Hi,
From: KMO <kmo@c-realm.com>
<<
My one reservation with what you said is the "Faith isn't x, faith is
y," statement. The lable "faith" gets applied to a variety of things
including both x and y. My faith is mostly y, but I think Carl (and
Dave Pate when he was part of the discussion) are right to be
skeptical of and resistant to people who base their agendas on faith
x. Where Carl and I disagree is that he claims that all faith is of
the variety which he sees as being destructive, controlling, and
incompatable with the tools of rational thought.
>>
To Reed, KMO, and Richard:
I want to thank you guys for giving me an insight into a side of faith
I had not previously seen -- to Reed for his "human" posts, his "lived
in" faith; to KMO for the post on affirmations and the "it's who I am"
paragraph; to Richard for "programming and purpose", two important
watch-words. I had already decided that authentic experience and
self-confidence were important concepts, but I see now that where
these two meet and merge is in faith -- not the dogmatic kind, but
rather that which identifies individuals; that which explains
who-they-are to themselves. In this sense, a strong faith is what
makes people "comfortable in their own skin", as it were -- anyone who
has met many good priests I think knows how that looks.
That said, I doubt I'll use the word ("faith"), as it carries far too
much baggage to be useful, and triggers quite nasty memetic responses
in lots of people. As well, it's current usage almost always refers
ERiC