"Because when it comes to faith, everybody has it. People often tell me they could never have faith, that it is just too hard. The idea that some people have faith and others don't is a popular one. But it is not a true one Everybody has faith. Everybody is following somebody." -- Rob Bell,
Velvet Elvis
I typed up that quote a year and a half ago. I don't remember why I never posted it, but I just checked my drafts "folder" and found it there and figured I'd post it now.
So what do you think? Does everyone have faith (even if it's just in themselves)?
oh, so that's why I've got a new post in my inbox showing as "posted 1 year ago" :)
ReplyDeleteokay, my instinct was to say sure everyone has faith in some stuff, but I'll qualify it and say many people do and I suspect everyone does but I don't think I have evidence to back that up. but many do, people put their faith in lots of things, not just in somebody. people put their faith in a gadget, in medication, in rituals, in lucky charms, in their own strengths, in their grandmothers' sayings... all sorts of things.
yes
ReplyDeleteself is god to many
which isn't the same as normal and necessary confidence to live and act
Depends on the meaning of "faith".
ReplyDeleteIf, by faith, they mean "expectation based on experience", then yes, everybody has faith. Otherwise, life would be full of constant anxiety.
However, if, by faith, they mean "belief in some thing that is unprovable", then I would say no, not everybody has faith. There are plenty who see that as unacceptably irrational and who reject it.
I come from a family where everyone has served in the services, in one branch or another, and the saying goes... "No one is an athiest when trapped down in a fox hole"... in other words when Shhh hits that fan, even those that think they believe in nothing will find themselves talking to the invisabl man in the sky (George Carlin thing). ~*Smiles*~
ReplyDeleteI personally think that we have to believe in "something" regardless of what it is... believe! Helps keep us sane...
i think in this context i'd assume the word meant something like, "putting trust in someone or something to be reliable as well as being a source of value." so, for example, i dated a guy for a couple years who put his trust in sports. it was always available for him to pour his life into (either as a coach or to watch on television or at a stadium). he could rely on it to fill a need in his life. when all else failed, sports was there. when things were going well, sports was there. and he found value in himself and his life through his interaction with various sports. his role as a coach was a key point of his identity.
ReplyDeletei've known at least one pastor that is this way as well (about sports). if there was a big game on, he'd stay after the service to shake hands with people, but not for long. and he often referred back to the days when he was in better shape and was active in weight lifting and other physical exercises. it was a big part of who he was.
But, is that "faith"? Or is that a hobby, distraction or pastime (or obsession)? For example, I'm that way regarding programming but I wouldn't ever consider that "faith".
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you mean by "value" in that first sentence? Do you mean to "derive pleasure" when you say "source of value"?
George Carlin said this? I can't find a reference to him every saying that, and find it hard to believe he would say it, since he was an atheist, unless he were being ironic or sarcastic.
ReplyDeleteno. value is more like a feeling of worth. a good example of this is the reaction of men to the super bowl. the greatest incidence of wife beating occurs after the super bowl -- from those who were supporting the losing team. since their value is derived from the sport, and the team they identified most closely with lost, then they feel that they have lost value, they become angry and they beat up their wives. But, is that "faith"? Or is that a hobby, distraction or pastime (or obsession)?an obsession makes it very clear what someone has put their faith in. (i think some people are so obsessed with evangelism, for example, that their faith is obviously in their own performance and number of "wins" rather than in the God that they claim they're evangelizing people to.) but i don't think you have to "obsess" over something to be gaining your value from it.
ReplyDeletei feel like some of my value comes in helping people on this site. and when they call me names instead of appreciating that, it hurts. so to some extent i have "faith" in helping people. the question is, what do i have my greatest faith in, i suppose. do i live off of that? can i turn to it in times of trouble and find solace and encouragement. is it something solid that will always be there for me?
i think the question is getting at that thing that we put our greatest trust/faith in. when all else fails, what is there for us? i have a friend that, when she's at her bottom, she turns to alcohol. but it doesn't have to be a "just when you're at your bottom" sort of thing. what gets us through from day to day? what makes life worth living?
this page attributes a couple different quotes to him that refer to "invisible man" and "invisible man in the sky."
ReplyDeleteyes, that's how I define faith
ReplyDeleteeither in God
or others
or knowledge
or self
Right, and those are the types of sarcastic comments I meant. He (TMK) never said that atheists actually acquire faith, or that all people have faith in gods when they're in trouble.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not what I would think of as "faith", so I'm kind of lost in how you're connecting this value to the act of having faith. There are some dots you need to connect for me here. ;)
ReplyDeleteread the bit she wrote before 'value'
ReplyDeletei.e. the trust bit
which I quoted
that is the dots :)
I read that, and it doesn't bring it together with the bit about value. Hence, that's what needs to have the dots connected: how is something that you trust AND something from which you derive value equate to the personal property of having faith?
ReplyDeleteI would accept the first part as possibly being "faith" in that, as I mentioned, either from past experience or in irrational acceptance, you trust it to perform in some pre-conceived or promised way. But the value part doesn't go with that, IMO.
are you saying that i was being sarcastic?
ReplyDeletei think you might have misread growedup's statement:
"I come from a family where everyone has served in the services, in one branch or another, and the saying goes... "No one is an athiest when trapped down in a fox hole"... [the quote about being an atheist has been clearly tied to a saying within growedup's family and within the military. i don't know that any of us could provide a link to prove that this is a saying is used in growedup's family, but i have heard the term used by military people as well as by those referring to situations in which military people have been put. you can certainly argue about whether it's a true statement or not. but i still think it's fair to say that people use this statement.] in other words when Shhh hits that fan, even those that think they believe in nothing will find themselves talking to the invisabl man in the sky (George Carlin thing). [i provided a link that does attribute the reference to God as being an "invisible man in the sky" to George Carlin. you can continue to debate whether or not George Carlin actually used the term, but i don't know that there would be any value in doing so.]~*Smiles*~"
maybe it would help, D, if you gave your definition of faith and we can compare the two, rather than me trying to fill in holes when i'm not quite sure where they are. (or maybe it's just so self-evident to me that i'm not sure how to fill them in.)
ReplyDeleteOh, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.... ;)
ReplyDeleteBut, you're right, I may have misread his statement in that I thought he was attributing the whole quoted piece to George Carlin. If I'm wrong, then I apologize.
I thought I did define both the religious and secular usage with:
ReplyDeleteDepends on the meaning of "faith".
If, by faith, they mean "expectation based on experience", then yes, everybody has faith. Otherwise, life would be full of constant anxiety.
However, if, by faith, they mean "belief in some thing that is unprovable", then I would say no, not everybody has faith. There are plenty who see that as unacceptably irrational and who reject it.
hmmm, i think that "expectation based on experience" is something that strengthens faith and may be called that. but i don't think that it's the heart of faith. it's just an extension or strengthening of it.
ReplyDelete"belief in something that is unprovable" -- yup, that's definitely one definition of faith and one component of the faith that i'm talking about. but there's a lot more richness and depth to the term than just that. there's a reciprocal value involved. i also think you can have faith in things that are provable. which means that the faith really has more to do with the "having" than with the object. that's how it sits in my mind, at least.
Sure, experience can reinforce faith in the first definition in that nothing has been experienced to tear it down. For example, the old saw of having faith in the sun rising in the morning is "faith" in that the sun has no risen yet and, since there's never been a time when it hasn't, you full trust in it rising.
ReplyDeleteBut, if you have a car that's experiencing infrequent engine trouble, you might lack faith in it starting when you get in and turn the key in the ignition. Or if you have an unreliable coworker then you might not have faith in his ability to complete his job.
So while experience may not be the core aspect of rational faith in that regard, it's still an aspect of it; i.e., experience is a direct factor in faith though it is not what defines it.
The difference between the experience (which is what proves the rational form of faith) and unprovable is that you can never prove the latter. Once you've proven it then it moves from being irrational (not based on reason) to rational (based on reason by way of experience).
As for faith being more about the one holding the faith than the object of the faith, I agree there. One might have faith in something or someone unreliable since they might not have experienced that unreliability. Or they might lack faith in what is proven to others since, again, they might have a different experience. And the irrational faith element is something that most realists find incomprehensible.
so when hurley follows jack even when he has his doubts due to past experience, that's not faith?
ReplyDelete(edited after Meg pointed out what I missed)
ReplyDeleteSure it is: one negative experience (ed.) does not mean faith is gone. One can choose to overlook the negative experiences, or give the positive ones more weight.
did you mean to say that one negative experience Doesn't mean faith is gone? that's what the rest of your comment would lead me to think you meant.
ReplyDeleteYes. Stupid keyboard, dropping my letters again... ;)
ReplyDeletedo you think hurley only had one negative experience? how many negative experiences does a person have to have before they've passed from having "expectations based on experience" into not just "belief in some thing that is unprovable" but "belief in something that has been proved to not be trustworthy"?
ReplyDeletealso, as i typed in the "expectations based on experience" part i realized that you can have a lot of bad experiences which would lead to bad expectations. would you say that acting upon those bad expectations is an example of faith as well? would this be a negative sense of faith or is faith always a positive belief in or opinion of something?
I think it would be highly personal/contextual as to how many bad experiences lead to a loss of faith in some thing. And experience is a proof, so once there's objective experience one way or another then the "unprovable" has been proven, isn't it? I throw the "objective" qualifier on there to eliminate those cases where someone uses faulty logic to support their assertion; i.e., to avoid "it happened after I did X so X is now proven" (post hoc ergo proptor hoc argument) type of arguments.
ReplyDeletewell, that leads into the last question i asked. does it become loss of faith? or does the experience lead to a "negative" faith. instead of, "i follow jack because i believe in him" you'd get "i don't follow jack because i believe it would be bad." i'm confusing belief and faith here. but the idea is the same. you can have faith that something will behave as expected due to past experiences -- that doesn't mean it will behave in such a way that you would choose to follow it. it could behave in such a way that you would actively choose to not follow it. it's not a "lack of faith" idea but a "faith against" idea.
ReplyDeleteand back to my previous mention of value ascribed due to faith. i still maintain that what we choose to believe (whether it's "faith for" or "faith against") defines us in a way that gives us a sense of the value of ourselves. (and i think i'd say that "faith against" is also a "faith for" something else. hurley might come to a point where he has faith against jack, but that means he's putting his faith either generally in un-jack or more specifically in john. ... or someone. maybe just himself. he seems to be relying more on himself when he refuses to fly again. but then he caves to jacob. hurley seems to have a general faith in people. ... ok, this is a huge tangent.)
Good question.
ReplyDeleteI'd say it transforms the faith. As with the example of a car, rather than faith in it starting, it turns into lack of faith in the car starting, which is effectively faith in the car not starting or the car dying.
Faith springs from belief (you have faith in what you believe or hold to be true, such as "well maintained cars start when you put the key in them"), and belief is rooted in your world view (how you expect the world to behave). So I don't think you're confusing the two here: you're just considering the bigger picture than just one or the other.
As for the value thing, I don't think where we place our faith (at least the rational faith) necessarily plays a role in how we come to value ourselves. Or, at least for me, my self value is not related to my world view or how I expect the world to behave. I think, if anything, it might play a role in how we value other people or things in the world. IOW, if we don't have faith that things are going to be consistent, then we might be less capable of knowing the true value (i.e., worth or consequences) of our own actions. And, in a chain of causes and effects, that might result in a lower self value. But, like the PHEPH fallacy I mentioned before, there's not a direct link that says your self value comes from your applied faith.
mcpierce
ReplyDeletei asked you to consider Megs words about trust [i.e. we trst something we value, to summarise my understanding of what she wrote, originally]
e.g. when you sit on a chair you have faith [i.e. trust in it] that it won't collapse [usually, unless you have had opposite experience that has made you nervy or paranoid :)]
i.e. you place value on, and in, the chair as you have learned by experience that it will support you
And I did, and I guess the problem is that I don't use the term "value" in quite the way you're using it here. What you're calling "value" here is "faith".
ReplyDeleteOr, think of it this way: you put faith in some thing, but you get value out of some thing. So, while you may value things differently based (in part) on how much faith you have in them living up to expectations, value and faith are still separate things.
BTW, your screen name gives me a smile. Our cat's name is "Smudge" and she's sitting on the bed next to my desk while I'm reading this. So I keep picturing the cat running off, typing on my wife's laptop, then coming back here to see my response. :)
lol! since i think what you have the greatest faith in is yourself, it makes sense that you don't find your value in outside sources. ;-)
ReplyDeletecats are crafty like that. :-D
ReplyDeletei'm on my way out the door to check on a car fire down town -- http://www.noco5.com/story.aspx?ID=893&Cat=2
ReplyDeletebut i want to get back to the value vs. faith question when i get back.
I'm the only person whose reactions I can most accurately predict in most situations. Though I think Christene's getting better at that as time passes... :)
ReplyDeleteIs there still something going on 5 hours later?
ReplyDeleteI went to the news's homepage and saw this:
Bryant Gets 36 Years in Hiney Murder
Yeah, I know it's a murder story. But I couldn't not chuckle over "Hiney"...
christene is, and probably always has been, better at reading you than you realize. ;-) that woman can peg you at 100 yards.
ReplyDelete(and i'm still here only because marshmallow crawled into my lap and fell asleep and i don't have the heart to dislodge her, burning car be damned!)
It's still burning? Man, are they doing the fire brigade bucket line or something?
ReplyDeletei didn't even look at the time. but this is fort collins. things move slow here. (a building that they were announced as tearing down several weeks ago is still mostly standing. i went over the first few days to take photos of them tearing it down only to give up when i realized that they're mostly just standing around the building talking about tearing it down.)
ReplyDeleteit might just be a burned out hulk by now. but i want to peek into starry night and bisetti's and see how they're looking. you know. snooping. and people watching. and that feeling of being a part of it all.
ReplyDeleteWell, a building's like a fine cheese I guess. You don't want to tear it down all at once. You gotta savor every brick as you go.
ReplyDeleteThere was some big fire here this morning as well. When I came home from dropping Caleb off at school (I've been home sick for two days but still took him in) there were fire trucks racing up 55, forcing me to move into an intersection to get out of their way.
The blurb I saw on the website said that the car owner went in and destroyed part of the Bisetti's storefront, or did I misread that? (edit) It was the other shop that was left "partially destroyed".
ReplyDeleteyou jinxed it, D! they'd already towed the car away.
ReplyDeleteyeah, i think it was starry night (a cafe) that he trashed. i didn't go in.
there was machinery at work at the site they're tearing down, though. that's a good sign.
Ah, so you have FAITH that, if I mention something then I'm jinxing it? :)
ReplyDeletejust caught up on this whole thread at once, faith, value, burning buildings and marshmallow all in one go... makes an interesting read :)
ReplyDeletenow, about the faith and value thing, it's tricky, what with words being the slippery things they are, but here's how I see it:
if I put my faith in X, that means I rely on X to perform whatever function it is that is relevant to X (e.g. I put my trust in a chair to perform the chair-type function that it normally does, i.e. to stay put underneath my butt. or I put my trust in the sun to do the sun-type function that it normally does, i.e. to rise in the east tomorrow morning and possibly shed some light on the world [possibly - this is England, you know])
it's likely that I place certain value on whatever it is that I put my faith in - if I regard something as reliable then it has value for me.
but meg brought in another issue: things we gain our sense of value from. if I put my faith in the chair to stay put under my weight, that has no bearing on my own sense of value.
but if I rely on Y to provide me with the sense of my own value (which is something human beings need), then I am also putting my faith in Y for this function. So there are some things that answer to both descriptions, some things for which it is true that we put our faith in them and also derive a sense of our own value from them, but there are also things that answer to only the faith bit but not the sense-of-own-value bit.
some examples that sort of thing that spring to mind:
ReplyDeleteJoe feels he is worth something as long as he keeps his job.
Sarah feels she is worth something if she is good mother.
James feels he is worth something because he's good looking.
Gill feels she will only ever have value if she gets a university degree.
George feels he is of value because of his amazing cooking skills.
etc etc etc
no, that was knowledge, not faith.
ReplyDeletethis is good. i need to think on it a bit, though.
ReplyDeleteit could be that some people don't take value from their chair and others do. (well, sports would fit better there. though, if your chair is a throne, that might work.) but some things probably lend themselves toward assigning value in return (having a kid gives you a value as a parent -- whether good or bad) .
good examples.
ReplyDeletein San Francisco you have value if:
1) you graduated from Stanford.
2) you have a fancy title at work.
3) you make lots of money at work.
4) you have a mental illness and see a shrink regularly.
ROFL at no.4 :)
ReplyDeletethat was probably the most important one until about 1998 or 99 when the dot com boom was happening. then suddenly 1 - 3 became more important.
ReplyDeletein a typical Jewish family you have value if:
ReplyDelete1) you've got a degree (the more the merrier)
2) you've got a good stable job (esp. doctor/accountant/lawyer, or dentist at a push)
3) you're a woman and you've married someone who answers 1 and 2 above and you've got children and your children answer to the above...
ok, i've got a post written on the intersection of faith and value. i need to proof it and maybe look for a picture of a crazy cat to add to it. (isn't every post better when a picture of a crazy cat has been added?) then i'll post.
ReplyDeletebut first i'm off to pick up the girls from their strings class.
I guessed that
ReplyDeletewhich is why I previously referred you to Meg's earlier words before that,
as context is important
no
ReplyDeletehuh?
sorry
have to give up now lol
am on GMT time
but of course. old chinese saying: crazy cat make good post.
ReplyDeleteunlike some people that you would think would be on GMT whilst living in that time zone. ;-)
ReplyDeletecan't imagine who you could possibly mean :)
ReplyDelete(if I was a cat, I'd go wash my face now...)
(and yes, I noticed the "st"... rofl)
ReplyDeletelol!
ReplyDeleteTouche.
ReplyDeleteYou may not have meant it, but take a second look at what you wrote, and substitute the word "faith" for "value" in your sentence. It changes nothing in the statement.
ReplyDelete(ed: snipped rest of the post)
dang, D. back it up a notch. it's one thing to have a lively discussion. but this is kind of over the top.
ReplyDeletehttp://dandelionwine.multiply.com/journal/item/77/The_Intersection_of_Faith_and_Being_Valued
ReplyDeleteSorry, didn't mean to push it.
ReplyDeletes'alright. just don't want people to stop chatting because they're afraid the dictionary's going to be thrown at them. ;-)
ReplyDeleteEven if it's an Oxford pocket size? :)
ReplyDelete