Board index ‹ Faith and Knowledge

[Captain Picard]

Why did God make belief and resultant faith so difficult?

I can understand the need for faith from the perspective that the things we're hoping in are from mechanisms and workings we are either incapable of comprehending or ourselves are incapable of bringing about.

Yet as I've poured over the Bible I've found stuff like a talking donkey, prophecies that are incredulous were it for anything else (like Cyrus being named by Isaiah before Cyrus existed), no input to our senses, no interaction in the ways we're used to under normal relational conditions, and largely that we have to go completely unobserved that it isn't until after we're dead that we're supposed to find out if any of this is exactly true.

I can't understand the incredible hurdles put before us when we both are trying to avoid either annihilation/hell, and have the steadfast faith required to be certain that as we head toward the clock that is our ordained mortality fear won't grip us if we even begin to entertain our faith is ultimately based on a set of beliefs that are so far outside and varied experiences + reasonable expectations.

Plus I just saw recently in the Mesha Stele on Wiki Chemosh is talking EXACTLY like YHWH. Like, why pick a time and place where everything gets blended in by the culture of the ancient near east? I think the only reason I'm even hanging on at this point is because I fear death. The things I'm supposed to believe and subsequently have faith in are exasperating me.

There's faith, and then there's inanity with a big shell-shocked grin. Can anyone help me see this in a light that doesn't make me want to pull what little remains of my hair out?

[jimwalton]

Nothing worthwhile is easy. Whatever is gained through ease and comfort is neither valued nor cherished.