“Bridge” implies you might see the other side just needing a bridge you don’t see to get there. — Fire Ologist

What of the creator who has faith in their work working beforehand?

But what I did was take Nietzsche's equation for man (a rope over an abyss) and said faith is very much the same. I find it an interesting parallel.

But what I did was take Nietzsche's equation for man (a rope over an abyss) and said faith is very much the same. I find it an interesting parallel — DifferentiatingEgg

We ARE the presence of faith, the existence of faith, in life.

The bridge threw me off (ironically) your point.

I like the tightrope over an abyss, because even though it’s a tightrope, you don’t really care much about what’s holding the rope up on each side, there’s just a tightrope and the abyss.

To me, the rope itself creates the distance below it, so we are, simultaneously, the rope that creates the distance and so we are the abyss (we manufacture our own isolation by just being). We build our own need for a bridge or a path, that is never just there, (unless something reaches out of the abyss and grabs us). Nothing grabbed Nietzsche from the abyss. He only had himself. If he wanted a path or a faith or a bridge, he alone had to construct it whole-cloth, like an artist does. Which is why I respect his philosophy above most others. He saw that we build both the abyss and if we want a bridge, we build that too.

I only differ from him (and it’s a huge difference) in that I don’t associate faith in the church with laws and hell and hierarchies and priests and self-denial. There’s nothing special at all about the pope because he’s a pope. He might be special, but I’d have to know him personally like anyone else might be special. But “pope” is just a game.

But just because a law is given doesn’t mean I can’t make it my own. I can conquer whatever I want. Even Nietzsche had to learn to speak German once before he could build his art. Anyone claiming they know another honest man’s faith is deceiving themselves. No one can know anyone, not even themselves. And post-modern social construction theories, that’s all today’s over-rated reified masking, and today’s slave morality. Layers upon layers of lies and more self-defeating, self anesthetizing, opiates to cover the abyss. Own your own shit, whatever that shit may be, and celebrate when you want to celebrate.

Faith is essential to being a person. The question is not “do you believe?” Because we all do. The question is “what do you believe?” Reason is essential too but reason is more like the rope, having form (logic and language), and believing is more like the abyss. Some people won’t let go of the rope. Others think they can see things in the abyss and are delusional (possibly me). But the existentialists, Nietzsche, just called it what it was - absurd, nauseating, solitary - meaning standing in the face of absolute meaninglessness, the abyss.

We stand on the edge of everything. We are the first limit in the limitless. We are the first fleeting form, and as soon as we grasp that, we must lose it all and start over.

Piety is not a very pretty word. Love is of course a great English word, put together so well. Hope is cozy, but faith seems to have many connotations

Could faith be irrational and unjustified beliefs? — Corvus

Faith is a philosophy with all the questions left out.

Faith is a philosophy with all the questions left out — PoeticUniverse

Isn't it that there are nothing but questions for faith? Certainty does away with faith. Isn't faith reallying a doubting that accepts the state of doubt with hope?

Isn't faith reallying a doubting that accepts the state of doubt with hope? — Gregory

For those who are honest, faith is a hope and a wish.

Faith is a philosophy with all the questions left out. — PoeticUniverse

Faith doesn't give you knowledge or truth. You must work hard to keep up your faith in something you believe in.

When it is found out, what you believed in turned out to be illusion or false later, your faith will be broken or evaporate into the thin air.

Discrete doesn't get lost in itself but takes the step further — Gregory

If the space is discrete then it means that there is a gap between two points in space. The gap is the absence of anything or nothing. So there are two arguments here against the existence of the gap: 1) The motion has to be discrete if there is a gap. But discrete motion at least within physicalism is not possible since a particle that is subject to motion and exists in the first point cannot possibly cause another particle in the second point because of the gap. 2) If the gap is nothing then two points must be immediate.

As Hegel says in the lesser logic, you must think of the continuous mixed with the discrete in order to understand either one. The continuous is illogical I say. There nothing between two discretes but they are close enough to allow movement between them, contral Leibniz's monads

As Hegel says in the lesser logic, you must think of the continuous mixed with the discrete in order to understand either one. — Gregory

That is correct. Any real number has decimal and integer parts each is a set of digits, 0 to 9 for example. Digits are of course discrete while the number is continuous.

The continuous is illogical I say. — Gregory

I don't think so. I already presented two arguments against the existence of the gap.

already presented two arguments against the existence of the gap — MoK

Math can only do so much. There is a gap and there isn't a gap. There is separation but not such that there is no smooth motion. Sometimes philosophy and logic have to step in where math fails

Math can only do so much. There is a gap and there isn't a gap. There is separation but not such that there is no smooth motion. Sometimes philosophy and logic have to step in where math fails — Gregory

I said what I should have said.

said what I should have said — MoK

Any argument you provide for continuity i can and have countered. Something has to give.

Ok.

This collapses the two concepts of faith and trust (emunah and bitachon), which are obviously related, but I see them as differing, although faith is required for trust. — Hanover

Thanks for bringing this up. True. Let's distinguish between the two according to Chabad:

Emunah: Emunah, however, is an innate conviction, a perception of truth that transcends, rather than evades, reason.

Bitachon: Generally translated as “trust,” bitachon is a powerful sense of optimism and confidence based not on reason or experience, but on emunah. You know that “G‑d is good and He’s the only one in charge,” and therefore you have no fears or frets.

A very useful distinction to draw out. I'd say that I have emunah, but not bitachon so much. Personally, I wouldn't regard either bitachon or emunah as chosen within my own psychology. Regarding emunah, the belief/conviction came to me under a certain set of circumstances. I suppose ideally true emunah would manifest in bitachon but I'm not quite there yet.

If you want to try to ground your bitachon/emunah rationally I would never try to argue against that because, as you correctly note, bitachon/emunah is conducive to psychological well-being.

Faith is not subjecting a belief to doubt despite the facts.

Faith is not subjecting a belief to doubt despite the facts. — Banno

Faith is subjecting a belief to its consequences.

Pragmatism versus idealism.

Faith is subjecting a belief to its consequences. — Hanover

Nicely done. Can you provide an example?

very nice.

What if you found a real contradiction at the heart of all you believe. Do you 1) go with faith, or 2) go with dialetheism

Or 3) go with both, or 4th neither

Nicely done. Can you provide an example? — Tom Storm

Sure. I believe in God because to not leaves me with a belief that we have no higher purpose for being here, that this conversation is just the crazy end result of billions of pool balls bouncing off each other.

The consequence of my belief is meaning and purpose, I'm not just a cosmic coincidence awaiting a return to dust.

The issue for me isn't whether you choose faith or science, so long as you know it's a choice.

Neither: I adjust my "beliefs" until the "contradiction" dissolves.

Well, the consequence of my disbelief in any "higher meaning and purpose" is the meaning and purpose of flourishing here and now Life is just a cosmic coincidence that consecrates living lucidly from dust to dust.

faith or science

i.e. make-believe (opiate) vs knowledge (surgery)

I'm not just a cosmic coincidence awaiting a return to dust. — Hanover

Honestly, a planed existence awaiting an eternal reward sounds rather meaningless to me. The story of the existence would be meaningful I’m sure.

Neither: I adjust my "beliefs" until the "contradiction" dissolves — 180 Proof

"There are, he [Bergson] says, 'two profoundly different ways of knowing a thing. The first implies that we move round the object: the second that we enter into it.'" Bertrand Russell in Mystcism and Logic

If the good in the world is seen as united, as a body of goodness bringing good to the world, we could say it is the historical manifestation of Plato's "Form of the Good". In mystical moments the truth cannot be contained by the mind and is interpreted as infinite. Beliefs and docttines cone about by Interpetatiom.

Everyone has the right to form there own interpretations. This is a natural right. A peaceful society is all that can limit it

2) are the purpose of koans to bring out faith? — Gregory

They certainly require faith. They may or may not enhance it, if that’s what you mean. Ideally, for the sake of the religion, they would enhance faith.

In lucid moments the real cannot be exhausted by the truth.

Faith is subjecting a belief to its consequences. — Hanover

Can you provide an example? — Tom Storm

Elizabeth Rose Struhs.

"Members of her small and tightly-knit religious group were present when the diabetic eight-year-old died, singing and praying to God to heal her" while withholding her insulin. In this case the consequence of their belief was the death of a child and 14 folk being convicted of manslaughter.

Accepting the results of science is an important part of being a modern adult. Medicine and those who create them go back far back into haze of history. They are venerable. However, i don't see why the law of the excluded middle is violated when something supported science can't be reconciled with philosophy. How can you tell me that physic equations should be allowed to be rewinded back 14 *billion* years. We can't even form an idea of a hundred thousand properly, let alone a billion. And how can you know all the forces that were acting in the universe, say 10 billions years? Are you really going to say you know all the universal factors acting at time 10 billion BC? Inuition and reason go hand and hand. Reason by itself is insanity, pure will

What if you found a real contradiction at the heart of all you believe. — Gregory

At the very least, give your faith pause and reconsider. Before the child dies.

An odd post. Not at all sure why you linked my post to the law of excluded middle, and why that insulin ought be respected for being ancient and venerable rather than effective. Nor did I tell you that "physic(sic.) equations should be allowed to be rewinded back 14 *billion* years", whatever that might mean. We do have a clear conception of "billion". I do not claim to know all the forces acting on the universe, now or previously. Reason, intuition and will are quite distinct things.

But whatever you are smoking, can I have a toke?

You don't seem to have a burning desire to know truth. Or maybe you do. Maybe you are satisfied. Smaller size truths like those found by science can't make for a substitute philosophy however.

"Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the purely logical realm, it is insight that first arriverà at what is new." Bertrand Russel in Mysticism and Logic

Reason and will are indeed different faculties. The former is the "I' in, or as, each person. But will is in complete control of reason