belief (in and of itself)

[sin_patas]

my question is this:

 

isn't belief (in and of itself), a form of attachment to material existence?

 

i will formulate an example: if i chant the maha-mantra, then there is an implicit assumption that i believe Lord Caitanya is Krsna himself, and therefore i follow his advice.

 

now, the question about Lord Caitanya's divinity is not what i aim to prove/disprove. my concern is actual act of belief itself.

 

is not the act of believing a form of material attachment in and of itself? if i believe something to be true, then it is my own ego that is believing, hoping for something to be true.

 

even if i believe the identity of God to be one or another, or i believe that one scripture is more accurate than another, is it not still belief (and therefore, attachment)?

 

is not all material attachment what we should strive to get away from?

[Maitreya]

Originally posted by sin_patas:

it not still belief (and therefore, attachment)?

 

is not all material attachment what we should strive to get away from?

sin_patas,

 

This is a beginning to an interesting thread,one I hope to have a little time for later today.

 

It is not possible to escape belief even in one's ordinary life,let alone the philosophical or religious side of it.

 

For example your idea that belief is a material attachment and we should strive to get away from it for that reason may also be seen as a belief.Quandry if we try to negate it.

 

It seems to me that belief is a necessary step towards any goal including God consciousness.It may be immature at that level but yet an indespensible step.

 

I know Janus has had some interesting views on belief and may join the conversation along with others.

 

Hare Krishna

 

 

[suryaz]

From "ethicsBeliefDebste_files/AD0000004932.gif" width=124

 

0>Many theologians and philosophers of

religion are actively involved in the Ethics of Belief Debate.

A short collection of essays written by several well-known

academics was complied by the American Academy of Religion

which clarifies why we have reasons for faith and I would like

to share their insights with you.

 

The discussion

arises out of the need for theologians and philosophers to

justify truth claims about their beliefs. If someone holds a

particular religious belief then there should be justifying

reasons which warrant conviction of the mind. Hopefully, the

reasons are free, inward and self-evident and not necessarily

because "Joe told me so" or "this is always what we believed."

 

It was William Clifford who first proposed that we

should proportion the confidence we invest in our beliefs to

the evidence we have. (2) The essays he published caused quite

a stir in his day and encouraged such famous writers as G.K.

Chesterton and C.S. Lewis to respond.

 

When we believe,

do we assent to the truth "God exists" or do we infer (by

experience)? Is what we believe one of the following?

 

 

Presumption

Persuasion

Belief

Conclusion

Conviction or

Certainty (excludes doubt)

 

 

Do our beliefs have:

 

 

Plausibility

Probability

Doubtfulness or

Untrustworthiness

 

 

VAN A. HARVEY clearly states that Christians have a duty and are

bound by their beliefs to seek the truth. If a Christian

belief by definition is the entertaining of propositions

incommensurate with the evidence, the Christian cannot be

regarded as a lover of truth (a moral virtue) (189),

therefore, it is imperative to the Christian to base beliefs

upon truth supported by evidence.

 

 

JOHN NEWMAN

proposes that the certainty of a proposition does not consist

in the certitude of the mind which contemplates it. (84) For

example, not all men discriminate the same way such as

identifying particular authors of a book in the Bible. There

are also no specific criteria for judging gentlemanly

behavior, poetic excellence and heroic action. The belief we

hold about the degree of these rests in our own propriety,

skill, taste, discretion, art, method and temperament.

 

 

LESLIE STEPHEN agrees on the grounds that there are

other affections which motivate us besides love of the truth;

men of equal ability can hold diametrically opposite

principles which shows certitude alone is no test of objective

truth. (110)

 

 

Does it follow that nobody ought to be

certain? Of course not, but do we:

 

 

1) entertain relevant evidence?

 

2) 2) do our actions based on erroneous belief make

the error manifest? (112)

 

 

Perhaps we can rely on the experience of others - is there a uniformity in nature which

expresses itself as to whether some things are good and others

bad?

 

Maybe the truth of a belief does not rest on the

weight of the evidence, but from whence the weight is derived?

Who told you?(157)

 

In love, it would be the degree of

truth verified by experience or by experts and we cannot reach

certainty because there may be possibilities which we are

unable for want of evidence to exclude. (160)

 

You can't alter the effect of the evidence by your feelings about

it, "I just feel it in my gut" and if you wish to believe in

truth, you would usually act on certain principles.

 

 

Michael Polanyi's book "Personal Knowledge" calls

these kind of principles a fiduciary framework.

 

All of us hold basic propositions which we assume to be true without

systematically and critically examining our reasons.

Wittgenstein referred to the example of a chess game and his

basic belief about the chess pieces - he assumes that they are

not arbitrarily going to start changing places. He is content

to accept they would not and this has nothing to do with his

stupidity or credulity (Van Harvey, 193) it just makes life

easier.

 

It has been argued that if one cannot prove

the evidence of belief in God, than the effort to do so is

meaningless, for example, Immanuel Kant's "If one cannot, one

ought not" quote.

 

 

We also make the assumption that one

must adhere to norms and procedures in a particular sphere of

study (202) - scientific, analytic - when there may be a host

of other ways to find truth.

 

In what proportion (HUME)

or threshold (CLIFFORD) do we hold the strength of the

evidence? Can truth be assigned degrees?

 

Is there some

other VALUE to the evidence, a "solace and private pleasure of

the believer" which was disparaged by Clifford, yet

nonetheless provides some goods received for holding beliefs

which may or may not be illusory.

 

Maybe the key is not

so much the objective and universal truth, but the nature of

the consequence in believing, or the moral character one is

led to as a result of the belief.

 

If one simply is

looking toward Truth - than you do not want to distort the

issue with values - this is the "Primacy of truth" claim that

it is not the proportions of truth, but truth's intrinsic

importance.

 

Faith causes knowledge itself - this is

what St. Thomas Aquinas and Augustine have shown. Aquinas

believed that our will is biased to the good of the person by

fundamental beliefs which are not typically illusory.

 

 

What one gains by believing (226) causes the election

voluntarily by the will. There are scientific AND volitional

justifications for belief and you cannot force yourself to

believe "at will" or "unwillingly." Therefore, your will to

believe the truth or falsity of a statement is usually based

upon reason. <

 

>AAR Studies in Religion 41

Edited by Gerald D. McCarthy

Scholars

Press, Atlanta Georgia,

 

 

[sin_patas]

maybe it is a semantic issue, more than anything- but i can't help think that the act of believing implies some sort of ego-driven expectation for some fruitive result.

[Audarya lila]

Here are a couple of nice articles on faith:

 

http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/sridhara_mj/faith_wealth.html

 

http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/nmj_articles/planets_of_faith.html

 

Please read these articles carefully because they answer this question fully and take it to a higher plane - faith is all in all.

 

Genuine faith will come into ones heart by associating with adv advanced devotees. There is no other way.

 

your servant,

Audarya lila dasa

[M-dd]

Dear prabhu,

 

Intelligent question, but the proof of the pudding is in the taste, not the belief.

 

If someone gives you Krsna, then you know who to listen to ABOUT Krsna, it is that simple. If someone can give you Krsna, that someone knows Krsna.

 

Srila Prabhupada gave us all Krsna. Those of us who have accepted, have also met Krsna, and we therefore know who to listen to to learn more and more about Krsna. Once you taste transcendence, you don't ever have to be fooled again, or depend on any blind faith or mundane belief system.

 

Try accepting Krsna's causeless mercy, you also can taste the pudding and all your doubts(material dellusion) will dissipate, as mine did long ago.

 

Hope this helps, M-d.d.

 

Originally posted by sin_patas:

my question is this:

 

isn't belief (in and of itself), a form of attachment to material existence?

 

i will formulate an example: if i chant the maha-mantra, then there is an implicit assumption that i believe Lord Caitanya is Krsna himself, and therefore i follow his advice.

 

now, the question about Lord Caitanya's divinity is not what i aim to prove/disprove. my concern is actual act of belief itself.

 

is not the act of believing a form of material attachment in and of itself? if i believe something to be true, then it is my own ego that is believing, hoping for something to be true.

 

even if i believe the identity of God to be one or another, or i believe that one scripture is more accurate than another, is it not still belief (and therefore, attachment)?

 

is not all material attachment what we should strive to get away from?

 

[Caitanyachandra]

a

 

[This message has been edited by Caitanyachandra (edited 10-01-2001).]

[Caitanyachandra]

 

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by Caitanyachandra (edited 10-01-2001).]

[Tarun]

Sin_patas means no legs in Spanish. Are you physically okay?

Yes, ego drive for fruit no doubt.

As ZrIla ZrIdhardev explains in his Dvadaza-stotram = 12 prayers to ZrI NityAnanda RAm: "jIvAhankara bhavaspadam"

Ego is real. Nitai supplies us with it. His gifts are all personal.

Eternal fruit is desireable. No shame. No sin.

Only ego misuse is punishable. And even that's rectifiable.

[Janus]

 

 

>>Intelligent question, but the proof of the pudding is in the taste, not the belief.

 

M-dd is right. A person can believe anything, that the earth is flat and that it has four corners and that the sun goes round and round it, that someone has given them Krsna, or that there are elephants in Hell, anything. But when a person confesses to a belief what they are really confessing is that they just do not know, that they just "believe." Belief is not then any position of knowledge but only a dangerous form of ignorance, for a person will often forget, or they have never learned that the mere belief or disbelief in a thing has absolutely no relation as to whether that thing in which they believe is either so or not so. Were they aware of this, that belief is only ignornace then it is hardly likely that we would see people killing others because it is their belief that to do so, that to kill innocent men and women and children earns for them a place in Paradise.

Due to our conditioning we are conditioned to regard Krsna Consciusness with the same appraisal as we would the religious traditions that we grew up with, as if Krsna Consciusness depended upon blind faith at the beginning and continual just in order to recieve it's rewards.

Krsna Consciousness does not, like the religions we are used to, say however, that we must chant Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare now but defer all hope of heaven to some post-mortem phase of our existence. Surely there are promisses of eternal life with Krsna in Goloka Vrndavan, but Krsna consciousness takes a step further. Krsna Consciousness makes the claim that here, right here in the here and now, even as we live that we can become Krsna conscious, that we can re-establish our eternal transcendental loving relationships with Krsna, and that we can experience the joy of ecstacy, the peace of eternity, and the awakening of the soul to full cognition of itself, even while we live.

Faith and belief are different things. Krsna doesn't care so much as to whether we believe in Him as He does whether we want Him to be real. It's nice to know that although we live in this terrible place that somewhere there is a place that is beyond all anxiety and that people live there, perhaps some of those very same people who died in the terrorists attacks on the WTC and the Pentagaon, for there is no doubt that at least some of them recieved the gifts of Krsna prasadam and the Holy Name, and that they too chanted Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, at least a time or two.

We who remain have a grave responsibility, to become Krsna conscious ourselves and to make others Krsna Conscious. Accomplishing this from a position of "belief" is not possible, but from a position of faith, of strong faith, through realized knowledge

attained through the mercy of Sri Guru and Gauranga we can make the entire world Krsna conscious and erase this great curse of ignorance posing as knowledge in the form of belief that has killed and will continue to kill our families in the name of God, or in the name of any ideology.

 

"God gave America to be free!" Spoken by a mysterious stranger who inspired many reluctants to sign the Declaration of Independance.

We are the sons and daughters of freedom, of liberty, birthed by liberation from our ages old thralldom to birth, death old age and disease, to ignornat superstition, to jealousy, hatred and misery, that is our heritage, the heritage of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's dancing feet and of the name of Krsnas Maha Sankirtana movement. We who are free are called upon to dispense this prime benidiction to humanity, to stop not only all terrorists but to put and end to all terror.

Hari bol

If someone gives you Krsna, then you know who to listen to ABOUT Krsna, it is that simple. If someone can give you Krsna, that someone knows Krsna.

 

Srila Prabhupada gave us all Krsna. Those of us who have accepted, have also met Krsna, and we therefore know who to listen to to learn more and more about Krsna. Once you taste transcendence, you don't ever have to be fooled again, or depend on any blind faith or mundane belief system.

 

Try accepting Krsna's causeless mercy, you also can taste the pudding and all your doubts(material dellusion) will dissipate, as mine did long ago.

 

Hope this helps, M-d.d.

 

 

[sin_patas]

thank you for responding. i have not returned in a few days and am happy to see more dialogue than before.

 

i have both my feet, yes. thank you for asking. it is just a name i made up, i guess.