Sunday, December 23, 2012

Reflection 6 : Life without Faith.



Theme Thursday asks us to write on 'Faith'.


Life without faith.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
I believe that I will be eating pudding in a few days.

Assuredly, life has ways of playing tricks. 
Things may not turn out that way.
But, in the absence of information to the contrary, I believe it to be true.

A believe built on the annual testing a ‘pudding appearance’ hypothesis.

The sun will rise* tomorrow.  It will.  
It has done so for some time now.
In the presence of history and understanding, faith is not required.

Faith is the hope that something implausible, 
something with no proof or history behind it, will happen.  

Miraculously.

Faith is life deferred. 

My pudding has history on its side.

Tomorrow’s daybreak has history on its side.

Proof enough.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2012
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* Technical footnote: ‘Rise’ is an illusion when viewed from a rotating platform 
with only a notional sense of what is up and down.
.
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14 comments:

  1. Faith definitely IS the hope that something implausible will happen. I guess at some point we will all find out.......one way or another.

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  2. "Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history" Plato

    All the implications of this quote mean that you are probably wrong. The Greeks apart from their smouldering good looks( see Georges Correface),good food and hot dancing were pretty good at philosophy as well. I'm with Plato and all the other philosophers who reject this stance ...i.e. the need of irrefutable proof for the existence of something other, something outside of one's own personal realm of experience. ...

    This is just a little Aussie battler's view and if I'm going to be flailed can we save it until after New Year because I am busy being the Christmas Fairy at the moment ( you know..good will, love,kisses and kind thoughts to all men..)

    Ding Dong Merrily On High
    Now ...that's what a Como needs!:)

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  3. No flailing, unless requested. ;-) I am firmly rooted in logic and faith, be it in crystals, tarot cards, bibles, tooth fairies, or UFOs, has to pass the credibility test. OK, I don't pass it myself but that's a perk of the job.

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    Replies
    1. And, granted, I have never been to Iceland but it is not faith that makes me comfortable with it's existence It is the absence of any logical reason for it not to exist. I think. Sort of.

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  4. Somedays I like to believe six impossible things before breakfast. Others, it is a mountain too high...

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  5. There is no logical reason why God does not exist . The magnificence of nature's meticulous and mathematical design is a testament plus many other things. The problem is not with the existence of God ..it is the nature of God and the relevance of humans in the grand scheme of things that are puzzling questions. I am getting dirty looks here at Tumbledown Manor in the outback ..supposed to be helping with dinner ..big storm coming ...must go!

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    Replies
    1. Far be it for me to bring dirty looks and lightning bolts down upon you.

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    2. Hope you dodged the lightning. Smiting is so 2000BC. Reflecting on it, there seems to be more empirical evidence to support the existence of the Tooth Fairy. But what would I know?

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  6. I disagree that faith is life deferred. I have an incurable mental illness that statistics (proof) show I have a shorter life expectancy AND I will suffer more than one recurring episode in my lifetime. Not a lot to look forward to. Faith is what gets me out of bed, showered, dressed, working, interacting with the world. Otherwise, I would not bother to live at all.

    xxx

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    Replies
    1. OK. We are talking a different type of faith. The faith I was think of is the one that says 'if I put up with my lot of this planet, I will get a reward in the afterlife.' The sort of faith that believes in gods and angels and fire and brimstone and such like.

      The faith that you refer to has more in common with hope.

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    2. Agreed! Merry Christmas, Cosmo.

      xxx

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  7. I like what you wrote and may not agree with most of it or might agree with a lot of it, depending on how I am thinking that day.

    I feel that there is something out there of which we have no comprehension and we just have to have faith that it exists. There might be a God and there might not be but I think I would rather believe there is a God while I am alive then think there is not a God so that when I do die I will go to heaven and if I was to not believe in God and die only to find out there is a God then I surely would not want to go to hell. But then there are so many who choose to follow a religion and not so much to follow a loving, forgiving, peaceful God, that want to force their religion upon others and if you do not follow it then they would just as soon kill you as look at you. These people are different then how I feel. I feel that my belief in God is up to me, for only I can save my soul and only I can choose to believe what I believe. If you choose to not believe in God then I can talk to you about him but the ultimate choice is one that you and only you can make. I can pray for your soul and pray that you are making the right decision, but then again I also believe that only upon our death will we find out the absolute truth. Do we go to a heaven or hell or do we just cease to exist. I can see why some believe in reincarnation because we seem to have examples of that in nature but are they truly reincarnations or just a metamorphous required for the creatures survival. And if ghosts exist then what does that prove. I think there are so many things out there that mankind has no answer of how they occur that maybe the only answer is that God does exist and we should put our faith in God and not some man made religion. Religion kills, God saves souls.

    Thank you so much for having faith that I would visit everyone of you, I really appreciate it.

    God bless.

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