that it is real.
So yes - "Consciousness" is how we determine what reality is, and in that we can only determine for sure, that the only "thing" which can be determined as real is Consciousness.
Ideas are things which don't exist anywhere except in ones mind and the mind itself is not a thing but still interacts with that which is a thing...namely brains.
We know ideas exist because we consciouly experience them existing. But they don't exist as tangible until they are transferred into matter. Then we can study them as concepts and see if the concepts we come up with are real/realistic and go from there.
In any case I think that anything that consciousness experiences is what determines experience as being real and in that, faith is not required as far as I can tell - unless it has to do with concepts.
Also there is the element of alternate experience (such as oobe) in which consciouness experiences as real (and in many reported cases even "more real" than this physical reality" ) ...( and other than perhaps calling on higher powers to protect one while one is having said experience which is personal preference rather than standard requirement) but in all cases faith is not of any necessity in realtion to anything one experiences. We can experience realitie(s) without invoking faith to do so.
Where faith appears to be important might be in regard to how the one who has experienced alternate reality(s) decides to interpret their experience while having it and also when reporting it and whether those who read the report decide to accept the report as being true. Faith is then activated.
For me, when I say that I have faith in God, it is more complicated involving a comparison of things which support belief in God against things which support believing there is no God, then choosing whether on balance I believe that God exists. Here I am exercising faith in my own judgement.
On the main question about whether having faith means not seeking knowledge, I still come out strongly against that idea. The more knowledge that one has the better one can make decisions as to what is true and false, right and wrong.
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #183[Replying to chriss in post #172]
[The experience might have to do with ones beliefs in that it unfolds as one believes it should - but while faith and belief might be in the same category - one does not require faith either in order to experience something, or to record that experience .
1: All the frogs one has experienced have been green.
2: A yellow frog was then experienced
Rather than assume things about the experience, just accept the experience as it reveals itself to you.
I would say in relation to "God" (and assuming you mean Christian ideas about The Creator) you are exercising faith in other peoples mythologies and judging them acceptable to your understanding. Acceptable to place faith in.
I myself have examined the Middle Eastern ideas of gods and found those ideas unacceptable to my understanding, and potentailly dangerous to place faith in.
Whereas, the process of science which also deals with partial knowledge regarding the physical, can make statements about that partial knowledge but does not rely on faith and within the process allows for the fact that more information will bring changes to the current understanding of the physical.
Faith on the other hand, makes no such allowances, so is more a device to retard/hide knowledge than it is a device to bring fuller knowledge out into the light.
I don't think faith is necessary in order to accept an experience as a reality. That makes no sense to me. Rather, one might require faith if one is conflicted in regard to devil/god ideas, wherein the experience had, one believes on faith to being from 'god' rather than 'devil' [and visa versa I suppose] but the experience itself did not require ones faith to have happen.I can accept that there are times when the mind appears to come into contact with something real through an experience. Our definitions of faith are probably different here. Having had an experience then I would say that you need faith merely to accept a particular experience as a reality.
[The experience might have to do with ones beliefs in that it unfolds as one believes it should - but while faith and belief might be in the same category - one does not require faith either in order to experience something, or to record that experience .
No. It is only through conscious awareness that one can think and perceive reality. In relation to the physical reality of being human, it also requires a physical form.It is only by faith that one can assume that our minds can actually think and perceive reality.
Which goes to show how limiting faith makes things. Even if in each experience the frog is green, why would you care to assume by that "all frogs must be green"?Also assume that you have 5 different experiences of frogs and in each experience the frog is green. One might think that it is true that all frogs are green but one can only do this by faith.
Personally I understand such type of thinking as wasteful. There was no reasonable reason to believe/assume anything. It is better just to accept that;If one had an experience of a frog which is not green then one would abandon one's belief that all frogs are green but until that happens than one can keep believing (having faith) that all frogs are green.
1: All the frogs one has experienced have been green.
2: A yellow frog was then experienced
Rather than assume things about the experience, just accept the experience as it reveals itself to you.
It is not necessary to assume all frogs are green in the first place. Even if you have only ever experienced green frogs.It is not possible to prove that all frogs are green since one would need to check every frog in the universe which is impossible, at least to be sure that have found them all.
For me, when I say that I have faith in God, it is more complicated involving a comparison of things which support belief in God against things which support believing there is no God, then choosing whether on balance I believe that God exists. Here I am exercising faith in my own judgement.
I would say in relation to "God" (and assuming you mean Christian ideas about The Creator) you are exercising faith in other peoples mythologies and judging them acceptable to your understanding. Acceptable to place faith in.
I myself have examined the Middle Eastern ideas of gods and found those ideas unacceptable to my understanding, and potentailly dangerous to place faith in.
I tend to agree. Faith does not prevent someone from seeking knowledge. What it does - I have observed - is dictate what knowledge one will accept and what knowledge one will reject.On the main question about whether having faith means not seeking knowledge, I still come out strongly against that idea.
It can work that way, but what is to say ones knowledge is correct on those subjects? So you are really arguing that one requires faith to believe that the partial knowledge one has, is correct.The more knowledge that one has the better one can make decisions as to what is true and false, right and wrong.
Whereas, the process of science which also deals with partial knowledge regarding the physical, can make statements about that partial knowledge but does not rely on faith and within the process allows for the fact that more information will bring changes to the current understanding of the physical.
Faith on the other hand, makes no such allowances, so is more a device to retard/hide knowledge than it is a device to bring fuller knowledge out into the light.
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #184Faith is a mechanism that is required to believe in things that are false.chriss wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 8:33 amI have joined theis discussion at the end and I have not really dealt with the original question above. Having faith cannot mean not seeking knowledge since faith is an essential requirement in the search for knowledge. I am here not talking about faith in the Bible though I do have that. I am talking about faith in a more general sense. I would include the following in the list of things I have faith in:nobspeople wrote: ↑Thu Dec 17, 2020 11:30 am Recently someone said, when discussing knowledge, "It would have been much easier, less painful, to know by listening to God and by letting him explain it." Outside of God never explaining much of anything, it got my mind wondering if faith, itself, equates to (at least partial) lack of knowledge or the need to understand more.
A few things people don't know but accept by faith:
how God came to be
what God is
how God forgives
what lies beyond the reached of our universe
how God created all things - even things we don't know about yet
how can all of the earth save for one family be guilty enough to drown in a flood (even babies that were just being born - as it's a good assumptions that this was happening without the bible specifying)
why animals need to suffer for what people did and be drowned in the flood
The list can continue but this one is what I want to discuss:
Why did God not want Adam and Eve to eat from the knowledge of good and evil?
Christians say God doesn't want robots, but when Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they weren't acting like robots, but pure individuals. Yet, they (the story goes) condemned mankind for wanting to know the knowledge the tree held.
People could counter by saying they simple wanted to disobey God - they would have eaten from any tree - but because the bible points to this particular tree and its title or name, I don't believe it was simple rebellion.
God doesn't seem to want us to know more as outlined by this story of the tree, but he does want faith. So it seems, at least in part, God doesn't want us to know certain things and rely almost strictly on faith in him.
If that doesn't sound like robots.....
So what did that tree hold, exactly, that God didn't want them to know?
I can think.
The laws of classical logic are valid.
Other people exist.
The earth exists.
There is an absolute truth though it is not possible to be certain we have attained it.
Scientists have a good idea about how the laws governing the earth work and are fairly trustworthy in that area.
Certain writers of religious, philosophical and historical works seem to me to have good ideas regarding the way human beings should live their lives. For me, the Bible is prominent here.
My own internal sense of what is right and wrong is valuable.
God wants us to seek knowledge in all its forms.
The questions about Adam and Eve are admittedly difficult. What God, Adam and Eve wanted are lost in the midst of time. It is difficult to determine what any individual might want, let alone God or people in a totally different situation from us.
Want to believe in Big Foot? Faith.
Nessy? Faith.
Allah? Faith.
Yahweh? Faith.
You don't actually have 'faith' that other people exist like you think you do. You have knowledge that people exist, therefore no faith is required.
Believing in unicorns or Jesus does require faith, that thing that is needed in order to believe in something false ironically.
Sure unicorns could be real and your faith belief could allow you to arrive at that conclusion, but to think that faith is a reliable mechanism for arriving at the truth of a claim is folly.
You can give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, or you can teach a man to pray for fish and he will starve to death.
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #185To the bold, it seems as though you are trusting yourself and you have done so by giving yourself the authority of a god ('I trust in my conclusions because I trust in him' is assigning the authority to yourself). No god of any sort has been shown to be involved if we are being honest.chriss wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:57 pmI can make guesses but I cannot claim to know why God made Adam and Eve rather than not making them. I personally am glad he chose to do that or we would not have existed.nobspeople wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 11:13 am [Replying to chriss in post #173]
Thanks for the input.I find that a difficulty. Why? Because, if it's included in the bible, it must be pertinent; it must be valuable. If it is, indeed, lost in the midst of time, why even include it at all? And what else in the bible is 'lost in the midst of time'? This idea of things 'being lost', if true, is problematic for both the bible and God. If God can't keep valuable ideas and their reasoning valid, God's not worth my time, at the very least. That's not 'god-like' to me. I suppose to some it's fine, however.What God, Adam and Eve wanted are lost in the midst of time.Perhaps, but not for God I'd wager.It is difficult to determine what any individual might want, let alone God or people in a totally different situation from us.
I am undecided whether the events in the Garden of Eden literally happened or whether it was a simpliified version which the hearers would be able to understand. My view is that God wanted people to do only good to each other but people, realising that they had been given a choice, chose to do evil to each other. The overall message of the Bible is, in my view, that God has made this world temporary by introducing death so that it can be followed by a world which is inhabited only by people who will only do good things to each other. The future world appears in every Christian creed and is in my view an essential belief for every Christian.
However, I repeat, that i am only guessing the mind of God. My guess is based upon my interpretation of information in the Bible. God has not told me directly what he is doing and why he is doing it. Also I do not believe that the Bible tells us what God was thinking when he made Adam and Eve. It only tells us what he did, not why he did it. I do believe that God knows what he is doing but I am afraid that I, in the main, do not really know. I have decided to trust him though.
You can give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, or you can teach a man to pray for fish and he will starve to death.
I blame man for codifying those rules into a book which allowed superstitious people to perpetuate a barbaric practice. Rules that must be followed or face an invisible beings wrath. - KenRU
It is sad that in an age of freedom some people are enslaved by the nomads of old. - Marco
If you are unable to demonstrate that what you believe is true and you absolve yourself of the burden of proof, then what is the purpose of your arguments? - brunumb
I blame man for codifying those rules into a book which allowed superstitious people to perpetuate a barbaric practice. Rules that must be followed or face an invisible beings wrath. - KenRU
It is sad that in an age of freedom some people are enslaved by the nomads of old. - Marco
If you are unable to demonstrate that what you believe is true and you absolve yourself of the burden of proof, then what is the purpose of your arguments? - brunumb
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #186Arguably trusting someone as the final authotity in what to believe, makes them your God. If that someone is yourself, you still have "a god".Clownboat wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 2:31 pm
To the bold, it seems as though you are trusting yourself and you have done so by giving yourself the authority of a god ('I trust in my conclusions because I trust in him' is assigning the authority to yourself). No god of any sort has been shown to be involved if we are being honest.
JW
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"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681
"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #187If this is true, then you are your own god. You trust yourself as the final authority to decide what to believe. You've used your authority to believe what the JWs teach about God, life, etc. So you have two gods. Yourself first as the chief authority of what to believe and the JW's version of God as the second, the object of belief rather than authority on what to believe.JehovahsWitness wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 4:24 pmArguably trusting someone as the final authotity in what to believe, makes them your God. If that someone is yourself, you still have "a god".Clownboat wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 2:31 pm
To the bold, it seems as though you are trusting yourself and you have done so by giving yourself the authority of a god ('I trust in my conclusions because I trust in him' is assigning the authority to yourself). No god of any sort has been shown to be involved if we are being honest.
JW
Either that or your above explanation is flawed.
Tcg
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I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
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I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #188Unless you are employing your mind reading abilities, I cannot see how you can tell me who or what I trust as the final authotity as to what to believe. But yes, many people I have spoken to do indeed tell me they trust themselves as the final authority in this area, arguably making themselves their "god".
JW
Last edited by JehovahsWitness on Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681
"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #189No mind reading needed. I'm applying the same logic you have above. Of course, as I have admitted that explanation may be flawed in which case my conclusion based on it would also be flawed.JehovahsWitness wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:00 pmTcg wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 4:51 pmIf this is true, then you are your own god. You trust yourself as the final authority to decide what to believe. You've used your authority to believe what the JWs teach about God, life, etc. So you have two gods. Yourself first as the chief authority of what to believe and the JW's version of God as the second, the object of belief rather than authority on what to believe.JehovahsWitness wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 4:24 pmArguably trusting someone as the final authotity in what to believe, makes them your God. If that someone is yourself, you still have "a god".Clownboat wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 2:31 pm
To the bold, it seems as though you are trusting yourself and you have done so by giving yourself the authority of a god ('I trust in my conclusions because I trust in him' is assigning the authority to yourself). No god of any sort has been shown to be involved if we are being honest.
JW
Either that or your above explanation is flawed.
Tcg
Unless you are employing your mind reading abilities, I cannot see how you can tell me who or what I trust as the final authotity in what to believe.
JW
Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.
- American Atheists
Not believing isn't the same as believing not.
- wiploc
I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
- Irvin D. Yalom
- American Atheists
Not believing isn't the same as believing not.
- wiploc
I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
- Irvin D. Yalom
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Re: Does having faith mean not seeking knowledge?
Post #190Fair enough. You can usually minimize your explanations being flawed by asking for rather than assuming the needed information for your premise.
JW
INDEX: More bible based ANSWERS
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"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681
"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8