Faith, Belief, & Knowledge - What's the Difference? According to UNESCO, knowledge is defined as : "...the body of concepts and factual information (data), including their interrelated structures and patterns, concerning the natural and social environment and our understanding of the world, people, and society, gained through learning and/or experience."
Knowledge - What is Knowing? There are generally four sources of knowledge: ● ● ● ●
intuition, authority, rational induction, and empiricism.
Intuition is knowledge gained through a feeling or thought that might turn out to be true. Authority is a source of knowledge that you gain from your parents, or a book that tells you that this is the way things are and thats that. Authority and Intuition are not generally appealed to as reliable sources of knowledge because they are not grounded in any source of statistics or observable facts. Rational induction is a source of knowledge by reasoning and proofs. This type of knowledge comes about by supposing one thing and then giving proof of it, or any other way you want to do a proof. Rational induction involves proof and certainty, which may preclude one from answering certain questions not based on materialism, such as psychological or metaphysical questions. Empiricism is knowledge gained through careful observation, manipulating variables through the scientific method, repeating research designs, and taking in data to interpret. Empiricism is widely accepted in scientific research because of probabilistic conclusions using statistics to decide if two variables are related. The Scientific Method, however, is not designed to answer moral or metaphysical questions - only material. We must use logic, reason, intuition, and other faculties/ methods of deduction for the immaterial inquiries.
Belief - What is Belief? "Belief" expresses what is known or even what is a likely outcome based on reasonable estimation or probability. If we have observed and can recall repeated demonstrations of a thing being so, such as objects falling to earth due to gravity, we may say the following with confidence: "I believe that if I were to drop an apple from my hand, it would fall to the ground and not hover." Though we never drop the apple, our belief that if we do it will fall, is sound. Belief does not deny alternative possibilities. I am not denying the margin for error or alternative outcomes when I place a bet on a horse with 1:1.5 odds to win. I am simply expressing a belief that the horse will most likely win the race. Belief may draw from circumstantial evidence as well. If someone of unimpeachable character, for example, gives a court testimony as a witness to an event or crime, we may say that we believe them. That is to say, that we believe they are not lying or fabricating their account. We hold their testimony as “truthful”. While their testimony may offer only one perspective from a single vantage point and may, therefore not represent the entire truth, if we take their testimony in concert with other believable witnesses of the same crime, we may reasonably deduce the truth and convict a criminal based on the corroborating evidence of the additional testimony. Consider the poem of the Blind Man and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe. https://allpoetry.com/The-Blind-Man-And-The-Elephant
Faith - What is Faith? The Bible defines faith as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) Let's adapt our horse race example above to Track and Field. Suppose world sprint record holder Usain Bolt was to race a 100-meter dash against the average high school athlete. Because we have KNOWLEDGE of Bolt's
history as a champion athlete and the statistical records of all high school students, we might express the confident BELIEF that Usain Bolt will easily win the race. There exists, however, a very real potential for something happening during the race that could affect the outcome, which was unforeseen. Perhaps Bolt has a false start, twists an ankle, or another runner trips him. If you were to express hope against informed knowledge and bet on another runner to win, this would be an act of FAITH because you are hoping for something unpredictable or unlikely to happen, which under normal conditions - would not. So, when we place a bet against a probable outcome, this can be seen as an expression of faith. That is to say, we believe that something might happen that defies probability, reason, or evidence. When we ask God for a Miracle, to be healed, for deliverance, etcetera. we are expressing FAITH that God might act in a way that defies probability. When we express faith properly, we are not abandoning reason by asking God to act in a way that transcends predictability. We ask God for these things because he has demonstrated that he can by the miracles he performed in the Bible and continues to perform to this day. We thank God for our body's natural ability to heal, for medicines and herbs, and for medical knowledge/technology. But we also have a source beyond KNOWLEDGE and beyond REASON: FAITH in God's miraculous power.
Faith Without Reason is Not Faith, it is Fantasy. Faith without Reason is folly and the breeding ground of fantasies, false doctrines, and misguided religious thinking - sometimes even dangerous.
How the nicotine and other transdermal medical patches work to deliver medicines into the body is known science, but can the efficacy of wearing or placing a crystal on your skin - with “intention” be proven? No. ● The sciences of anatomy and physiology clearly demonstrate the presence of nerve endings, brain waves, junctions, and more in the human body. But can you perform a biological examination procedure to isolate, extract, and study the “chakras”? No. ● Psychology can demonstrate a person's nature and personality related to both innate and nurtured qualities, but can one prove that nonsentient celestial rocks in outer space control or influence your personality and decisions simply on the happenstance of the astrological ●
day of your birth? No. ● ●
Absolute Truth? Absolutely! There is no such thing as “my truth” or “your truth”. Truth is not subjective. Informed perspective is NOT the same thing as Truth, which is objective and always true in all cases and against all moral questions and challenges. Just because it “works for me” doesn’t mean I am right - it only means I’ve constructed a paradigm that fits in with my biases, perspectives, and assumptions.
How to Evaluate for "Truth"? How I approach my religious thinking to discern what is true - is a method that combines study, logical & moral reasoning, and evaluating testimony & evidence. All religious assertions that don’t pass these tests I reject. Those that do, I accept. I find it more fruitful to suspend my beliefs to objectively seek out and determine what is TRULY TRUE. Descartes did this, leading him to the existential discovery of Cogito Ergo Sum, “I think, therefore I am”.
As a Free Thinker, how can I also be a Christian? The purpose of free thought is to better lead us, unshackled, to those things that are demonstrably true, not to keep us bound in perpetual dogmatic agnosticism. Once a truth is discovered, should we reject it to remain free of it and its implications? Certainly not! We should embrace it. Just as proving any Theory of physics as Law is a great victory to humanity, to have exercised this inquiry process and found the Gospel of Jesus Christ reliably TRUE is equally precious. It is not incompatible to be both a Free Thinker and a Christian.
Why I am a Christian I am a Christian, not because I claim to be good, wise, right, or better than anyone else. I do not belong to a church movement or tradition, particular ministry, or para-church group. Most churches today are little more than God-themed social clubs peddling cultic joy or liturgical tombs/shrines peddling guilt, sorrows, and the woe of perpetual martyrdom. Thomas Jefferson, in his 1816 letter to Charles Thomson said the following: “... I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what it’s Author never said nor saw. they have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the
vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognise one feature.” I could not agree more, perhaps with any statement on the Christian religion than with this reflection by our third president and author of both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Like Jefferson, I reject most Christian Sectarian dogma, tradition, and practice - in favor of the purity of Jesus’ teachings, referencing them in the source language of Koine Greek. I am a Christian based on 31 years of lengthy study based on the merits of the person of Jesus Christ and His teaching, the actual claims of Jesus Christ, the evidence of His life and ministry, the testimonies of his followers, the met predictions of his life in texts far preceding his birth, and the reasoning/logic/ soundness found in his moral teaching. To say that I am a Christian means that I follow Christ. And like all of us, I regularly fall far short of his teaching and ministry ideals. Some things I have a handle on, some things I struggle with significantly. To be a Christian is not a claim to perfection. Rather, it is an acknowledgment of the perfection and sinlessness of Jesus and an expressed desire to follow his example, however difficult it may be to achieve.
The Wholesome Discipline of Moral Improvement Benjamin Franklin used to try and improve himself by working on one moral virtue at a time. According to CNN: “Franklin started by taking a critical look at his behavior, and he found that too often he traveled down unvirtuous roads that "natural inclination, custom or company might lead me into," as he put it. He fell short of his ideal in more than a dozen areas of his life, he concluded. He ate and drank too much. He talked too much, especially about himself. He spent more money than he should. He didn't finish all his goals. And so on. Then he considered various virtues that, if mastered, would counteract his unwanted behavior. His list of 13: Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Chastity and Humility. He chose 13 because that number fits neatly into a calendar. Multiply it by four, and you get 52, the number of weeks in a year. Franklin would take a single virtue at a time, work on it for a week and then move on to the next. Trying to fix everything that's wrong with you all at once is overwhelming, he decided. The virtuous path needs to be broken down to give each area some concentrated time of intention and effort. Every 13 weeks, the cycle repeats itself. He accounted for his progress on a chart and shared his scheme with others. Modern social science has since proved that tracking and accountability are two key components of successful habit formation.”
The Message of Christ Jesus was a real man with a real message. We have a real record of his life with manuscripts and external corroborations more trustworthy than can be found for any of Shakespeare’s plays. And at the core of it all, the message of Jesus is a profound moral teaching that cannot be argued against with any degree of success. One may rightly argue against various churches and their myriad abuses throughout history, but this is the waywardness of mankind. It is not evidence of the nature of its founder. Reading Christ's words and his teachings reveals a strong moral leader with compassion, wisdom, understanding, wit, joy, love. Jesus advocated against war for equality between races and between genders. He taught kindness, self-sacrifice, benevolence, mercy, love, patience, and more. Christ does not deserve to be indicted for the wrongs of those who claim to follow him. His true followers are recognized by their lives. They were called Christians because they were trying to live a life of peace as Christ instructed. They called themselves “disciples” or students. So, when people ask me what I am, I typically say either that I am a "disciple of Jesus Christ", or that I am a "Christian". And that doesn’t make me better than anyone else. It’s the reverse. Because I understand Christ's perfection, it reveals my own imperfections and flaws. It presents daily challenges I need to work on for me and my family to continuously improve. It is reasonable, therefore, for me to make the following limited profession of faith: Based on my KNOWLEDGE of the testimony of the witnesses and of the evidence of and for Jesus Christ, I BELIEVE in Him and His power to reconcile mankind to God and in His authority to forgive sin. I have FAITH in His promises and that he can do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.