Doubt

Originally posted by The Chess Express


[b]Do you know that a person was turned into a pillar of salt?

No, do you?[/b]

Are saying you don't have faith in the biblical account of Lot's wife?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Are saying you don't have faith in the biblical account of Lot's wife?

True faith? How can I? I may believe it, but believing is not knowing.

The scripture is somebody else’s account of something that happened thousands of years ago. This is not proof. Proof comes by direct experience.

What’s important about the story of Lot’s wife is the lesson that may be learned from it.

Originally posted by The Chess Express
True faith? How can I? I may believe it, but believing is not knowing.

The scripture is somebody else’s account of something that happened thousands of years ago. This is not proof. Proof comes by direct experience.

What’s important about the story of Lot’s wife is the lesson that is to be gained from it.

Do you have faith that Jesus died for your sins?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Do you have faith that Jesus died for your sins?

Good question. There are places in scripture that seem to suggest that believing may be enough for this to be true.

If you ask me if I have true faith in this, again, how can I? Jesus sets a very high standard that people (Christians included) break all the time. So how does anybody know if they’re accepted by Jesus?

Rev 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

There are Christians I believe who have directly experienced Jesus. There are many accounts of this. Sadly, I’m not one of them yet. Personally, I believe that if we get close enough to Jesus, Jesus comes to us and we experience him directly. This is faith, and it's a lot better than taking somebody else's word for it.

Originally posted by aspviper666

well i happen to have died a clinical death back in 1978
i had gotten my biracial artery severed in an accident
i nearly bled 8 units they estimated 1/2 my blood was gone.
i died on the op table and was brought back a few minutes later.
i had lived a good xtian life, was full of the spirit, went to church, prayed. tithed, did all i could to be good and not sin. When i did sin i confessed it to god and my pastor.
in spite of this i went to hell. It was a bottomless pit or abyss when i stopped falling i saw a huge flaming skull devouring people.
then i saw a hot dry desert. I told god he was a lair and a cheat and he could go get bent.
the surgeons and doctors revived me i remember then seeing myself in my bed. I never claimed to be an xtain from that day forward

Matt 7:21 "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Jesus)

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Which aspect of your faith do you most frequently doubt?

Expand. Example?

Originally posted by The Chess Express
There are Christians I believe who [b]have directly experienced Jesus. There are many accounts of this. Sadly, I’m not one of them yet. Personally, I believe that if we get close enough to Jesus, Jesus comes to us and we experience him directly. This is faith, and it's a lot better than taking somebody else's word for it.[/b]

What if I told you that I experienced an encounter with Hera or Gilgamesh
or something? What if I insisted to all people that my experience was true
and I have the Truth about the Divine?

What if I said I have experienced Allah or Vishnu?

Nemesio

Originally posted by The Chess Express
There are Christians I believe who [b]have directly experienced Jesus. There are many accounts of this. ... This is faith, and it's a lot better than taking somebody else's word for it.[/b]

It sounds like you are taking other peoples' accounts about their experience
with Jesus.

Or did I misunderstand you?

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
It sounds like you are taking other peoples' accounts about their experience
with Jesus.

Or did I misunderstand you?

Nemesio

It may have sounded like that, but that was not my intention. I don't consider other peoples accounts of Jesus to be proof for me.

Those who experience God, prove God to themselves. This is the point, to experience God for yourself. Other peoples personal experiences with God can only encourage us.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Expand. Example?

For example, one might have faith that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and by virtue of that, the things that it asserts are true.

One may also be led down paths of doubt regarding particular biblical accounts that are incompatible with knowledge external to one's faith, such as the Jericho account being incompatible with the truths of cosmology.

Thus, while one may have faith in the Bible, the truth of the Jericho account is one aspect of that faith that one may periodically doubt as one contemplates it from various perspectives.

My question is, which such aspect do you doubt most frequently? Maybe it's the Jericho account, or the existence of eternal damnation, or the existence of angels and demons, or the infallibility of the Pope.

Does the Catholic Church teach that faith and knowledge are equivalent, or is this an idea unique to Chess Express?

I have always seen doubt as an estimate of one's lack of certainty in one's faith. Faith necessarily entails a lack of certainty, and thus entails some doubt.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Does the Catholic Church teach that faith and knowledge are equivalent, or is this an idea unique to Chess Express?

I've found that too many churches push the idea of blind faith. Pray, pay and obey...

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
I can't wait to see the look on ivanhoe's face when myself and the rest of the Wolfpack get there.

I want everybody to go to heaven. I want everybody to have eternal happiness.

..... but as I've mentioned earlier this is not for me to decide.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Does the Catholic Church teach that faith and knowledge are equivalent, or is this an idea unique to Chess Express?

I have always seen doubt as an estimate of one's lack of certainty in one's faith. Faith necessarily entails a lack of certainty, and thus entails some doubt.

Hopefully bbarr can back me up or correct me, but I believe it is the case that epistemologists use the term knowledge in such a way that only true things can be known.

One might have faith that a unicorn lives in his toilet regardless of whether that is in fact the case, but one cannot know that a unicorn lives in his toilet unless it is the case that a unicorn does live in his toilet. One cannot know something that is not the case, by definition of knowledge.

Thus, if Father John has faith that Jesus is the Son of God, and Rabbi Shekelmeister has faith that Jesus is not the Son of God, then faith cannot be a sort of knowledge, for only one of those two can be the case, and it is a misuse of the the term knowlege to say that both Father John knows that Jesus is the Son of God, and Rabbi Shekelmeister knows that Jesus is not the Son of God. Hence, faith must be a different sort of thing than knowledge.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Hopefull bbarr can back me up, but I believe it is the case that epistemologists use the term knowledge in such a way that only
true things can be known.

Thus, if Father John has faith that Jesus is the Son of God, and Rabbi Shekelmeister has faith that Jesus is not the Son of God, then faith cannot be knowledge, for only one of those two can be the case.

I would argue that these sorts of contradictions are the product of blind faith. If they both had true faith, they wouldn’t disagree.

Many people use the word faith in different ways. Faith for example is typically used to mean a persons religion.

According to scripture though, faith means the proof of things unseen.