Mood:
quizzicalNow Playing: Creed's "Torn"
is there a difference? between faith and belief, i mean.
faith is defined as "being able to believe in something we cannot see."
so by definition alone, faith is taking belief to the next level. anyone can believe in the incredible edible egg, you can see it, touch it, taste it, crack it, scramble it, and eat it. but not everyone can believe in an almighty God. few have seen Him, few have touched Him, heard Him, smelt Him or tasted Him.
maybe it's because i grew up as a Christian, but to me, faith is a watered down version of belief. faith doesn't require action, belief does. the difference between someone having faith in me and someone believing in me is astounding.
which brings me to realization that i've always had faith in God, but i'm not sure i've believed Him. or believed in Him. it was a very startling realization -- an epiphany, really.
that's the funny thing about epiphanies. epiphanies change the universe without moving a single hair. everything's changed but nothing's different.
Abraham believed in God. yes, he had incredible faith, but he believed in God. so when God told him to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham was willing to, despite the fact that it flew in the face of everything Abraham knew about God. God has never, ever, requested or demanded human sacrifices. but Abraham didn't question. he knew God. if God came to me and asked me to sacrifice my son, or my brother, i would probably pause and say, "this isn't one of the 27 fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, so this must be a trick or temptation from the devil."
because i've defined God by a religion. my religion. God isn't a religion. CS Lewis writes this really amazing theory and that is, every religion is actually a descendant of the original "religion," the theological beliefs of Adam, Eve, Noah, etc. this is why every religion, for example, has a flood story or a saviour story. each religion has aspects of the Truth and each has a unique and important view of salvation that really needs to be taken into account and not ignored, but so many times we get high and mighty with our own religion that we make sinners out of saints.
which, i know, is a very prickly subject for Christians, as we believe we have "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and there's no way to Heaven but through Jesus. we just need to make sure to remember that and not cling to the Gospel of Limp Bizkit which is "my way or the highway." Christianity (or Seventh-Day Adventism) is missing things that Buddhism has, but it's important to note what Christianity has that Buddhism doesn't (using Buddhists purely as an example here).
my filter is the Bible.
wow. all this just because of a line in the movie (you must see) Serenity.