Is faith/belief an opinion?

[clarabellabunting]

Just that, really.

I was recently having a really interesting discussion with a friend of mine who is a Christian in which he tried to explain to me (a non-believer) about why he was a Christian, believed in God, etc.

I struggled to see his opinion that there was a God as any different than, say, someone's opinion that men and women should have equal rights, or someone's opinion that homosexuality is right/wrong. And I thought it should therefore be subject to the same sort of questioning as any other opinion that someone expresses publicly.

He, however, kept falling back on "that's my faith, though" as if it was in a different category. He also said that nothing anyone could say to him would ever change it, which seemed strange to me because I'm always checking and questioning my 'beliefs' to make sure I'm holding them for the right reason and am not mistaken. I would hate to start out from a position of 'nobody is ever going to change my mind about this'.

What do other believers think? Obviously someone's opinion about the existence of God can be much more personal and important than other opinions they hold. But isn't your decision to believe/not believe essentially the same process as many other decisions you make about what you think about any number of other issues in life?

So we seem to come back to the point where anything bad that happens in the world is the fault of humans acting against God's will and anything good that happens is humans doing what God says. So what about bad things that are outside anyone's control? Why doesn't God ever interven to stop those? And why do more bad things seem to happen to people who already have difficult and challenging lives?

I never said anything good that happened is a result of people doing what God says. Plenty of good done by non believers. I believe God will value those just as he does those of believers. I do think people of faith who takes God's message of love seriously will try and do good in the name of their faith as that underpins choices and decisions but that doesn't mean we don't get it wrong or act selfishly and contrary to that.

I have no answer as to why horrible things happen to people, natural disasters, illness etc. I do not claim to have all the answers. I have had some pretty horrible things happen to me recently. Nobody's fault. I have no idea why. It hasn't turned me away from my faith though, I feel supported by my faith even though I have no answers for some of these life events and I really wish they weren't happening. I can live with unanswered questions though. I guess that is the essence of faith.

It seems strange when people say there is no God but if there was God would be a certain way - God has to have certain attributes, that seems weird to me. Why would God "have" to be a certain way?

It's also interesting that there is no mention of the Christian concept of sin in this discussion. I know sin is deeply unfashionable but Jesus had plenty to say about evil and sin in the world as much as love and forgiveness.

it seems strange...

I wouldn't say there isn't a god, but I'm now deeply unconvinced by the gods of the religions I've encountered. I don't say any god has to be a certain way, but speaking of the biblical, the bible makes claims that we can examine. We can also examine the beliefs of his followers.

And it's what the believer thinks, and the process by which they can think that that's interesting,

I guess you are right though God does allow us to believe we are all different, in the main this just contributes to the richness of life,

'richness of life' sounds lovely, but if god exists then he is allowing many religious people to believe that the other religions are evil. That they are supposed to be killing each other. That he requires it of them. Surely that can't be a good thing for him to do when it's so easy for him to tell them they are making a mistake.

If people hiking were asking me for directions would it be ok for me to direct some of them over the edge of a cliff in order to add a little variety?

I believe that I responded to the point above at the top of this page so don't see the point in repeating the same. I think your second point illustrates why dissecting a sentence out of a post without the context of the wider post may not be helpful as it does not give the full picture of what the person said.

I am not being difficult here but, as I said above, I am not on here to justify my faith, I don't feel the need to. I am happy to explain how faith works for me and to listen to other's perspectives and views in the basis that by listening to others we can develop an understanding of what others believe and feel even if we don't agree with it.

lookingforfocus, sin is an interesting one isn't it.
Apparently we are all doomed if we don't love god.

" Psalm 145:20
The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. "

So we are threatened into loving him. Sounds like an abusive husband.
We are all born sinners apparently.

I don't see Jesus forcing anyone to love him. Sin is the absence of love. An absence of love produces evil.

God threatens us if we don't love him. Jesus is God.

"Sin is the absence of love"? really? Thee are many people don't love, how on earth does that " produce evil".?

I don't love my kids teachers or my postman but I am polite to them and respect the work they do. How does that "produce evil"

I think that is possibly a difference over the semantics of the word 'love'. Love can, of course, mean romantic love or the intense love we feel for family and friends. However there can also be viewed to be love in a general sense, the sort of 'love thy neighbour' approach. Being kind and compassionate to others. I don't love my postman in the traditional sense but I would hope to treat him with the love thy neighbour approach and to treat him with kindness an compassion.

As i stated in a previous post I do not think you have to have faith to behave like this. Lots of people without faith also live their lives like this and I believe that God values all those acts. However my faith forms a framework for which I try to live my life according to those principles.

To not behave with kindness and compassion to behave with hate or even indifference will produce evil results eventually I believe.

It's not just semantics, it's meaningless twaddle. Lookingfor actually said if "An absence of love produces evil."

Ginnger you are now suggesting she meant "behaving with hate" or even indifference "causes evil".

Is everything good or evil? What a tiresome world christians must live in.

There are plenty of things and people I don't love or even feel indifferent about- but hate doesn't come into it.

I don't really care if a mythical god "values my acts " or not.

I am not as eloquent and may not express myself as well as many people on this thread. Ginger dodger thank you for describing what I am talking about when I talk about love. That care and concern for people we interact with and encounter is the love I mean. I said nothing about hate and I am not talking about seeing the world in black and white but in fact indifference can move us away from caring about others and loving our neighbour as ourself. A build up of a multitude of small acts of indifference can ultimately lead to an evil result.
My faith is not an opinion but a lived experience and encounter with a love that is alive.

I was atheist and didn't become Christian because I suddenly had a change of opinion. I encountered what I never expected to encounter and did not believe existed. That encounter continues and it would now be untrue for me to say otherwise.

Thank you lookingforfocus you expressed what I meant about how indifference can lead to evil and I do not think you are ineloquent at all (I on the other hand talk meaningless twaddle ). I paraphrase the saying 'all that it takes for bad people to succeed is for good people to do nothing'. Obviously life is not usually as black and white as that, few people (any?) are wholly good or wholly bad.

I think your second paragraph sums up in a nutshell why people of faith view it as different to an opinion.

Christians do not live in a tiresome world, they live in the same complex, often messy but also often beautiful world as everyone else. My previous post was not in any way trying to say everything is good or evil, if only life was that simple, but rather to explain how love, in the type of neighbourly love described above, brings compassion and kindness, absence of such can allow us to cause or allow 'evil' things to happen because we are not motivated by neighbourly love to stop it.

I wanted to point out that it is not only people of faith or Christians who behave in these ways (or even that they always manage to do so) as to suggest otherwise would be wholly wrong. I do believe God values all these acts of love, I appreciate that if you do not believe that God exists that part of it is meaningless to you.

There are plenty of things and people I don't love or even feel indifferent about- but hate doesn't come into it.

Now to me this sounds horrible. Unnoticed, forgotten somehow, not even registering on the radar. This is certainly a lack of love.

Is everything good or evil?

Yes, I believe it is ultimately. It may not be intentional for people to act with an absence of love though. They can be forgiven. I do believe it matters, though.

What a tiresome world christians must live in.

Quite the opposite. I have never felt so alive as when I decided to pursue my Christian Faith further.

"Now to me this sounds horrible. Unnoticed, forgotten somehow, not even registering on the radar. This is certainly a lack of love.
" not at all- there are many politicians, footbal players, celebrities I feel indifferernt towards- should I love them?

Save your forgiveness for someone who cares to be forgiven. I am not a sinner.

So if one of those people you feel indifferent about was about to come to harm that you could prevent. Say you were told of a death threat against them and you were able to tell the police and prevent it wouldn't you do it? Daft example I know but if you say 'yes of course I would take steps to prevent a person I have never really given much though to coming to harm' then I would view that as an act of neighbourly love, you may just see it as what a decent human being would do, and that's kind of the point. Sometimes neighbourly love can be truly heroic and brave, other times it may be just a small thing but still an act of kindness and compassion. Sometimes it may be at a huge cost to you, other times not so. Still kindness and compassion and no longer indifference.

My faith asks me to try (and I mean try) to live my life according to that principle

I am sorry but I do not agree. I do agree that it is extremely difficult to understand why and how some things happen. I cannot answer that, but then I accept, as a human there are many things beyond my understanding. No doubt you will see this as a cop out. I see it more as my human inability to understand all of God's creation. I can only do my bit within it. Hopefully as well as I can do.

"And that would place you one big step above your god..."

Well said.

there are many things beyond my understanding.

but don't you see you're putting yourself on the wrong side of the equation here. It's not me who is saying I understand, it's you, you're saying you understand that it must be part of god's plan, an understanding that I don't have.

Imagine a child is found murdered. Imagine your spouse tells you that the killer told them that they were going to kill that child. Imagine they told you that they didn't intervene/call the police because they didn't want to mess about with the killer's free will. You accept that?

Why does god hold us to greater morals than himself? If I could stop a child killer I would. If I didn't because I didn't want to harm their free will or whatever that would not make me a good person. People would think I was un well.

according to that principle

a principle your god doesn't have!

beyond my understanding

and yet you believe you know which god, out of the 4'000 gods humans have ever believed in, happens to be the real one,

Yes all those bloodthirsty murdering Christians, I see them rampaging through the streets daily following their insane child murdering God. Well that's a different version, it used to be that we were boring.