To anyone who even remotely considers themselves a spiritual being:

How can you determine your own motives when it comes to calling yourself a believer?

That might not be very clear, but let me try to explain.

My concern is that a person can claim to believe in this religion or that religion or even some combination thereof, but there is no way for him or her to know why he or she is among the faithful.

Example: I think I believe in God, but I am not sure why. Is it because I was raised in a culture of guilt/shame where I believe because I want a reward (paradise)? Or do I believe because I'm taught that I am supposed to believe, whether it has meaning or not? Or do I believe simply because I have faith?

In sum, do I believe because I'm supposed to do so? Or because I truly desire to do so? In either case, how do I recognize my own motives?

---I'm here---

"Ten out of ten heroin addicts started out on milk."---from Arliss

"So I dropped Sense like Common..."---Mocha Lab

Mainly because of faith...... but the reason I truly believe in God and the bible is because of bible prophecy...... there are a lot of things in the bible that are predicted that are already taking place or already have taken place, which leads me to believe, what I believe in.

Even when you look at things that have been found today (by archaeological (sp?) digs and searches), they go back to what the bible spoke of.

For example, they found Noah's Ark in the mountains in Russia.

That's just one example, which is the reason I believe in the bible and God.

Peace!!!!!!

AIM: BurbKnight

--"The Broke Diaries" ...... prolly the first book that I will buy and actually read it completely.

-GOOOOOOOOODNIGHT EVERYBODY (c) Yakko Warner, "Animaniacs"

-swedish americans aren't wearing their hair in pigtails and yodeling from mountains- Gloworm

-I'M SAYING WHAT I MEAN AND I'M MEANING WHAT I SAY!!!!!!!! IN 2000- me (in "fed up" mode)

Okayplayer Directory: http://theblackknight.tripod.com/okayplayer/okayplayer.html

My homepage:
http://members.tripod.com/~TheBlackKnight

Give some examples of such prophecies. The reason I ask is not that I don't believe you, it's just that alot of the time I feel that such "predictions" are extended to apply to certain instances. Like how the earthquakes and hurricanes before the millenium were "extended" to mean the "suffering" before the end of the world on 12/31/99.

Also do you have a link to the Noah's Ark finding?? I'm interested in how they new it was Noah's.....

Seriously, I'm not trying to be funny, just curious.......

"I think the dude just needs to lighten
up. Skip through a meadow or something."
- Whanoon on Canibus

"I don't care if he's rhyming to a test signal or an effin relaxation tape...it's the LYRICS!"
- dafriquan on Ras Kass

"Scooby snack jurrasic plastic gats booby trapped"
See I flipped the -ic like that, nahwamean? I don't care if ya'll don't understand what I'm saying, I'm da only nigga dat can do dat shit.
- Ghost

>Give some examples of such prophecies.
> The reason I ask
>is not that I don't
>believe you, it's just that
>alot of the time I
>feel that such "predictions" are
>extended to apply to certain
>instances. Like how the
>earthquakes and hurricanes before the
>millenium were "extended" to mean
>the "suffering" before the end
>of the world on 12/31/99.
>
1)................
Well, in the bible, Christ speaks of people claiming to be him.......

Matthew 24:5.... "For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ, and will mislead many'.

Example: David Coresh (Branch Davidians) made mention that he was the massiah.... so has Lewis Farrakhan.
...................

2).....................

Matthew 24:6 ........ "You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.

..........................

>
>Also do you have a link
>to the Noah's Ark finding??
>I'm interested in how they
>new it was Noah's.....
>

Well, I saw a TV special on it, so I have no link to a specific page and I need to hit the bed, so I won't do a search right now........

but take a look at this and see how it grabs ya:

http://www.westarkchurchofchrist.org/library/noahsark.htm

Peace!!!!!!

AIM: BurbKnight

--"The Broke Diaries" ...... prolly the first book that I will buy and actually read it completely.

-GOOOOOOOOODNIGHT EVERYBODY (c) Yakko Warner, "Animaniacs"

-swedish americans aren't wearing their hair in pigtails and yodeling from mountains- Gloworm

-I'M SAYING WHAT I MEAN AND I'M MEANING WHAT I SAY!!!!!!!! IN 2000- me (in "fed up" mode)

Okayplayer Directory: http://theblackknight.tripod.com/okayplayer/okayplayer.html

My homepage:
http://members.tripod.com/~TheBlackKnight

That CBS show where the guy presented "sacred wood" that he had baked with teriaki sauce, because that was uncovered as a hoax......



"I think the dude just needs to lighten
up. Skip through a meadow or something."
- Whanoon on Canibus

"I don't care if he's rhyming to a test signal or an effin relaxation tape...it's the LYRICS!"
- dafriquan on Ras Kass

"Scooby snack jurrasic plastic gats booby trapped"
See I flipped the -ic like that, nahwamean? I don't care if ya'll don't understand what I'm saying, I'm da only nigga dat can do dat shit.
- Ghost

It wasn't that one..... I didn't even see hear about that one.

Peace!!!!!!

AIM: BurbKnight

--"The Broke Diaries" ...... prolly the first book that I will buy and actually read it completely.

-GOOOOOOOOODNIGHT EVERYBODY (c) Yakko Warner, "Animaniacs"

-swedish americans aren't wearing their hair in pigtails and yodeling from mountains- Gloworm

-I'M SAYING WHAT I MEAN AND I'M MEANING WHAT I SAY!!!!!!!! IN 2000- me (in "fed up" mode)

Okayplayer Directory: http://theblackknight.tripod.com/okayplayer/okayplayer.html

My homepage:
http://members.tripod.com/~TheBlackKnight

Whoops. Always gotta start with a caveat. I've looked into a lot of different practices from a lot of different angles. Sometimes I know that I sound here like a practical humanist and sometimes like a Roman Catholic. I don't mean to propound any particular faith/religion/practice. For me, a big part of ultimate truth is that it's personal. What's right for me may not be right for you. So I use examples that I think may strike people as familiar and so be more powerful, but I claim no particular current affiliation.

Faith.
By definition, it requires not knowing. If you know something is factually true, then you don't have faith, you have knowledge. If you believe something to a moral certainty and don't have the facts to back it up, that's faith. They say that part of the beauty of faith is the "not knowing." I'm currently in the midst of a "Don't Know" practice, myself. Just letting go into an ability to say, "Well, I don't know," is a wonderful, liberating thing on a very deep, personal level. Same thing has got to stand true of someone who says, "Sure, I don't KNOW that if I practice this or that religion, I will be saved/go to heaven/whatever whatever, but I have FAITH that this is the right path for me." Our old friend Doubting Thomas had to plunge his hands into Christ's wounds in order to believe that the man standing before him was the man he knew. Everyone has a line past which they can't travel without help. Maybe for BurbKnight, archeological digs and prophecies take him across the line. Maybe for other folks, nothing will do other than personal divine revelation. For some people, there's an inner voice that says, "It's okay to stop asking whether it's true now." and that's the point at which they let their intellectual minds go and follow their heart. Everyone is different. You'll find your path. That's pretty much guaranteed by the fact that you're looking. Only thing is, remember it's a path, not a destination. All religious teachings, whether or not they have a dangling carrot like "heaven" or "nirvana" or whatever, are about how to get on a path, how to conduct a search.

Another thing that I've noticed consistently is that as part of the maturation process, we all step back from our cradle religion and re-assess. Sometimes we return to the religion we were raised in, only now we're doing it with an adult's perspective. For example, the stuff they teach to kids in Sunday School is pretty watered down. You have to be an adult to really get the unexpurgated version of a religion. Sometimes we step back and decide that our parents' religion doesn't create the community that we need in which to flourish and grow. Then we'll strike out on our own, away from the family. Sometimes we change religions as a means of stepping back from our families (because we go through the same reassessment process with families as we do with religion. That's all part of becoming an adult. And that's why adolescents are known to be "rebellious" - they've begun the process).

Motivations.
When I decided that it was time for me to do volunteer work, I decided that the best thing for me to do, the work that fulfilled me the most, was hospice volunteer work. People, friends, family would hear that I was spending time with people who were dying and a lot of them would say, "Oh, that's so brave" or "that must be really hard," or "you must be such a good person" or "how selfless of you." But of course the truth was that I wasn't a better person for doing it than anyone else is for doing or not doing what they can. And the truth was that it probably would have been really hard for some people, but it was right for me, so it wasn't hard. And I had all the best intentions of being selfless when I started, but no matter how much I gave, I got more back. So then I would try to be even more giving, because I wanted those scales to balance out at "janey's a giving person" but I kept getting MORE back. So I just think I got way more out of it than I ever gave. But does that make me a selfish person? It was a happy by product of doing something that was a good fit for me (I also credit that a big part of my motivation was selflessness for spiritual growth. I didn't get the selflessness, but it helped me become much more aware, conscious and loving).

So what I've noticed is that it's all part of the soup. Questioning, seeking, looking for one's own ulterior motives, asking whether faith is enough, asking whether knowledge is enough, asking whether this or that community is right, asking what lies ahead. Looking at what's right here, right now. Looking at what came before. Life as spiritual practice. What your "practice" (i.e., religion) is is only a part of your life, but everything everything you do is part of your spiritual seeking/finding.

Peace.

These were both damn good answers.

I didn't expect much in the way of response to the post, but I think I got more out of than I even tried to ask.

Guess one cannot accurately know their motives.
Maybe faith not only means that you have faith in the unknowable concept to which you are subscribing, but that you trust yourself to pursue that belief with noble intentions.

---I'm here---

"Ten out of ten heroin addicts started out on milk."---from Arliss

"So I dropped Sense like Common..."---Mocha Lab

That's lovely. I think you really got it right there.

Peace.

Think about it. You either believe for whatever reason or you don't. Say you're not sure if you "believe" but you decide to believe because you don't want to be "damned". By biblical terms you're "damned" anyway because you don't truly believe with your heart. So I agree pretty much that's it's a personal thing that makes you believe in whatever you believe in, primarily because "faith" because you don't want to be wrong is a mockery anyway. I've had people give the what have you got to lose argument before, which is a total contridiction. I mean there are actually alot of people in the world who believe based on the logic that, if you don't believe and you're wrong you're doomed, if you do believe and you're wrong you're doomed, and if you do believe and you're right, you win! So you've got nothing to lose if you believe. That in my opinion is very sad.........


"I think the dude just needs to lighten
up. Skip through a meadow or something."
- Whanoon on Canibus

"I don't care if he's rhyming to a test signal or an effin relaxation tape...it's the LYRICS!"
- dafriquan on Ras Kass

"Scooby snack jurrasic plastic gats booby trapped"
See I flipped the -ic like that, nahwamean? I don't care if ya'll don't understand what I'm saying, I'm da only nigga dat can do dat shit.
- Ghost

and THEN see what your response is. Make note of ya actions and ya reasoning behind thse actions.


____________________________________________
Marinate on that!!!!!!!!!!!


Ju-LIE QUOTATION for the Week************************


"Can't You See" was our biggest hit. All because of Biggie!!!
-----kec(Pam)

I-ight...Y'all definitely came with some good insight. For a little more clarification from me:

This post was really born when I started thinking about the idea of the wicked having the appearance of the most righteous to pursue personal gain.

Kinda like you have to know your enemy better than you know yourself. So if the devil has any chance of defeating God, then the devil is superficially righteous so that he can wage a war on his own terms and beat Good at Good's own game

I worked towards the idea that if a person was a believer and acted righteous because of duty, then how far removed would that person be from the devil? Not saying that a given person is inclined to fight this battle from within, but if you have faith because you are supposed to have faith, then do you really have faith at all?

If your motivation is a sense of obligation, then are you really a believer?

I think the solution came in my second post by saying that faith requires trust that you have noble intentions.

There's probably no clear cut answer to all of this and I might be throwing some bullish from my brain at your computer screen, but in any case, I appreciate the responses.


---I'm here---

"Ten out of ten heroin addicts started out on milk."---from Arliss

"So I dropped Sense like Common..."---Mocha Lab

leaves room for doubt

as i paint to the wind's breath
freestyle to my footsteps
and create till the heartbeat's got no rhythm left...
-archangel_500years

So my path switches
Now devoted to uncovering all the glitches
That they left when they tried to hide my past
Under vast lies and advertisement pitches
So I dig deeper than subterranean level ditches
Deeper than the seeds of hate planted over those of vitality
Deeper than the hole I dug my self in when I was slaving for a salary
Deeper than the sin soil that his roots were cowardly planted in
Deep enough to find my soul again
And bring an end to confusion and fallacy
I must go deeper
-Amina NiaRa (deeper existence)

belief and faith is no knowing!

you may have FAITH in ya car but you KNOW the engine is shot!

i dont believe (be lies to eve)
belief is just a string along word to make you think you on to something
know-ledge is power knowing overstanding!
see we need to think about the things we need to KNOW and the things perhaps that aint for us to KNOW but we try anyway therefore we gotta believe cuz we cant really grasp the concept. maybe its non of our bizzness!



i tried to told yall!






it's a competetive world for low-budget people, spending a dime while earning a nickel.. - buju banton



"tahitian fresh berry treat...she's a capricorn" -GhostFaceKillah

" E El Isum Shil El Eloh El Rahmun, Alazi Izu El Rahummul!"

>belief and faith is no knowing!
>
>belief is just a string along
>word to make you think
>you on to something
>know-ledge is power knowing overstanding!

***Word...I've been struggling to decide whether faith or knowledge has more value...And it seems that Knowledge may get the slight edge

>see we need to think about
>the things we need to
>KNOW and the things perhaps
>that aint for us to
>KNOW but we try anyway
>therefore we gotta believe cuz
>we cant really grasp the
>concept. maybe its non of
>our bizzness!


***Ultimately, I think knowledge and faith are strange bedfellows...But they can't really exist any other way


---I'm here---

"Ten out of ten heroin addicts started out on milk."---from Arliss

"So I dropped Sense like Common..."---Mocha Lab

Faith, belief, knowledge - based on what (fatct, experience, teaching, study)? what does it give you (assurance, peace)?

answer this for me y'all....(this ought to be fun)
------QUOTE STARTS HERE------
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** PLEASE READ THE POSTING GUIDELINES:
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>Faith, belief, knowledge - based on
>what (fatct, experience, teaching, study)?
>what does it give you
>(assurance, peace)?

belief..to me belief can include faith but it's the wider group..dunno - belief makes me think of conviction, having confidence in something outside yourself for whatever reason. needn't necessarily be 'truthful' (must be valid at least though) in that it relies on acceptance without empirical proof.

faith..it is belief, you can't have one without the other. could say faith is almost like belief without justification, no need for proof or concrete logic to it. but there's something submissive in it - like in religious terms, you accept that the bible is fundamentally truthful in itself - it's words are 'nobly intended' so you can stay true to it, and to yourself, I guess.

knowledge's a part of it too eg. that idea of promised salvation - which means you have to throw trust in the definition mix as well. but I find it's more often taught/demonstrated than studied orlearned independantly. sub-question: can you have different levels of faith, like degrees to it?

knowledge - credit to tank cause we we're talking about this..that's almost like the direct opposite of the above two. knowledge - to 'know': which to me is to understand via experience, (instead of vice versa as religion) to recognise - it's specific. study and grasp and comprehend. like janey said 'factual truth.'

the result of it all..dunno, they all satisfy a human need? like the nirvana quote in my signature..we've got to know, to adopt a stance, got to believe - I believe that..increasingly so.
______________________________________

seize your time! - marley/wailers

all we know is all we are.. - cobain/nirvana