Remember when you were young, & your parents told you, "If everyone else jumped of a bridge, do you have to?"

Question

Isn't jumping off of a bridge kind of like blindly following a religion without a critical thought process involved?

Faith = "because someone told me so" => "because everyone else does"

Answer 1

Wow...no one's getting the point.

You may say you believe in god because he's shown you the way, but who even told you about god in the first place? A family member? What if you had learned about Buddha when you were little instead...you'd be Buddhist now.

You're not so much believing in the Christian god as you are ANY god. And you're only doing so because someone told you about it when you were little.

And then you never even thought about other religions, much less that there might be no such thing. When god spoke to you, why couldn't that have been Ganesh or Buddha or whatever? Why did you assume you were christian? did you even look into other religions??

NO because you were brought up to believe in only the Christian god.

THAT'S the point!

brainwashed.

Answer 2

Not exactly.

Faith= a belief in a higher power. Also, it involves trust.
If you are speaking about religion, it is more than just faith.
There are ethics, principles and customs involved as well.

And, with my parents, it was "If everyone else jumped off a CLIFF, would you do it,too?"

Ha! Cliffs and bridges, no wonder I am afraid of heights!
:)

Answer 3

Good point, however when you went to school for from grade 1 you were taught something and you believed it. Did you do any investigation on the information you were taught?
We just believed everything we were taught in school. So is the same in religion.

Yes, being I am older, I can do research on it and I have.
With all the information I have found I feel it better to follow God and His loving Son Jesus Christ then die and find out then that it is all true and then it is Too Late.

Answer 4

That's exactly why I go to the Kingdom Hall. Jehovah's Witnesses prove the things they say from the scriptures. Each lesson has scriptures cited in every paragraph. When we go from door to door we reason with our neighbors from the scriptures. We have a certain number of chapters we read as an organization each week and discuss these.
Each Witness is studying the same thing as the Witnesses all around the earth at the same time.
We are in unison. We always have a feast of spiritual food.

We prove to ourselves that this is the truth. And we test ourselves to make sure we are doing everything God requires of us.

Answer 5

That's why I claimed my Christian faith all on my own, with my own critical thinking and eyes wide open. Now, if I were to jump off of any bridge, at least I know beyond a shadow of a doubt where I will end up after my fall.

Answer 6

I would say it's exactly like that, but far more dangerous.

Whew! It's a good thing that, as Jehovah's Witnesses, we are encouraged to thoroughly study and examine the Scriptural basis of everything before accepting it.

Blind faith is worse than useless, but faith based on accurate knowledge can save lives.

By the way, this is the REAL definition of faith: "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." (Hebrews 11:1)

Answer 7

Sadly, many ppl are religious just because their parents or friends are and these are what i call "cultural christians." church is simply part of their schedule and they don't try to learn more about it or persue it enthusiastically.

this is NOT what true christians are like. we actually study the bible, ask questions, and really think about God and try to figure everything out. and yes, we do learn about other religion too.

oh and:
Belief= a true held in the mind
Faith= a fire in the heart

Answer 8

I love what Cari said and I agree 100% Believing in anything based on the fact that someone else believes it isn't going to get you anywhere. Being a Christian is about having a relationship with God and no one else can have that relationship for you.

Answer 9

No. I could move to the shop and inventory up on stuff and transfer right into a particularly satisfactory condominium - that individual does not want it considering that they're useless - and simply spend the relaxation of my existence studying, snoozing and enjoyable!

Answer 10

Which would be a very excellent thing for a young tyke to say to a lecturing dad.

"EX-act-ly Dad. Which is why I won't be following you to the Baptist Church on Sunday. This blindly following the masses stuff is getting old and I'm going to start questioning what I'm told."