I like that. It is an answer to my question. You have faith because you believe you received a personal confirmation of that faith. I suppose this is what Mormons often refer to as The Spirit.
While a student at BYU, I attended church a few times with Mormon friends and roommates. I remember one of those times a guy went up to... what do you call it? Give his testimony? He talked about the usual stuff of how he feels god's love and so on and so forth, then he told a story. He said that he often listened to music while studying, and that he preferred classical music because it is calming and beautiful. He said that the other day he was studying and listening to Mozart when he felt the spirit in full force. He then talked about how he believed god sometimes spoke through music. I've seen this sentiment reflected many times. For an example, Dan Barker, a former nationally known evangelist preacher turned atheist, talks about the spiritual confirmation in his book 'Godless'.
Well, I got that feeling listening to music many times. It is actually similar to that pain in your heart that you get when you "fall in love". I don't think it has any spiritual significance. But I suppose others do and that's okay. But I still wonder, how can it go from a vague mystical moment that inspires belief in a higher power or what have you, into specific and quite crazy set of beliefs like "the world will end in 27 days"? Is it also a spiritual confirmation in their case?
I keep going back to cult religions because mainstream ones have the power of culture behind them. Culture can make you believe anything. Some cultures sacrificed their children to their gods for better harvest season. I talk about religions outside of the mainstream because they feed on faith and only faith. I want to understand how faith works. Not academically (which I've read about quite a bit), but from the experiences of those who have it.
Certainly not. If it was truly an outside force of spiritual nature telling them that the world would in 27 days, then it would have. Otherwise, that outside force would be wrong, which seems a little counter intuitive to the very nature of the idea, itself, in my opinion.
I briefly explained the foundation for which my personal testimony towards the idea of God was formed, but to answer the broader question you have concerning the idea of faith in general I would say that it all stems from hope. Before you can have faith in something, you must first have hope; it is the very foundation of faith. For instance, several months back my car had some bizarre problems and I would often worry that it would break down as I was driving somewhere. However, I obviously
hoped that it would function properly and get me to my destination, and from that hope I acted in faith (that's essentially what faith is--acting in accordance with a hope) and would drive my car wherever I need to go.
So I would say people act in faith, however bizarre it may seem to outside parties, because they
hope for those things to be true. Now, it's obviously easier to see why people may hope for some things to be true, like the idea of God, than it is with other things, such as why someone would hope the world will end in 27 days. Perhaps
knowing when the world will end is comforting as opposed to not knowing? I'm not sure. But fear often, or perhaps always does stem from uncertainty.
What I'm trying to say is that faith is merely acting in accordance with a hope, as I stated earlier, so the real question is why do people hope for certain things to be true? Why do people hope the world will end in 27 days? Why do people hope there are 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven? I believe it all comes down to what has already been mentioned in this thread: because we are aware that we will one day die, we must hope that that is not the real end of our time. Without time there can be no purpose, and without purpose there can be no meaning; as emotional, or spiritual beings--however you want to phrase it--humans, by our very nature, need there to be meaning, or as
Memories, Dreams, Reflections phrases it, "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being." We need there to be meaning--we hope for it, and we find it, sometimes in illogical places. But for an individual, it does not always matter if it is seemingly illogical. If for whatever reason one finds some form of purpose, some sort of meaning, then they'll believe it because they want to believe it--they need to believe it, because they need that greater meaning. They need it to the extent that they are willing to overlook its logical pitfalls, sometimes on a conscious level, and perhaps even more often on a subconscious level. For most, "kindling that light of meaning", despite its logical flaws, is better than wallowing in "the darkness of mere being."
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