I was wondering,how many of us actually test our faith? Or do we follow it blindly? Personally,I feel if they test us then we have every right to test them back.See how they respond (and if they do) Sometimes Blind Faith is worse then no faith at all. I ask things of my Gods every once in a while ,not all the time since that would be a crutch in depending on them too much.

Oh I'm with you a 100% on this one. I definately test my faith. Once upon a time I used to follow blindly, but no more.

Did you stump them?

No, they have passed so far.Just little prayers with ingredents,for things like a bit of rest,money what have you.But I don't follow blindly anymore either.

I don't think 'faith' can be tested. I do think dogma/doctrine can be.

When one has blind faith, they don't need any support for their 'belief', therefore there is nothing to attack that faith.

It's not until the word of man is involved that testing can prove fatal.

Tasselhoff,

Your enquiring mind deserves a respectful answer from me.

is 'them' gods or men?

If gods, I can only speak for Big Daddy. He has said that faith is 'unwavering confidence'. One needs to be clear of that to continue the pursuit of Big Daddy's attention and have petitions declared served.

If men, then continuity is suspect and untrustworthy as much as occasional reliance upon sporadic prayers is suspect and inconclusive concerning their respective fulfillment.

Blind faith is worse. It demands confidence in the unknown.
What answer would suffice in proving anything tractible and coherent from the unknown?

I will leave the digestion of this to you. It's your private domain.

REDY,

I roll like this.

Faith leads to belief leads to revelation leads to knowledge leads to understanding leads to wisdom leads to equity leads to truth.

My god is not a santa claus or golden retriever who fetches me things and brings me gifts so I'm not sure how I could "test" god since I don't expect god to hand me things.

On the other hand I do question my own beliefs, reexamine them, add to them, see if they seem true and consistant to me. Listen to the beliefs of others in case I can add to my own beliefs or attempts at self discipline, etc.

Does god "test" me? Hmmm... hard to say. Could be the whole universe is just a 5th grade science project for a child god... but I think god has just set things up so that there is as much overall balence as possible and we can balence our own lives or not...

Maybe it seems like a "test" but I don't think it has a "pass" or ''fail" or grades... just paths..

I think this nails it for me.

I don’t believe in God from an intellectual point of view. Somehow I just know that God exists. I suppose that I’m also ok with the idea that God might not exist.

I mean, it really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. Whatever will be will be and that’s the way things are. I can handle reality. If life ends with just blacking out, then I’ll never know its over anyway so what’s the big deal?

On the other hand, if there is spiritual existence on the other side I’m as ready for it as any man can be.

So what’s to test?

The other thing that I’ve come to grips with is the simple truth that if my true nature is spirit (which I’m inclined to believe that it is) then I am always spirit, there was never a time when I was not. Not only will I return to the spiritual world when my body dies, but obviously I must have come from that spiritual world when I was born.

Like someone else said in another thread, I’m just passing though this life.

So what’s to test?

I believe that my true nature is spiritual. I’m also willing to accept that I could be wrong. Although, what would I need to accept? If I just black out when I die then there isn’t much going to be much accepting going on.

Finally, if the true nature of existence really is like a comic book with good spirits at war with bad spirits, and I’ll be tossed into that war when I die, then so be it. If that’s what really happens then I’m in the same boat with all other human beings.

The idea that there is one prissy judgmental God in charge of making personal judgments on each individual, in my mind, that’s just so weird that I’d rather not even know about it until I have no other choice but to meet this judgmental demon myself. I’m not convinced that I would want to live in its heaven anyway. That whole scenario is just too putrid to even think about it.

I prefer to believe that God is nicer than me, and I will continute to beleive this until I find out otherwise.

I have a picture in my head, that works for me.

It displays a third component to who I am, whom by the way, is not completely known to myself. I'm still learning of me by watching my own life give coherence to something.


SPIRIT<<<<<<<<<<<<<<soul>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BODY
^
^
^
WHICH WAY WILL IT LEAN?

WWAAAHHHH... THE VERTICAL ARROWS WON'T SETTLE BENEATH soul, EVEN IN EDIT!!!

What a disappointment, the image looked neutral and pretty cool!!!

Hey! Don't worry about it! It looks like you're leaning heavily toward the spiritual world.

It must be an omen!

ABRA,

I laughed nervously at that myself.

And agree with you, that is the case.

But that would be a personal observation i was trying to present for all to conclude for themselves, and I wasn't allowed the autonomy over my own imagery.