To ask do you have ‘blind faith’?

[NameChange23456790]

I ask this question as I read about the canonisation of Carlo Acutis. Whose mother travelled to many churches around the world, the first miracle attributed to him was a woman’s breast cancer disappeared after she prayed to him.

To me to believe this, your faith must be blind, as the same God who would give this power to a 15 year old also gives power to the likes of Putin and Netanyahu.

I’m trying to get it, like I’m trying to think how could I even if I was a Catholic believe humans perform miracles.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yg5me8dvlo

I'll start by saying I'm an atheist with a theology degree and thirty years experience teaching RS. Most peoples' faith is not "blind". It's careful and considered and thoughtful. Some of the most intelligent people in history have been deeply religious. Not everything is definable and scientifically provable.

How do you feel about love OP? Love for romantic partners, family, life long friends? Is it a real thing? Is it just hormones? Transactional? Or something more? Faith is not dissimilar in my view, to love. In some ways it is deeply irrational but it is not "blind". There are reasons for it . If you accept miracles it's not because you are gullible or stupid but because you see the world through a filter of the existence of a higher power. The q you raised about Putin etc is called theodicy..why does a Good God allow evil. The simple answer is free will and accountability. It's up to us to put people in power, fail to stop them, support them etc. What's the alternative? A puppet world where there can be no morality.

@RhaenysRocks that's beautifully put.

I’m an atheist who grew up in an oppressive theocracy. Men using fear and shame to keep people down. Especially women.

I cannot abide religion in all its forms. It’s a tool for the oppression of women. I judge people who have “blind faith” in something instead of critically assessing what they’re being told.

So someone prayed to a dead person and their breast cancer went away therefore the dead person must be a saint?

Someone make it make sense!

To me to believe this, your faith must be blind, as the same God who would give this power to a 15 year old also gives power to the likes of Putin and Netanyahu.

Eh?

Anyway, I'm atheist lapsed Catholic and know many religious people. I don't know any with what I'd call 'blind' faith. Rather faith is something that is lived and which people actively engage with - it waxes and wanes throughout their lives depending on circumstances. I've known a fair number of people who have lapsed at various stages and then returned to the church.

Just about every religious person I've known has wrestled with their faith at various points - it's not some static, mindless state of being for them.

Religion is not faith. Religion is a human construct that absolutely has been used to oppress and control and inspire hatred but that's nothing to do with faith in the way the op is talking about it. Again, to compare with love, how many times do we see on here women putting up with terrible treatment "but I loooove him" or people binding all their money and official existence together in a marriage because of the nebulous "love". We accept that as totally normal and real and we encourage it.

Yes, I do believe in love it comes from deep within and it isn’t transactional. But that love feels logical because the humans I’m showing it to exist and are visible. A miracle feels different, more like blind faith, because it depends on believing in God’s existence.

I know in theology miracles are often described as “signs” that point towards God’s presence rather than proofs of it. But to me that still isn’t the same as love, love is tangible, it’s lived and experienced with people right in front of you. That’s why I don’t think the two can really be compared.

Hear, hear.

@NameChange23456790 but the people who believe in miracles would say the same, that they have seen or felt it. And love is not in front of you, the actions and words of the person is what's in front of you, all of which could be fake. But we choose to believe it isn't.

@RhaenysRocks did you grow up in a theocracy?

It’s like saying not all men. Not all people who have faith.

Faith and religion are too deeply enmeshed to safely separate. I’ve been oppressed by people who told me to have faith in the lords plan.

Your reply is deeply condescending.

I’m not sure ‘blind faith’ is the best term.
It’s just ‘faith’. The more thoughtful Christians I know accept it - there’s no real proof of any gods and certainly not their specific God. They literally ‘have to have faith’. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

I’m Catholic. I go to Lourdes every year. The group I go with recently had a miracle cure declared from 1923. The work done to decide if it actually is miraculous is absolutely incredible. It was completely inexplicable. However I believe that you don’t really need a miracle to be a saint. We are all called to be saints. I am very skeptical about Carlo Acutis to be honest. Apparently his own mum was surprised when he got religion. I can’t help thinking he was just a geeky teenager.

I'm an atheist, but I'm always ready to appreciate and allow for the fact that others have faith. I saw the strength and comfort that his faith brought to my father when he knew he was dying, and that's my reason really.
I have blind faith in love - that's why we're here, imho 😊

It's ultimately paradoxical because faith IS a choice, we have free will whether we have faith or not.

Beautiful post by @RhaenysRocks.

It’s difficult to feel any sense of connection with the story of the lad who sadly died so young being a saint. I’d call that institutional rather than blind; the structures of their religion having such intense meaning for people. I have occasionally felt that in the past and certainly have loved ancient churches and rituals and felt more peace and hope when participating in religious practice. I can’t do it any more in any real way but even I will occasionally light a candle or bow to an altar just to feel a moment of connection with my own childhood and the times when I did genuinely believe.

Im latter day saints. I believe in God and put all my trust in him 100%. I live by his teachings in every oart of my life.

Well, if you’re a Catholic, presumably you accept the Catholic position that sainthood does require ‘officially’-endorsed miracles, and that everyone isn’t called to sainthood, that saints are a rarely-occurring and tiny number of individuals?

A woman with breast cancer prayed (for) Carlo and she had to start chemotherapy and the cancer disappeared completely,

I’m really not sure what sort of ‘faith’ reads that sentence and thinks it’s proof of a miracle attributable to her praying to (or is it via? I was raised nonconformist so really don’t get the idea of saints) a boy who died. Chemotherapy doesn’t need faith, it’s not a miracle - it’s the product of hard work, based on evidence and intelligence by many scientists.

The effects of religious practice can be real even if the object of faith/devoition isn’t. Chanting has a biochemical effect - whether it’s Gregorian or Buddhist. And neuroimaging of Buddhist monks show real effects attributed to meditation (Buddhism seems in tune with the idea of practice rather than ‘faith’).

And I came on to post thanks to @RhaenysRocks for explaining so beautifully something I have been struggling with. I have actually taken a screenshot of it.

Re blind faith, a vicar told me most people who are devout struggle with faith at times.

I had a personal miracle happen to me as a child so I now have blind faith. Although I wouldn’t call it blind because God showed me a sign which I have never forgotten. I am not religious as such, I don’t really like organised religion on the whole, but I will always believe in God. Not sure as to whether people are saints or not though either. Sounds more like positive thinking re the praying and healing. I like the idea of his mother fighting for her son to be canonised as a saint though as it has probably helped her through the grief of his death.

"A woman with breast cancer prayed (for) Carlo and she had to start chemotherapy and the cancer disappeared completely," she explains.

So rather than thank all the doctors, the medical team, the people that have donated money to cancer research over the years, the scientists that came up with a working chemotherapy drug after decades of work, she went with a dead teenager that had nothing to do with her.

I think blind faith in this situation, where there is a perfectly rational explanation - the medical treatment she was given worked - is ridiculous. Another poster said that even the devout question their faith at times. Good! I would hope that anyone questions their blind adherence to religion in the face of a complete lack of evidence and I absolutely judge those that don't.

@PegDope no, I grew up in the UK. I can completely appreciate that our perspectives are different but that doesn't mean one of us is right and one wrong. That's so what the point. I'm sorry you've had such a difficult experience but that does not negate any of what I've said. A personal faith, arrived at over time is not the same thing as an institutional use of a creed to manipulate law and social control.

Yes, one sees this kind of cognitive dissonance a lot in believers.

It’s profoundly linked. Any attempt to separate them, or the disconnect your ‘personal’ faith from its institutional expression is just you refusing to take responsibility.