Reverend Norv wrote:Des-Bal wrote:
That what people call "faith" often isn't. That what they call "belief" is more likely "belief in belief" belief in the idea that they believe and the religious are often just non-practicing atheists.
Some folks definitely are in this category. Others aren't. And still others change: I've been both in my life. Sometimes I'm both in the course of a single day.
But it's worth remembering that in Latin, for example, credo does not mean "I know," or even "I trust" - in the way that we know or trust that an apple will fall when we drop it. It is a compound of the roots cor and do. It means, literally, to give one's heart to something.
Faith isn't knowledge. It's relationship: the process of falling in love with God. And like any relationship, doubt and fear and silence come back again and again, and sometimes you wonder if there's anything really there at all, or if it's all just habit and self-delusion. And when that happens, just like in a marriage, you perform love instead of feeling it. Anyone who is prepared to be painfully honest about their own relationships with those they love will recognize that.
But that doesn't mean that the relationship is fake. The fact that sometimes you play the part doesn't mean that everything is play-acting; the fact that you still feel lonely or wracked by doubt doesn't mean you aren't giving your heart to God. Life's more complicated than that. You can play the part in the morning, and weep with joy by evening. Because the point is not whether you trust completely; the question is not whether you're as free of doubt as you pretend. The point is to keep choosing to fall in love with God, day by day, with all the sincerity you can manage in a world of confusion and pain and doubt. If you can do that, then in my book, that's a true and living faith.
Just my two cents, from experience. I'm not trying to change your mind, just to suggest another way of seeing this issue.
