Trust

[path_of_one]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

Well, I submit it is the exact opposite of what you claim. I submit that: Trust involves no thought and a lack of Trust involves lots of thought.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I can't see how anything we decide to do involves no thought. To make a decision- any decision- involves some amount of thought.

It is to say that there is a true unknown which no amount of thinking is going to amount to any good.

My point is that we have ideas about what to do with true unknowns. Even dealing with the unknown is based on some information we have about what this means. I think you are equating thought with rational critical thinking and I am meaning it in terms of brain activity that leads to a decision. You are equating experience with knowns and I am saying we can even have experience or information about what to do with unknowns.

That would be like saying that nobody can will your computer to do something unless your computer cooperates. It is not true.

We aren't computers.

Someone can will a person to do something against their will with deception or a forced reaction. As a result a person may not have knowledge and may willingly agree, but then discover that it was not really per their will.

A person can deceive but a person cannot force another person to do something. There is always another option of resistance. It just sometimes entails a high cost. Deception is not the same thing as programming a computer, either. One could always avoid being a victim of deception by using what one knows about deception to trust fewer people. Either way, it is a decision one makes based on prior information and experience.

People aren't puppets, nor are they computers running on programs. We have consciousness and sentience, so we work differently.

With selfishness a person does not see the value in trusting their neighbor... it is easy to take risks for personal gain but harder to take risks for the gain of a neighbor.

I don't think that has to do with trust, but rather altruism. To take risks for another is altruistic. Trusting a neighbor is not necessarily altruistic. It can be for our own ends as well. Trust itself is neither selfish nor unselfish- the motivation behind it is one or the other (or both).

True knowledge that God exists does not come by trusting experience or the recorded experiences of others; rather it is that the experience... the true knowledge... comes by trusting God. If God is a stranger heard only via rumor, then the practice should be in trusting strangers. If strangers are too hard to trust then the practice should be in trusting relatives. If relatives are too hard to trust then the practice should be in trusting children. If even children are too hard to trust, then how can a person ever really hope to get to know God... since they will never truly know their own children, relatives, or strangers. Like getting to know a stranger, the trust precedes the knowledge... and then the stranger won't be a stranger anymore.

My point is that the decision to trust God, in order to have the experience, is, by your own description here, based on trusting others' information/experience of God- be they strangers, relatives, or children.

My point is that we are choosing to trust based on someone's prior experience or information- our own or another person's (strangers, relatives, kids).

And there are people who did not trust God based on what they heard from others, but God still found them... sometimes in dramatic ways.

I may not trust a stranger, but a stranger can still interact with me.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

There are varying levels of trust. I like the idea that trust is simply a willingness to be surprised.

Chris

 

[seattlegal]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

There are varying levels of trust. I like the idea that trust is simply a willingness to be surprised.

Chris

Dang! That's good, Chris! :O

 

[cyberpi]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

I can't see how anything we decide to do involves no thought. To make a decision- any decision- involves some amount of thought.

Whether or not a decision must involve thought, where I was trying to draw the differences is: a decision to trust is NOT the act of trusting.

The will to trust, the decision to trust, the ability to trust, and actually trusting someone are NOT the same thing. As a similar example: the decision to play a sport is NOT the ability or talent to play the sport. There is a knowledge or talent with a sport that can only be had by playing it... the playing precedes that knowledge. No decision making or amount of brain activity is ever going to incorporate that knowledge without first playing the sport. Similarly, trusting a person precedes a knowledge... and no decision making or amount of brain activity is ever going to incorporate that knowledge without first trusting. Even if there exists prior information that establishes a person lacks trustworthiness, there still exists the ability to trust that person. The act of trusting is not in the decision to trust.

I think you are equating thought with rational critical thinking and I am meaning it in terms of brain activity that leads to a decision.

No, I was saying that there is a true unknown in which it is a waste of time, energy, and life to employ any brain activity towards it whatsoever.

We aren't computers.

That was kind of my point... I regard the brain as a computer.

A person can deceive but a person cannot force another person to do something. There is always another option of resistance. It just sometimes entails a high cost. Deception is not the same thing as programming a computer, either. One could always avoid being a victim of deception by using what one knows about deception to trust fewer people. Either way, it is a decision one makes based on prior information and experience.

To resist the risk of being deceived, you advocate trusting fewer people and claim that this decision is based on prior information and experience. But a person that will not trust and has never personally trusted a person is based on fallable second hand information and no experience whatsoever... it requires trust to truly gain the information and experience.

Another approach is to trust and to expect to sometimes be deceived... not because deceiving others is good but because it is good to trust and it is good to catch whatever deceives. Sometimes it is one's own mind with entrenched beliefs or distorted views, and sometimes it is a person who lacks the faith to be open and honest, so instead lies to deceive.

My point is that the decision to trust God, in order to have the experience, is, by your own description here, based on trusting others' information/experience of God- be they strangers, relatives, or children.

No, that is not my description. My point is that if a person can not trust the one, then the person can not trust the other.

My point is that we are choosing to trust based on someone's prior experience or information- our own or another person's (strangers, relatives, kids).

How can you honestly speak for 'WE'... do you know, having experienced or gained information from, having shared trust with every single member of 'WE'? I do not have to trust based on anyone's prior information or experience.

 

[path_of_one]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

Whether or not a decision must involve thought, where I was trying to draw the differences is: a decision to trust is NOT the act of trusting.

The will to trust, the decision to trust, the ability to trust, and actually trusting someone are NOT the same thing.

I can see where you're going with this. But I don't see how we can trust without deciding to trust, even if that is not a conscious decision. Our brain has to be involved somehow.

As a similar example: the decision to play a sport is NOT the ability or talent to play the sport. There is a knowledge or talent with a sport that can only be had by playing it...

That's true. But I suppose it goes something like: We decide to play a sport. This decision is based on something. We might never have played the sport before, but our decision to do so is based on what we have learned about the sport from others. So then, we proceed with playing the sport. Arising from this is personal knowledge/experience gained.

In the case of trust, it gets tricky because another person can interact with us without our choice. We can choose not to trust, but the experience can precede our choice to have it, since we don't control others, but only our own response. So, in the case of trust, we could decide to trust without prior firsthand knowledge/experience. Or, we could choose to trust after we hae gained firsthand knowledge/experience. Depends on the circumstances, it seems.

Similarly, trusting a person precedes a knowledge... and no decision making or amount of brain activity is ever going to incorporate that knowledge without first trusting. Even if there exists prior information that establishes a person lacks trustworthiness, there still exists the ability to trust that person. The act of trusting is not in the decision to trust.

I think it is... it's just that we can choose various options with the same information. That is, trusting is not a result of being informed of trustworthiness. We could choose to trust someone who we have been informed is untrustworthy. But my point is that even that choice is based on information and some sort of brain activity.

No, I was saying that there is a true unknown in which it is a waste of time, energy, and life to employ any brain activity towards it whatsoever.

I agree with that. But the way we handle unknowns- that we think this way- is itself a function of how we've learned to process information and decisions concerning unknowns.

That was kind of my point... I regard the brain as a computer.

Got it. I don't, except as a heuristic device.

To resist the risk of being deceived, you advocate trusting fewer people and claim that this decision is based on prior information and experience. But a person that will not trust and has never personally trusted a person is based on fallable second hand information and no experience whatsoever... it requires trust to truly gain the information and experience.

I'm not really advocating anything. I'm just pondering. I would say all information and experience is fallible, including first-hand. Once this is recognized and one is resigned to it, one accepts rolling with punches and it becomes not so much an issue of trust as one of letting go of self enough to take risk. I don't know if all that makes sense. I'm rambling.

No, that is not my description. My point is that if a person can not trust the one, then the person can not trust the other.

You mean if I can't trust a stranger, then I can't trust my family?

How can you honestly speak for 'WE'... do you know, having experienced or gained information from, having shared trust with every single member of 'WE'? I do not have to trust based on anyone's prior information or experience.

Every person is embedded in culture, and consciously or not, is trusting some aspect of social conditioning... which is based on others' information and experiences, transmitted through learning over time to younger generations. I don't see how this hallmark of humanity can be avoided. I speak for "we" as an observation on the human species. I wouldn't be a very good theorist if I only ever spoke of "I" when it came to cognition and culture. I'm just spinning out ideas, based on my theoretical background.

 

[Quahom1]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

Whether or not a decision must involve thought, where I was trying to draw the differences is: a decision to trust is NOT the act of trusting.

The will to trust, the decision to trust, the ability to trust, and actually trusting someone are NOT the same thing. As a similar example: the decision to play a sport is NOT the ability or talent to play the sport. There is a knowledge or talent with a sport that can only be had by playing it... the playing precedes that knowledge. No decision making or amount of brain activity is ever going to incorporate that knowledge without first playing the sport. Similarly, trusting a person precedes a knowledge... and no decision making or amount of brain activity is ever going to incorporate that knowledge without first trusting. Even if there exists prior information that establishes a person lacks trustworthiness, there still exists the ability to trust that person. The act of trusting is not in the decision to trust.

No, I was saying that there is a true unknown in which it is a waste of time, energy, and life to employ any brain activity towards it whatsoever.

That was kind of my point... I regard the brain as a computer.

To resist the risk of being deceived, you advocate trusting fewer people and claim that this decision is based on prior information and experience. But a person that will not trust and has never personally trusted a person is based on fallable second hand information and no experience whatsoever... it requires trust to truly gain the information and experience.

Another approach is to trust and to expect to sometimes be deceived... not because deceiving others is good but because it is good to trust and it is good to catch whatever deceives. Sometimes it is one's own mind with entrenched beliefs or distorted views, and sometimes it is a person who lacks the faith to be open and honest, so instead lies to deceive.

No, that is not my description. My point is that if a person can not trust the one, then the person can not trust the other.

How can you honestly speak for 'WE'... do you know, having experienced or gained information from, having shared trust with every single member of 'WE'? I do not have to trust based on anyone's prior information or experience.

That is incorrect. We choose to trust, whether on a consious level or not. We may give inherent trust when we first encounter people or situations, but still that is a decision to trust (remain open, vulnerable).

 

[Quahom1]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

That is incorrect. We choose to trust, whether on a consious level or not. We may give inherent trust when we first encounter people or situations, but still that is a decision to trust (remain open, vulnerable).

As an aside, I would like to move this part of the thread into a new thread in Philosophy or something and call it, "Trust".

Reason is that this really is splitting away from the original thought of this current thread.

v/r

Q

 

[path_of_one]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

I agree, Q- it's gone on for a long time and deserves its own thread. Do you want to move it, or shall I?

 

[Quahom1]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

I agree, Q- it's gone on for a long time and deserves its own thread. Do you want to move it, or shall I?

Be my guest be my guest, we must serve with all the best... lol

 

[cyberpi]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

No, don't move it. The title is why do you 'believe' in your religion. We've simply rephrased the question: "Why do you 'trust' your religion".

One or more here maintain that 'trust' is a decision based on experience or information. I maintain that if there is any judgment based on experience or information whatsoever in a decision to trust... then that judgement is NOT itself the 'trust'. The 'trust' is in something else... an unknown. Not that a person or God is unknown, but that not all of a person or God is ever fully known.

 

[path_of_one]

Sorry- was already moving it...

I agree, it was a bit off topic from what Sherry intended with the OP, which was individuals' testimonies of why they believed in their own religion, without debate about the validity of it all.

We spun off into a very long conversation that had little to do (directly) with the OP. So it's best to clean it out of there and let people continue to talk about their individual faiths without our banter.

 

[cyberpi]

Perhaps it would be good to have the minimal courtesy to ask the person who originated the thread... let alone those perhaps wasting their time conversing.

 

[cyberpi]

There are varying levels of trust. I like the idea that trust is simply a willingness to be surprised.

Chris

Well said... and new information comes masked as a surprise... I submit that would also be the willingness to be informed or learn something new.

 

[Quahom1]

Perhaps it would be good to have the minimal courtesy to ask the person who originated the thread... let alone those perhaps wasting their time conversing.

No, the courtesy is to allow the original thought of a thread to be kept from being side tracked to other issues.

That is the courtesy that should be extended to the originator of the thread.

 

[path_of_one]

I didn't realize it was a waste to simply move the conversation to its own thread. I think it really was off-topic compared to Sherry's question:

What moves you so deeply inside about your chosen religion?

I can honestly say that nothing in this thread from my end has anything to do with how I'm moved inside by my chosen religions. Everything here is my ramblings on how humans in general "tick" when it comes to trust.

I have long felt I was hogging space on her thread without being on-topic, and few others seemed interested.

 

[Quahom1]

I didn't realize it was a waste to simply move the conversation to its own thread. I think it really was off-topic compared to Sherry's question:



I can honestly say that nothing in this thread from my end has anything to do with how I'm moved inside by my chosen religions. Everything here is my ramblings on how humans in general "tick" when it comes to trust.

I have long felt I was hogging space on her thread without being on-topic, and few others seemed interested.

this "seems" like a control issue...coming from areas that espouse "no control is best".

 

[cyberpi]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

FYI- peripheral discussion about trust moved to "Trust" in the Philosophy forum. Hope to see you there!

Perhaps it would be good to have the minimal courtesy to ask the person who originated the thread... let alone those perhaps wasting their time conversing.

 

[Raksha]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

People swear perpetual lip service to things that don't make a lick of sense in order to preserve an aura of institutional infallibility which has nothing to do with the veracity of the core principles of their faith.

Hi Chris!

I almost feel like I've hijacked this thread because I'm playing catch-up. The discussion has moved on and I'm still back at the beginning.

I've never understood why any religion would want to claim "infallibility" anyway. Seems like they're just setting themselves up that way, because no matter what they say they are all human-created institutions. Which means that sooner or later they are going to be proved fallible, even though they can spend literally centuries denying it.

--Linda

 

[Quahom1]

Re: Why do you believe in YOUR religion

Well said... and new information comes masked as a surprise... I submit that would also be the willingness to be informed or learn something new.

To be surprised is not a form of trust. It is to be caught un aware, and then suddenly brought into knowledge of something. Were is "trust" in that? Chris would have to expound upon his statement in order for it to make sense.

New information is just that, new information. Willingness to learn new information is not a matter of trust, but rather one has a desire to remain at their current level, or to move on to a higher level. That has nothing to do with trust.

By attempting to use "trust" as a way to get others to feel guilty or confused about their refusal to accept your way of "living" or your insistance that your way is the only way things will work out right (call it Cyberpi's law), is ludicrous, and can be seen for what it is, for miles around; "do as I say, for I am right and the rest of you are wrong"...

In short that is as guilty a behavior or a thought pattern as the rest of us.

 

[Vajradhara]

Namaste all,

i suppose it depends on how a being understands the word trust. in my normal usage with regards to other sentient beings trust entails a pattern of observation, albeit brief in some cases, which allows me some insight into the character of the other being, which can be mistaken.

it seems to be a pattern recognition aspect in some manner.

metta,

~v