Faith

What do I have faith in?

... what do i trust to make things better?

if I have to finish the sentence, "if we had more _____, things would get better." how would I fill in the blank?

Technology?
Love?
Democracy?
Kindness?
Knowledge?
Money?
Freedom?
Science?
Education?
God?
Honesty?
Hard work?
Friendships?
Determination?
Good manners?

Phrased another way: "What things have a tendency to promote life?"

What is faith?

Faith is to believe in the good in something. Faith is being convinced that adding more of that something or another will make things good - improve the situation.

By improving the situation we mean to enhance and develop and tend towards Life. By "Life" we mean the sustenance of self... the sustenance of me... the sustenance of what belongs to me... the continuance of my bodily form, my mind, my world, my consciousness.

And by "continuance" we mean, the tendency to also improve the circumstances so that life itself will continue - even possibly thrive.

Life - continuance and the hope of further continuance.

What do I trust in, believe in, have faith in that ultimately promotes Life?

If God is the embodiment of that total Good within the universe that all of life strives for and the rule of God is the reigning of those things that promote life then God can reign both in our hearts and in this world.

This God is easy to love but not easy to have faith in.

I am not convinced ultimately that life and good prevails in the end.

This is my battle between dispair and faith.

This is my wrestling for a faith in God.

So in your mind, are things getting better? or are things getting worse?

Do you have faith?

Providence ?

In an article entitled What the New Atheists Don’t See the author puts the various pop-Atheists into their proper context in the modern on-going search for meaning made by all of us. Ironically enough, the author himself is an atheist.

He nails the fundamental problem and point that I've been considering about the sovereignty of God with the concept of Providence itself and how all of us invariably require it:

I think Dennett’s use of the language of evaluation and purpose is evidence of a deep-seated metaphysical belief (however caused) that Providence exists in the universe, a belief that few people, confronted by the mystery of beauty and of existence itself, escape entirely.

I think maybe you could just replace all statements about God with simply the word "Good."

"So I hoping that 'Good' will watch over my safety on this trip."
"I pray to 'Good' that I can find a descent job."
"Thank 'Good(ness)' I've found a job and made it safely!"

I could live with that. Maybe.

Of course we've watered God down into some vague universal conceptual power of the "Tendency towards Life" that somehow runs through the ecological blood of nature itself.

(Which is kind of what everyone now a days really thinks what God is anyway.)

And maybe that is what we sense and feel and mean and maybe even project into a personal image of ourselves when we pray/talk about/sense "God."

I could live with that. At least it means that man is still created by God. (I think.)

Only one thing is left - the "Father" that Jesus talked about, understood, and explained.

Does he exist as an entity that I can personally know and trust? Is He more the face of this entity/concept of this universal "Tendency towards Life" that attracts and enthralls us all? Is he both? Do the limits of my mind require that I can sense this universal "pull" to Life and Good but can only think of it in terms of a personality.

So maybe God does and doesn't exist.

So I'm back to propositional nonsense and relative everythingness.

That sucks!

Who will free me from this non-sensible whimsical yet torturous merry-go-round ?

God. Do you hear me?

What I Give Up When I Give Up God

What I lose when I lose God

• Someone to appeal to for help
• Someone to be grateful to
• Knowing a sovereign power of good is watching over me
  

Someone to appeal to for help
Prayer.

Its nice when I am despondent or desperate to go to someone in prayer - intimate, meditative conversation - whom I can have confidence in - that He is beyond me, that He cares, that I can appeal to Him to reach beyond my circumstances and make some magical hand entry into my world and change things just enough so I can pull out of my dilemmas and survive one more time.

Without God, I have no one to go to for help. No one I can place my hope in.

Someone to be grateful to
Thankfulness.

Gratitude for the good things in life is an important, powerful, and some would say necessary emotion for happiness. I AM grateful. I want to be happy with what I have and for all the good that has come to me. I could just as easily been a slave girl dying of poverty in a third world country. I'm not. I am free. I eat everyday. I am healthy. I even have a certain amount of wealth that most men in the world today would be envious of. I am grateful for that. I need to feel and have this emotion - for my own happiness.

Without God, I really have no one to worship, to be to grateful to, to thank for all my blessings.


Knowing a sovereign power is watching over me
Faith.

I like to think that someone or something with the power to make good cares about me. I like to think that that person, as mysterious and as invisible as He is, is watching over me, is cheering me on, is hoping for my best, cares, loves, has power - is willing to use it. Is in fact using His power in ways that I am unaware of, to control, guide and direct little and big accidents in my life - so that things work out for me ultimately.

Without God, I am on my own.


I don't know if I can live with all of that.
I don't know if I can live without God.... whether He is real or not.