On the Validity of Premonitions

Wescli Wardest wrote: This is going to sound counter intuitive for the logical thinker, but proof is the destroyer of faith. The point of having faith is choosing to believe in something without evidence of its existence. If you have proof, then there is no choice. You have to believe because it is proved.

So if someone chooses not to believe that is their choice.

I cannot see the Force. But I choose to believe in it. Why? First, I believe that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just means we haven’t found a way to identify the evidence. But… because I believe, I see evidence where others see coincidence, or chance.

So faith is a matter of choice. And not a matter of proof… as I believe it to work.

You can choose to have faith, you cant choose to believe. I can have faith all day long that a god exists and there are no requirements for that faith other than my choice. But I can't just suddenly decide to believe in a god for no reason. Now I can become convinced of something and begin to believe but until that conviction happens there is no belief. For this reason I have no choice in my belief because of my experiences and who i am as a person. So in true belief (or not) there is no choice.

Now this is not to say that faith cant lead to belief but often times it just leads to false belief. This is where the self deception comes in. You can convince yourself you believe but its just a lie you tell to yourself. I can tell people all day long that I believe but without the conviction that still does not make me a believer. This was always my problem with the Christian church. I was told to have faith and that would bring belief. But it never did because I could never being myself to truly believe something that there was no reason to believe.

That is the difference between faith and belief and this is why faith is irrational. It can lead to false conclusions. You are also right in absence of evidence comment. This is not to say I'm asserting there is no God, I'm just not convinced one exists. So I take the default stance of not accepting the claim until such time as the claim is proven to be true. This leaves me open to constantly explore the claim and, Adder, this is where your comments find purchase. We can still explore a claim without having to be convinced of the validity of the claim due to lack of evidence. Who knows, maybe someday we will discover some evidence and so we can never stop searching!

Can someone please explain to me the distinction between belief and faith? In the other two languages I speak the same word is used for both and which one is meant depends on the context exclusively. Faith in German and in Russian is what you translate the word as when it conderns a religious matter, and belief is how you translate it when it doesn't. To me to say that you believe because you have faith is the same as to say that you believe because you have belief, or that you have faith because of all the faith you have, and that's not even me mocking faith, that is literally what I hear and pretty much everywhere I look it up seems to confirm it. It is not possible for me that faith be a justification for belief, because I cannot distinguish between the two and that faith only ever comes up when discussing unfounded beliefs doesn't quite make the case for it any stronger either...

Faith is defined as: Complete trust or confidence in someone or something. 2: strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

Belief is defined as: An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. 2: trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.

... sorta sounds like the same definition from my end.

To Kyrin Wyldstar...

People have to reason their position. I am not judging anyone for what they reason, their beliefs or their relationship with what they choose. Rather that be one belief system or another. According to my beliefs, it is not my place to judge another’s beliefs. That is between them, and their spiritual wellbeing.

Your argument can work just fine for you.

By the standards of others, I may very well be a zealot. I believe without reason and nor do I require or ask for any. My belief fuels my faith. My faith feeds my beliefs. It is a circular dance that maintains my spiritual wellbeing and strengthens my relationship with the Force.

The issue some have is separating the secular from the spiritual. I believe this is because they ask the spiritual to be defined by the secular and have never found the division for themselves.

I will agree that many people choose not to believe. And they will put their faith in something else. Usually something secular… logic, science, reason, etc. And here at TotJO we get a lot of people that have done this very thing. And still they come to a religious site looking for something. Jediism is a personal journey and for each person that journey is different. And I am not telling anyone what they have to believe or even suggesting what might make them happy. Just stating what I have noticed over the last several years.

In your argument, you stated that “I can't just suddenly decide to believe in a god for no reason. Now I can become convinced of something and begin to believe but until that conviction happens there is no belief.” I have always believed, but I was not always certain what exactly it was that I believed. As I learned to let go of fear my relationship began to grow. I did not gain knowledge or have some revelation shown to me. But my relationship grew. And as it grew I became more comfortable and my understanding of my relationship was strengthened. I do not just believe there is a Force, God, what ever, I have complete faith in that belief.


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To Gisteron…

Belief is the acceptance of the truth of something and faith is the trust in something. So I can believe gravity exists even if I do not have the instrumentation to prove it for myself. I believe what others have found already. And I have faith that if I walk off a cliff, gravity that I believe in, will continue to work and I will plummet to the bottom of the cliff. LOL

Belief is kind of passive. It is something formed and accepted as true. Having faith is active. Something you continue to do.

This is my understanding of it.

Gisteron wrote: Can someone please explain to me the distinction between belief and faith? In the other two languages I speak the same word is used for both and which one is meant depends on the context exclusively. Faith in German and in Russian is what you translate the word as when it conderns a religious matter, and belief is how you translate it when it doesn't. To me to say that you believe because you have faith is the same as to say that you believe because you have belief, or that you have faith because of all the faith you have, and that's not even me mocking faith, that is literally what I hear and pretty much everywhere I look it up seems to confirm it. It is not possible for me that faith be a justification for belief, because I cannot distinguish between the two and that faith only ever comes up when discussing unfounded beliefs doesn't quite make the case for it any stronger either...

I would say that faith is a product of the spirit. It has a component of hope that allows a choice of opinion. You can have faith in anything, even another person. For example you can have faith (hope) that your father will bring you home a present. Whether you actually believe that or not you can still choose to hope that it is true.

Belief on the other hand is a product of the mind. It has a component of evidence that forces conviction or not. To reuse the above example, you can believe (be convinced) that your father is going to bring you home a present based on the evidence that he told you he would do this.

@ Wescli

I would generally agree with most of your reasoning there. You have better defined what I was trying to say to Adder in my last post. I do think we can have both faith and belief in things, But I do think they are two separate components that serve different functions.

For me, and the reason I pursue my spirituality, is that I also believe something. Just like you, I know I believe something, but I just am not sure what it is I believe. I am convinced that we manifest more than the sum of our parts. What that actually means though I am not sure. Hence my own personal search for answers. Ive spent a lifetime in these pursuits, flittering from one paradigm to another, one doctrine to another - like a honey bee desperately trying to collect ALL the pollen that exists.

In the end, after coming to this place, what I have discovered is that all those structures I was searching in and trying to collect are ultimately meaningless. No one will ever find meaning in a structure outside themselves, not really anyway, because those things will never be able to define who we are. Only through a search internally can we find any meaning in this life. That is where the true spiritual self resides and that person alone is who can define that meaning. No other is capable of this.

Its that weird place where the world falls away and all coherent thought dissipates. This becomes that defined meaning in the lack of definition. To just be and not worry about trying to quantify that experience because spirituality is about being and not doing. Its touching the paradox of contrast and unity that exists at the same time and just knowing. You cant find this in an esoteric energy field or in a supernatural entity - those are artificial constructs we build in an attempt to quantify something that cant be quantified. Instead we need to realize that this exists in us and we exist in it as a component of the human condition itself. Trying to collect all the pollen is futile because we ARE the pollen. This I believe.

if youve havent had experiences of "premonitions" or whatever we may be talking about here, then youd have to have faith that the people who say they have had such experiences are being honest with you and also that they are basically rational people with decent judgment

unfortunately, if you go out looking for people who claim to have had such experiences you will find quite a lot of people who dont inspire any confidence on either score lol

but if youve experienced esp type moments yourself, especially if youve experienced them repeatedly, then you dont need faith, because youve got direct experience

i gave an example from personal experience earlier, and sticking with that example i can say that i knew someone was stealing from me while we were in two separate rooms - i knew something specific was happening in a location from which i was completely removed

i know this experience is real because i was there lol, of course you dont know that it really happened, and even if you grant that im being honest and that im remembering accurately and that im not just crazy or stupid, you as the reader still cannot fully accept the conclusion that it was "esp," simply because you have no idea what other variables were involved.

and this is where the difficulty of studying thse things comes into play

by their nature, they are personal and spontaneous.
i would say that trying to have an esp experience is a good way to never have one; it doesnt seem to work when you try to force it. because of that, its not something that i think you can effectively control in a premeditated experiment which can be replicated by any interested other party. "esp" whatever this might mean, is between you and reality itself, and that creates some difficulties for scientific validation

that doesnt mean you cannot validate it for yourself; explore the topic of "altered states of consciousness" - meditate, do "energy body" meditations and maybe an energy exercise like qi-gong or taichi, learn lucid dreaming, explore ideas like samadhi and old school, traditional yoga, do opened eyed meditation like trataka or staring at a point on the wall, do the walking meditation and learn to shut off your internal dialogue.
play games with your attention. pay attention to attention lol and notice the effect that your attention has on other people,and the effects theirs has on you

heres another example of the attention connection: if youre payin attention to the attention connection between you, then you can tell when someone is actually listening to you even over the phone
if they really listen for a few minutes then you can feel it when they stop listening and focus on something else

it seems funny but im not joking; stare at peoples butts when they walk and you will often see them exhibit some sign of becoming self conscious. the most common is that they make some kind of adjustment gesture (usually a tug at the waistline) of their pants. sometimes you'll see a change in their posture as they walk. of course, obviously, sometimes theres no difference at all, but do this enough and youll see for yourself that people have the natural ability to sense when theyre being watched- its not coincidence, its connection, and its second nature to all of us (so natural we have the term self conscious" to describe it)

so thats the sort of thing that i mean i say by "play with your attention"

these are all things that you can do to possibly corroborate for yourself the validity of "esp" or at least some bit of the reality of "energy," but it takes time and effort

doesnt really take faith so much as persistence, but i guess some would need some kind of faith to justify the persistence lol