Buy Antique Juice King The force and strength of faith.

Yesterday morning, after my usual post entry on the books of the month , I found a comment of txispas about my reflections on pur site of The God Delusion (The God Delusion) which literally says

" If you have faith, you read the book of tontolaba that and it makes you doubt, esque did not have a faith strong enough input. "

Within that I find it slightly irritating that someone thinks you can afford to come to my house and dispatch processintellectual, emotional, personal and more important and complicated my life with a cliche, mainly because it means that person thinks I'm simple-minded enough to contain the process in the above mentioned phrase, the comment deserves three or four details.

First txispas , Richard Dawkins is far from being a "tontolhaba" (without the hache it sounds even worse, sorry). Ad myth that has no personal admiration, but being objective is a biologist and ethologist frontline member Royal Society (the British Academy of Sciences) has been a professor at Oxford until he was removed a couple of years to write, (and has left enough good opinion é , l so that Oxford has instituted the award Dawkins), and generally knows what he's talking. And if the curriculum does not impress you dry, no more than listen to one of the many debates interviews or video that has (or The Four Horsemen , for example) to realize that can be many things, but stupid no. Or, for that matter, read any of his books, without going any further the infensivo ^{The Selfish Gene (1)} .

But the real crux of your response is the subject of strong faith . You see, it depends. I've always thought that my faith was very strong in the sense that he believed sincerely and deeply in God. Our relationship was fluid, God was an integral part of my life and my personality (well beyond the mere WWJD) and took me very seriously, trying to study and learn about God and His will, plans and desires to adjust my life to its meaning within the cosmos. In fact, I took (and I'm still taking) to God seriously enough to be suspicious of what the primer reaching tell me about it, or what I read in the first book that is inspired. The argument authority when it comes to God is open to any lit up-to let go any barbarity and you have to believe him just because he is an authority. Well, if someone comes and tells me that God has spoken to him directly and he has instructed me to forward his plans for me are that I become professional rascal, and I do not believe (obviously), why believe should anyone else? God is for me, too serious a matter to be left to self-appointed experts and buy at wholesale, must scrutinize that expri mir faith to achieve something worthwhile. To do otherwise, leave the contents and configuration of your beliefs on what others say, it seems to me a lack of serious negligence and intolerable. If you question the ability of, for example, my tax advisor, and does not trust my savings unless I show that is worthy of trust, how am I to put God in the hands of the first type clerical collar arrives saying that God knows more than me? Do I care about the money but the Truth about God? No way! So I question, at all times (past and present), anyone who tries to present as a Doctor of the Faith Just what í intimately seems right and proper I consider it worthy of basing my view of God, with all vital implications involved, and my commitment to the truth as well capitalized, is much higher my commitment and sta or that form of understanding God, among other things because if God exists, then it's truth and the pursuit of truth brings me closer to God and if there ... at least we Truth is, it's always better to lie.

As a side note I should mention that there are solid theological and doctrinal arguments that support this position within Roman Catholicism (which at thatmoment for me was very important) and I believe that to act otherwise is to bury your talent and give criticism, it is absolutely necessary in the world in which we live. I have the firm belief that God, if it exists and cares about these things, rather an error in the faith that is reasoned, honest and integrity than a bleat of assent to the Creed. And going even further: if it is not and prefer not find bleating of God in that attitude of admiration ^{reason (2)} .

For me all this is to have a was strong. A faith passed through the crucible of razóny warm and beaten by the hammer of methodical doubt. Any faith that passes these tests deserves, in my view, the adjective strong, so I argue strongly that my faith was not "strong enough." So strong was my faith, my commitment to the truth and my belief that God, if it exists, can not lie, who subjected itself to all the evidence that came to mind in an effort to debug. So strong was, and remains, that when I had to choose between giving to God and closer to what I honestly believed that was the truth, or keep going up to the Lie God, I chose the former. God, if there is not achievable but through the Truth (and if it is reachable via e Lies an Chust of God, I add).

But, of course, I'm talking about the power of faith from its meaning of "set of beliefs of a religion", while you're talking about faith in the meaning of "being sure that what you believe is true " ⁽³⁾ . But while ordinary mortals to use that word with that meaning is to discuss the fact that it is appropriate. The Latin fides giving rise to the word faith had a similar meaning , but it evolved into "loyalty" of the original meaning is not in faith rather than the acepción "security, claim that something is true" (and that only in the periphrasis "attest to something.") No, the word for the tenacious defense of what is believed, a belief that ability to withstand the attacks that doubt in itself is not faith, is bigotry. However I will accept the use of "faith" in this sense, although I appear wrong. The do not like is the "force." You're talking about the ability of faith to withstand the attack of the doubt and do not resist attacks by power, but with strength. Force is used to attack the strength to defend and there, I admitI find quite low.

My faith was (is) strong enough to take me by the dolroso narrow path of honest search for Truth. It is not, and I will not spend a single second to be, a fortress built to repel the attacks of doubt. Doubt is good and there are good reasons to consider as well, including the certainty (as the antonym of doubt) you can have virtually anything but, unless you have something as improbable as Absolute truth, accuracy rejects the possibility of improving the image of reality has to approach mass as is the reality ... actually and not image. Inother words, removes doubt and certainty, with doubt the possibility of improving (because if you're sure that what you believe is right, why change?). That kind of strength of faith, derived from certain, they do not have. Today, almost entirely, and proud. Nothing seems more pernicious, I see nothing that does more damage to the human spirit the certainty or, rather, that the idea that cling to the certainty of the evidence against is transcendentally good. That kind of belief is the mechanism that leads people to fly airplanes into skyscrapersimmolate in a autobúsy so sorry but I see nothing admirable in it.

course what is a memeplexes great, from the point of view of natural selection of memes. The marriage of ideas "God exists" and "When in doubt, hold on to what you believe until you drop" results in the idea that God exists and that the first thing you have to do is take our word, that in fact what God wants most is to create ⁽⁵⁾ , and dedicated to get pruebecitas and tripping over your vid to to "prove your faith "(recently dice "tune your love"), that doubt is actually part of the game and the solution is not rational analysis of it to get a solution but the surrender completely to God and belief know your coazón it is true and everything else are just appearances.

course. And the earth is less than 10,000 years and the fossils and the decay of carbon 14 has put Satan to tempt you there. Fortunately

do not believe that anyone in moderately serious religions. In religions really serious, like Roman Catholicism, the first who do not believe it are those who run the jerarquíaeclesiástica. Before an attack on the belief there are two ways to react: the "strength of faith," consisting of lock you in your belief, strengthen the walls, cover your ears and repeating mantras of style "my faith is strong, I will not hesitate; my faith is strong I will not hesitate " ⁽⁶⁾ and analysis of the reason for the challenge to questionable argument and, hopefully, see what is truth in this argument and improve perception of reality. You will not see the bishops to the hilt saying even the historicity of Jesus as an article of faith, for example, but rather welcome any information & oacute n (reliable, because the critical and methodical doubt applies in both directions) that can provide more data about your personality. But I stray.

Faith, from the point of view of choosing to believe something without proof, is an extremely powerful tool. I've always said it is the religious man's atomic bomb, the ultimate weapon in your arsenal you have to, if possible, do not ever use or at least the bare minimum. Catholics, once again, also gets it right with this, technically you just have to believe you to be Catholic dogmas (and are made very intelligently; So open to interpretation, and you do not have anyone believe you interpretation). The appeal to faith has always been, for me, the ultima ratio and tried to use it minimum. Say, "I can not argue your arguments but I think otherwise" I hated, I still repugnant and after last ⁽⁷⁾ decided not to ever do it again . The search for truth is hindered by such arguments, this disproportionate loyalty to what has been seen as wrong, or the fact that the alternative, a fidelity which, on the other hand, is higher the m & aacute, s is undeserved, because one is faithful to the things that deliver what they promise, and a faith that requires you to think again and again that something is true "because" it does not.

So yes and no. My faith in the truth and that (i) belief in God is only worthwhile if Truth and (ii) can not reach the Truth through the lie was strong enough to face my belief in God with the best arguments against it I could find and, once done, admit that those arguments were better and more convincing than mine and that most likely is that God (or at least the God in whom I had always believed) & amp; nbsp; not exist. I have the firm belief that God exists does not want to believe in him "just because", but gradually comes to know through my work, effort and interest. If, after reading me The God Delusion, have taken the path of the strength of faith and would have focused on my beliefs and repeated some of the mantras that I mention it to save my relationship with God I had behaved like a coward unworthy of the same relationship and shake would be like God in the face with a wet diaper. I I can not mess my relationship with God hiding behinda lie, razóny a rejection of reality. Actually I have too much respect for God and my faith and pra to treat myself as such a manner. If the price to preserve the purity of the best ideas and beliefs that I have ever had is to give them, albeit temporarily until you find better arguments to defend ⁽⁸⁾ repay. And I will because I have no choice, because they rely on the strength of faith is to destroy forever what we are trying to protect.

So sorry, but that that if tontolhaba read the book makes me wonder is because I have a faith strong enough input is outrageously false. My faith was and is, was extremelyrte. What happens is that it hides behind walls of solipsism and circular reasoning, what happens is that I have faith in things greater than me: God, the Universe, the human mind and its ability to evolution and continuous improvement and, above all, in the transcendent value of truth. Why are there . The specific configuration at a given time have my religious beliefs is not something worth wasting faith because it is smaller I, of this or that faith in God as I understand it now does not make me older, I made smaller. Much smaller.

was precisely the strength of my faith that made me doubt , and it is the strength of my faith that keeps me in philosophical or religious position where I am. My faith is so strong that simply I can not act otherwise. So, the a priori, to another.

Arthegarn________
(1) After writing this I read that you've read The God Delusion and you "gave a mixture of laughter, sorrow and disgust." I wonder if we read the same book because, although it is ingenious parts occasionally moved to the smile, very hard parts that may put off some readers (like whenor describes, quite rightly, the god of the OT as " jealous and proud of it, a miserable, unjust, cruel control maniac, a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleansing freak, a misogi nico, homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic and capriciously malvévolo bully) and is clearly written by someone who does not enjoy the experience of God, which can move punishment, I do not associate that book at all with those feelings, but rather it seems a clever book, beautifully written and very difficult to refute arguments from any position other than the muscle-flexing withhands in his ears. We'll talk more about it, if that.
(2) worship yeah, finally after all be God, but prefer the possession subservient to the voluntary surrender I feel unworthy. In fact I think it would to own a particularly sarcastic and cruel God (but not less likely) to provide the human intellect and capacity for reflection and critique that enables us to have concepts like " God" then , make them a waiver for the Salvation requsite.
(3) It must be said that the definition of toughness on the beliefence Academy does not accept as the meaning of "faith" but of "fanaticism."
(4) La Fortaleza, in Christian doctrine, is the cardinal virtue that overcomes fear and doubt without becoming reckless.
(5) In some religions, eg Christianity , it becomes more important to save the belief in God against all odds that behave like a decent human being and indeed in most to Protestant churches (70 million members) salvation comes only through faith without works have absolutely nothing to do (doctrine of Sola Fide).
(6) Or best of all: " not afraid. Fear kills the mind. Fear is the little death that leads to total destruction. Afrontaré my fear. I'll let pass by me and through my, and when you turn my inner eye to see its way, I'll be just me and my fear is gone . " Just substitute "fear" to "doubt" and you'll see why the Brotherhood held their beliefs for ten thousand years ...
(7) By the way I've never revisited I Am Not Spock. and should. As if someone who has read itand article do not know, now I am determined.
(8) Hence, I define as "agnostic with hope." The hope is that God exists, is ever good enough to find arguments for re-call myself a believer and look in the mirror without my head in shame fall.