liveonearth (liveonearth) wrote,
liveonearth
liveonearth

The Capacity for Faith

I'm listening to an interview on NPR with an author (C. Beha) who is talking about the loss of his Catholic faith, and his subsequent exploration of the question of faith. (You can listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=3&islist=true&id=13&d=07-26-2012) He appears to be drawing an equivalence between having faith, and having a personal experience of God. I think that this equivalence is mistaken. I do not have faith, and yet I have mystical experiences on a regular basis. I do not Believe that these experiences are God because I know that there are too many other explanations to be sure of that attribution. I remain agnostic: I've had and heard of no mystical experiences that cannot be explained by other phenomena, yet there could of course be a spirit manipulating it all. I suppose that puts me in the camp of the faithless.
Tags: belief, brain, existentialism, faith, god, isms, nervous system, religion, skepticism
Subscribe

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Comments allowed for friends only

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 5 comments