Reply to: What do you believe in ?

[NotAllThere]

Just got back from the monastery, and boy do my arms ache from all that rowing! Especially as I had to go back for the bolt cutters for the chain.

My OED says:

Belief:

1. Trust, confidence; faith (Followed by in, of a person or thing.
b) Trust in God; religious faith; acceptance of any received theology
2. Mental acceptance of a statement, fact, doctrine, thing, etc. as true or existing (Followed by in a thing, in or of a statement etc. that something is the case )

Faith:

I. Confidence, belief
1. Confidence, reliance, belief, esp. without evidence or proof
b) Belief based on testimony or authority
2. What is or should be believed; a system of firmly held beliefs or principles: a religion
3. Belief in the doctrines of a religion
b) The spiritual apprehension of divine truth or intangible realities

[NickFitz]

Belief is the acceptance that something is true
Faith is the unquestioning acceptance that something is true

According to EOD. But not the OED... well, depening on context.

For the avoidance of doubt, let's have a look at the OED, shall we? It's not as if it's chained to a shelf in a monastery on a remote island somewhere...

belief
• noun 1 a feeling that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. 2 a firmly held opinion. 3 (belief in) trust or confidence in. 4 religious faith.

faith
• noun 1 complete trust or confidence. 2 strong belief in a religion. 3 a system of religious belief.

Make of that what you will.

The poll's still rubbish because it fails, as any such poll must, to address the inordinate diversity of things-that-are-believed-in. I'll go for the Andyw option as being the default mechanism for expressing the belief that the poll sucks.

[Diver]

The poll sucks. What does "God" mean? The Christian god? Jewish? Both? "God" could normally encompass the main monotheistic religions, including Islam. Better to ask what religion people are.

And he missed out Pie and cake

[d000hg]

The poll sucks. What does "God" mean? The Christian god? Jewish? Both? "God" could normally encompass the main monotheistic religions, including Islam. Better to ask what religion people are.

[NotAllThere]

Probably my favorite Christmas song :

They said there'll be snow at Christmas,
They said there'll be peace on earth,...

...Hallelujah! Noel!, be it Heaven or Hell,
The Christmas we get, we deserve.

I like this one, by Christian author Adrian Plass:

Away in a gutter
No food and no bed
The little Lord Jesus
Hangs down his sweet head
The stars in the bright sky
Look down and they say
The little Lord Jesus
Is wasting away.

We love you Lord Jesus
We hope you survive
We’ll see you tomorrow
If you’re still alive
You won’t live for long now
With no tender care
You’re best off in heaven
We’ll see you up there.

The darkness is lifting
The baby awakes
But little Lord Jesus
No movement he makes
No flesh on his body
No light in his eye
The little Lord Jesus
Is going to die.

[Diver]

Oh yes, I remember hope.

Mine seemed to disappear just after my 50th birthday

[Old Greg]

Hope

Oh yes, I remember hope.

[NotAllThere]

Not strictly accurate.
Belief is the acceptance that something is true
Faith is the unquestioning acceptance that something is true

According to EOD. But not the OED... well, depening on context.

"I believe in God" most times seems to mean "I believe God exists". Whereas, "I believe in EO" could mean "I have trust in EO's abilities".

Similarly "I have faith" could mean that
. I subscribe to a particular belief system
. I believe without evidence
. I trust the object of my faith

To take something "on faith", could mean to unquestioningly accepting that it is true, but it could also leave room for that opinion to change - as in, I'll go along with it for the time being - kind of "in good faith".

The most quoted biblical definition of faith is Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (King James)

Paraphrases of this are:

The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. (Message)

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. (New Living Translation)

Of course, the original Greek makes it a lot clearer:

1εστιν δε πιστις ελπιζομενων υποστασις πραγματων ελεγχος ου βλεπομενων

hth

[Chantho]

Probably my favorite Christmas song :

They said there'll be snow at Christmas,
They said there'll be peace on earth,
But instead it just kept on raining,
A veil of tears for the Virgin birth.

I remember one Christmas morning,
The Winter's light and a distant choir,
And the peal of a bell and that Christmas tree smell,
And eyes full of tinsel and fire.

They sold me a dream of Christmas,
They sold me a silent night,
They told me a fairy story,
'Til I believed in the Israelite.

And I believed in Father Christmas,
And I looked to the sky with excited eyes,
Then I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn,
And I saw him and through his disguise.

I wish you a hopeful Christmas,
I wish you a brave New Year,
All anguish, pain and sadness,
Leave your heart and let your road be clear.

They said there'd be snow at Christmas,
They said there'd be peace on earth,
Hallelujah! Noel!, be it Heaven or Hell,
The Christmas we get, we deserve.

Nice one, Sergei

And on the day when some bint at this client's has just sent an email asking for ideas for the Christmas night out

[Diver]

Yes my old buddies at http://www.rr-bb.com believe that (or did if they haven't been raptured into heaven yet - I haven't checked in on them for a while, since they banned me). They're not the brightest though, bless 'em, and I don't think it's occurred to them that Arab Christians refer to God as Allah as well.

As for me, I retain my faith in AndyW. I have no evidence he existed or that he will ever return but I feel spiritually uplifted to believe that there is, on some plane, a being worse than myself.

Hope

[Old Greg]

And while you might think that Allah and the God-the-Father-Christian God are unique, many Christians believe that Allah is in fact satan. A quick google will reinforce that view. ( I mean that that's what some Christians believe, not that Allah is satan, before I get jihadded to death ).

Yes my old buddies at http://www.rr-bb.com believe that (or did if they haven't been raptured into heaven yet - I haven't checked in on them for a while, since they banned me). They're not the brightest though, bless 'em, and I don't think it's occurred to them that Arab Christians refer to God as Allah as well.

As for me, I retain my faith in AndyW. I have no evidence he existed or that he will ever return but I feel spiritually uplifted to believe that there is, on some plane, a being worse than myself.

[DaveB]

....Father Christmas

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki-Se0wlq28

Probably my favorite Christmas song :

They said there'll be snow at Christmas,
They said there'll be peace on earth,
But instead it just kept on raining,
A veil of tears for the Virgin birth.

I remember one Christmas morning,
The Winter's light and a distant choir,
And the peal of a bell and that Christmas tree smell,
And eyes full of tinsel and fire.

They sold me a dream of Christmas,
They sold me a silent night,
They told me a fairy story,
'Til I believed in the Israelite.

And I believed in Father Christmas,
And I looked to the sky with excited eyes,
Then I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn,
And I saw him and through his disguise.

I wish you a hopeful Christmas,
I wish you a brave New Year,
All anguish, pain and sadness,
Leave your heart and let your road be clear.

They said there'd be snow at Christmas,
They said there'd be peace on earth,
Hallelujah! Noel!, be it Heaven or Hell,
The Christmas we get, we deserve.

[scooterscot]

And that interminable wait for the next big bang...

about 2 months then...

[Chantho]

....Father Christmas

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki-Se0wlq28

A thing called love

[Diver]

I believe in Christian The Lion

Brilliant