Faith & Mountain Moving

By: George Wallace

The absolute base of all religion and prayer is faith. What is the definition of faith? Faith is supposed to have two essential parts. One, the substance of things that you hope for and the evidence that things exist without demanding sensory "proof". Two, belief in things that are not rational, or visible.

Part of our problem is that we are dealing with a translation problem. We are dealing with ideas that were originally expressed in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in First and Second Century common Greek. We are trying to achieve understanding of the old Greek words "substance" and "evidence" in an entirely different language, modern English.

Additionally, different levels of faith have been added which certainly confuses the issue. I don’t speak Greek of any century, but it is obvious to me that the translators do not agree on what faith is, or what it means. That makes questions and discussion about faith very difficult.

I’m going to make my best attempt at defining Faith. I say that I can see evidence of God all around me. I experience the laws that God made for the Universe. I experience the laws every moment of every day that I continue to live. I am convinced of this. I have faith in these laws. They are God’s Creation. I can, with suitable preparation, see them in action.

I do not doubt these laws of God. They work, and they work all of the time. I can trust them to be there for me when I need them. I do not deny God’s laws.

Some of these laws are named for individuals. What we are really doing is honoring the first person to clearly state the proposition, the hypothesis. They did this so that others could also test the hypothesis for accuracy. They can test for themselves without outside influence. This allows doubters to test for themselves and move closer to faith.

Remember Thomas after Jesus had been crucified? What did Jesus do for Thomas? (John 20: 24-29) Jesus did not reject him. By definition, Doubting Thomas was the first real scientist. Jesus did not reject scientific doubting and actions.

What laws are we talking about? The laws of gravity, inertia, physics, evolution, relativity, and thermodynamics are some of God’s Laws. This faith includes what is called the scientific method. This faith is what we call seeing the world as it is. Not seeing the world as we want it to be. Not seeing the world as someone else tells us it is. This faith is verifiable honesty.

The scientific method should properly be called “the window to God”. The scientific method allows us to look clearly upon the wonders of God’s creation. The scientific method leads us to a better understanding of God and His Plan. Most importantly, the scientific method gives us a tested way to move beyond unfounded belief and ill defined faith. The scientific method leads us to a certain, strong faith. The scientific method leads to a belief system built upon a foundation of rock. This rock is called proofs that are visible, sensible, rational, understandable, and repeatable.

We do not have to always be sunk into the sinkhole of the mystic. Secret societies, handshakes, passwords are deliberately obscure. The "powers" of geometry and occult strength of the dodecahedron are deliberately enigmatic. Arcane beliefs in arrangement of letters of alphabets, Hexateuch, Tetragrammaton are at best obscure. Numerology is doubtful and enigmatic.

Today we can use a new phrase to describe much of these kinds of activity: garbage in, garbage out.

This is not a twit different from a little boys club, meeting in a tree house, drinking fruit juice, giggling a lot, and not letting non-clique members and the girls of the neighborhood join in on the fun.

The difference is an open door policy, a sunshine policy compared to secret deals arranged behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms.

We can move faith and belief away from mystery. We can move faith and belief away from only the magic and the wizardry. We can move faith and belief away from the mumbo jumbo of slight of hand. We can move faith and belief away from the chants in "languages", the misdirection, and the “con”. We can move away from always having to be supremely aware of, and having to watch out for, the “sting”.

We have experienced the rites and prayers of the Transmutation in Communion. We had the Eucharist taste exactly like grape juice, wine, bread, or a communion wafer. We can move away from being disappointed. There is an implication that you should taste blood and flesh. There is a suggestion that if you do not, it was a problem of your lack of faith.

We can move away from the story behind the story of the Emperor's New Clothes. We can move away from medicine show charlatanism, with opium and alcohol "cures".

I have faith. I have exactly that faith that Christ described and meant when He said, “ye of little faith.” I do have faith, and it is a little faith. That should be all that is expected or required. For exactly that amount of faith, “little”, is sufficient to move mountains. Further, “nothing should be impossible to you.” Matthew 17: 14-20 I have enough faith to believe that the wine and bread represents the blood and body of Christ. That level, that amount of faith, is enough to be spiritually life transforming.

Distrust those who demand more faith from you. Faith can be delivered by the volume of a single mustard seed. Those who demand more faith from you are the most intransigent of doubters. For they really doubt the power of faith. Compare your faith to a mustard seed. Compare it by size, volume, or weight. You have enough.

Faith is being able to see God’s works around us. Faith is recognizing what God’s Plan is. The real mystery is our unwillingness to see what is before us. Faith is dealing with the hard realities. God insists these are more important than our wishes. Faith is a refusal to deny God. Faith is a refusal to deny God the Power to Do It His Way. Faith in God is based on the scientific method and is subject to proofs of sense and reason. Faith is believing Christ’s words, “Nothing is impossible to you.” Faith is confidence in God’s Plan of free will. Faith is the power to move mountains.

Faith is being certain that God's Laws are going to work all the time. Laws like gravity and Newton's laws of inertia. You tend to have faith that the things and people around you will continue to act as they usually do. Knives will cut, and babies will cry. There's another kind of faith, which is the weakest kind, we call it wishful thinking.

Article Source: http://www.religionarticlelibrary.com

(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace completed an MA and taught in the public schools for 28 years. He recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, the layers of money sucking priesthood, and their departures from the fundamental ideas and messages of Religion. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will outrage everyone. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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