What say you, Interwebs?

[clarentine]

Posit: faith is submission.

Discuss.

(Yes, this is pertinent, and I do want others' opinions on the subject, preferably those of people who consider themselves to have religious faith.)

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Point of information: do you consider trust to be submission?

[clarentine]

I suppose I do.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Hm. I don't think I do. I...don't seem to think about this stuff in words, so let's see if I make sense.

For me, faith and trust are synonymous. I believe in God and His mercy. I trust Him to give me the tools I need to take care of myself. (Metaphysically, that is. I think the so-called "prosperity gospel" is blasphemy. I love and am loved; what else matters? But I've never been hungry a day in my life, so please keep my privilege in mind.)

Submission is something I need to consider carefully every time it's required; I left a job once because I couldn't bear to submit to my nominal superior. I can't submit to someone I don't trust. It's possible for me to like someone without trusting them, but once my trust is lost that's it. I'd make a rotten soldier!

Was that what you wanted to know?

[clarentine]

Half my battle is putting what I'm thinking into words. *g*

And yeah, I think it is what I was after - my impression is that, if a person trusts or has faith in someone/something, that person is willing to submit to their leadership. To be led.

(My conclusions are far from empirical; thus, the request for feedback.)

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a good way of putting it.

But I'm not one of those people who says "God is testing you" or "oh your child died, it's part of God's plan" AUGH I hate that...I believe in science and vaccines and chance and bad luck.

[clarentine]

::nod:: - faith is an individual concept, I think. We each choose what we will believe in (to the degree we're capable of choice).

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's true.

...having thought about it some more, I should make clear that even when I trust someone enough to submit to their wishes, I still think about what they want me to do. It's never blind obedience. At most, I'll stop asking questions if they say "Please trust me, I'll explain when I can." So for me, choice is a constant part of belief, trust, faith, whatever. If I stop feeling like I have a choice, I leave, the end.

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

Faith is belief with no proof available/possible.

Submission is yielding one's own will to another's.

So while it's pretty and poetic to say that 'faith is submission', really, it's not. Faith is something that happens in the heart, head or spirit -- submission can happen in those, but is born from a conscious choice and deliberate act of will.

Some people submit because they have faith; but people don't have faith because they submit. If faith and submission are the same thing, then the cause and effect chain should run both ways. Otherwise one is an antecedent of the other. The thing is, submission doesn't always come from faith; submission can come from trust, love, acceptance, a wish to survive, and from self sacrifice. None of those things are synonyms with 'faith' either.

{I do consider myself to have religious faith, btw. Just not Judeo-Christian religious faith. ;) }

[clarentine]

Heh. Point to you - I just replayed the "truth is beauty, beauty truth" bit from Hitchhiker's (Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal for the win!), and I concur that my logic statement is faulty.

[clarentine]

Is it fair to say, then, that faith leads to submission?

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

Faith can lead to submission, for some.

If, for example, you believe that the leaders of your religion are divinely inspired, and that the entity in which you have faith has your best interests at heart, and can communicate clearly with his/her/its' chosen earthly representatives, then it would be very probable to have submission to the will of the religious leaders (and to even have that submission become a dogmatized part of the religion.)

That dogmatization of submission happens a lot, I think, in hierarchal structures of any type... the maintenance of discipline and order demands that some submit to the will of others, and the bigger and more rigidly organized the group becomes, the more important it becomes that the lower tiers submit themselves to the will of the upper tiers. On a battlefield, the submission must be total and unquestioned -- soldiers who question their orders or hesitate are not very good soldiers.

There's a reason the Church (capital C and all) often refers to its' adherents as 'soldiers for God', and uses military imagery in describing the need for submission to the will of the clergy. In Medieval times, it was necessary for the survival of Western Civilization as a whole to have and maintain order reinforced by a hierarchal structure (the feudal system and the Church were that structure.)

So I don't really know if pure faith, without an attendant hierarchal structure, leads directly to submission or not. I have faith, and I have no hierarchy to submit myself to. I don't see that there is any portion of my religious or spiritual practice that demands my submission; rather the opposite, I think (tho I will be thinking more on this, just in case I'm wrong...)

When I submit to something, it is usually something that is for the good of someone else, and also usually something that I wouldn't seek out on my own. (showing the kids that bouncing really friggin' high in the rubberband bouncy thing at the mall, for instance. Not my cup of tea, but I didn't want them to think it was scary, and therefore give themselves an unreasoning phobia like mine. So, up I went.) If I find something in my life that would be better for myself to do, but am not doing, if I choose to do the healthier activity, it isn't for anyone else's benefit than my own...

Which I suppose, would be the crux of the question... for whom's benefit does one submit? Why do you submit, where is the good in it? In the Church, the good goes to the Church, and to the civilization supported by the Church, and I suppose a bit to ones' soul... But without the Church (or other hierarchal structure), who benefits from the submission?

...I'll have to think on this some more, because now my brain's going off in ten different directions. :P

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

...and also, without the structure, to whom does one submit? To the object of faith? Why?

[clarentine]

I have to admit I cannot mentally grasp faith that isn't in a structure of some sort, even if it's a single worshipper of a single entity. That's still a structure, isn't it?

And as to who benefits, I guess that gets back to the reason for faith. To me, faith should benefit the worshipper, who is upheld by the entity worshipped--else why have faith? Why submit if (generic) you don't benefit?

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

Would it help if I made it "external structure"? as opposed to an internal structure/philosophy/dogma?

For internal faith related shenanigans, I think it becomes individual and unique to each person, whether or not to submit, to whom, and why... External structures make submission explicit and obvious -- you submit to the Church, or your C.O., or what have you.

I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church (the super creepy one, with the no makeup, dancing or singing), where the idea was that you submit to the will of God because it would benefit God (and you, but really, it was supposed to be for the glory of the Lord.) So there, it was that faith benefited the object of faith, and only tangentially benefited the one who had faith. Ditto with submission to the will of the Lord.

So, I can conceive of and even (a bit) understand a faith that has an external structure and derives all its benefit for the object of faith (with overlap onto the officers of the Church.) I suppose one benefit for the faithful there was the chance to maybe not go to Hell, if you'd made God happy enough with your faith...

...is my disillusionment with the SBC showing again? :P

Anywho, I suppose that faith can lead to submission, but I don't think it ~has~ to.

[clarentine]

So, I can conceive of and even (a bit) understand a faith that has an external structure and derives all its benefit for the object of faith (with overlap onto the officers of the Church.) I suppose one benefit for the faithful there was the chance to maybe not go to Hell, if you'd made God happy enough with your faith...

Do you suppose it's possible to realistically have a faith where the reason for faith is to benefit the worshipper? Or is that just me, the non-joiner, being confused about why people join groups that don't benefit them? That's the crux of this inquiry, I guess - I get structure and why it exists, but I don't get faith, and I had to go and write this novel where considerations of faith are at the heart of the conflict. Argh! *g*

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

The varieties of faith that either don't benefit the believer, or only benefit the believer indirectly, are confusing as all heck to me, too, and I grew up in one.

What I have now is a faith that benefits me, and if it benefits what I believe in, it is as a side effect of what it does for me. The reason I believe what I believe is because it provides me with multiple positive benefits, answers my questions about the world and my place in it (another really important part of faith, btw,) and provides, as a side effect of my faith, benefit to the world around me.

Only so far as the world is divine does my faith benefit what I worship... there is no direct benefit paid out to any external structure/church thingy. No tithe, no obedience, and I look to no outside authority when making decisions.

Now, the reason why structures like the Church have lasted as long as they can are rooted in human psychology. We are joiners, usually, and love to be part of a group. The Church (speaking of the early Church, the Catholic one, that influenced all later churches and the basic structure (ha ha) of western civilization) seems to have been almost designed from the start to have a very strict hierarchy and rigid dogma -- two ingredients necessary to wind up with a religion that delivers the benefit of faith not to the believer, but to someone else within the structure.

The early Church as a hierarchal organization grew out of Paul, who was Roman, and therefore very familiar with the social/political set up of Rome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Christianity for more details, and some of the interesting history.

(there I go, history geek and philosophy geek melding into one big anthropological geek fest...)

And now, psychology geek as well! Humans are joiners, like I said, and we love to be a part of the 'in crowd'. Especially when joining the in group gets you something cool. And if joining the in group, doing what they say, and working your way up the ranks gets you even more cool stuff, well! Hierarchies are perpetuated because humans like to be special; one way to feel special is to be able to look down on someone else.

You look down on the unbelievers, on the people who got it wrong, on the newcomers, on the lower ranked ones... and the fuel for the fire that keeps people in the church is envy. Humans want to move up in the ranks, we want what they have, and will put up with a lot of crap to get it... we'll even be submissive to charismatic leaders who tell us it's for our own good, who tell us to send them our money, time, effort, and to go march to war and die for them, just because we want something 'better'.

Add in the wonderful carrot and prod that are heaven and hell, and you've got the perfect storm of self perpetuating hierarchal structures. Now the highly ranked leaders don't even have to deliver a tangible benefit to their followers -- if you truly believe you'll get your reward (or punishment) when you die. Meanwhile, don't forget to tithe...

So, with the rise of Protestant faiths, the Victorian eras' prudishness, the Puritans, Luther and his rant he nailed to a door... you wind up with lots and lots of competing religions, and faiths, that all deliver pretty much the same benefit to the believer.

A benefit that isn't even tangible anymore. You get the security of belonging, the 'high' of being righteous, the right to look down on others, the hope of a reward later on, oh, and community. You get a sense of community. Your fellow believers may chip in to help you out in a crisis.

One more thought, then I'll stop geeking out for a bit...

The Church (capital C again), or rather, someone in the church, figured out that in order to keep people focused on that intangible reward instead of on a real world here and now reward, they'd have to make the mere idea of a here and now reward or benefit from faith into something heretical. Thence arose all the orders that do the 'mortification of the flesh', and the idea of the 'righteous poor'. While, of course, the upper echelons profess to poverty, and dine on china and sleep on silk. Because it belongs to the Church, and therefore to God, and so glorifies God, not the head currently sleeping on that silk pillow... of course.

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

I tend to get a bit bitter in tone when I start talking about 'Church' stuff, so I hope I kept most of it out this time. If I didn't, sorry 'bout that; just chalk it up to disillusionment with what the Church could have been, and what humans made it.

:)

[clarentine]

Nah, I get that - I grew up in the South, too, and I have my own deep suspicions of all things Church.

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I just found this: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_accept_defeat/all/1

which if you extrapolate from a scientists' belief in their hypothesis, to a 'true believers' faith... is really interesting, from a neuroscience point of view. :)

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Wow, you're smart!

Short me: IAWTC.

[gryphynshadow.livejournal.com]

*blush*

aw, shucks. I spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing, because (and I'm a bit embarrassed by this) it's fun to me.

Philosophy geek!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

When I was still religious (Irish Catholic, high holidays version), yes. Faith might not have been epistemiologically speaking submission, but it worked out the same way. The laity were supposed to trust the hierarchy knew what god's plan was, and if you didn't you were a Bad Catholic. Theologically and practically.

This may be a quirk of Catholicism, of course. (Holy orders is still obedience, poverty, chastity. Notice which vow comes first.)

This is a large part of why I Am Not Religious (Anymore). Trusting beings who possess obscene amounts of power is really not within my abilities.

(And yes, that includes the Pope. Who, me, bitter? Never. :P)

[clarentine]

To tweak the question a bit: would you say that faith requires submission, or leads to submission?

Trusting beings who possess obscene amounts of power is really not within my abilities. Especially beings with obscene amounts of power who misuse it, eh?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Faith is not reasonable, since it contains - by its nature - a prerational component. (There is nothing wrong with this. I am using 'prerational' purely in a descriptive sense.)

Therefore, in my experience, where there is a hierarchy with exclusive - or semi-exclusive - claims upon the divine, people are lead to equate faith in the deity with faith in the hierarchy, and therefore submission to their way of doing things.

Faith requires the submission of the rational intellect to the prerational experience. (I don't think I'm wrong to make a distinction between intellect and experience/sensation: I've had religious experiences, but applying what I know about the untrustworthiness of my brain, why should I I trust it when it tells me I'm experiencing a deep connection with the universe anymore than when it's telling me you suck and no one will ever love you?) I do think this is a telling point, because - while not in itself being anything more than an individual choice - it provides a map of world-experience onto which other forms of submission can be overlaid.

Faith in both Christianity and Islam is also equated to submission to the will of god. How one conceives of the will of god is of course different depending on what flavour of believer one is, but I don't think anyone's denying that there's a certain amount of submitting supposed to be going on. (c.f. Paul, with his comparison of the church and the - 1st century CE - family, where god is clearly in the position of pater familias.)

There are different kinds of submission, but I think faith boths requires (a certain kind of) submission and leads to (other kinds of) submission.

It's the prerational component at work. Once you start accepting things on faith, at what point do you reasonably stop?

On the other hand, belief, piety and ritual in non-monotheistic traditions works a little differently.

Especially beings with obscene amounts of power who misuse it, eh?

Word. If I were still a religious person, I'd be a hell of a lot more bitter than I am now.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

This is why I'm a much better Episcopalian than I would be Catholic.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I suspect many Catholics would be better Episcopalians than they are Catholics.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I think some people equate the two. I do not.

[clarentine]

Understood. I formulated the question badly.

I seem to be working on understanding the essence of faith. I suppose what I was after was, do people generally agree that faith leads to submission, or am I totally off base?

[txanne.livejournal.com]

It might depend on the entity worshipped. My God requires that I think for myself, else why did he give me brains and curiosity? But the god of certain other "Christian" sects seems to think that curiosity is a tool of the Devil, to be denied and destroyed. Guess which deity wants blind obedience.