Actions without belief are useless.
By
Tim LeRoy
on March 08, 2007
"[...] a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified."
"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away."
However, faith is defined as something that brings actions: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like."
When you say you believe you can't fly, it probably means you won't jump off of the roof, unless you don't really believe what you said.
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5.8% 94.2%This claim was inspired by
Claims inspired by this one
- 8-10 Action without belief is heedless.
- 7-7 Belief without analogous action is reprehensible.
- 1-5 Belief precludes action
- 1-4 Belief *precedes* action
Discussion (10)
A man doesn't have to believe in the internal combustion engine for the car to careen into a group of pedestrians and kill them all. He didn't have to wish harm on those people to kill them.
Belief ultimately does nothing to change the world. Action changes the world. And thus, what happens in your mind is neither positive nor negative, neither sin nor blessing until it becomes an action.
I know that many religions disagree with me, but that doesn't matter. My comprehension of G-d as it exists if it exists is in line with the comment that I am making. And at least one reasonably large world religion agrees with me.
I do believe in what the Bible says about this question: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."
If God exists, without faith I'm fucked.
Don't confuse belief and faith. Belief is an intellectual construct that a person holds. Often they are flawed. Nobody has all correct beliefs because we have limited intelligence. Confidence in belief is naive and wrong - it is the source of all divisions in every religion.
Faith doesn't require belief. A person of faith can admit to him/herself that they might be wrong but they will follow their God anyway. It's more of a decision than an idea.
Brian, totally agreed, but I would add, faith also isn't a choice. Saint Thomas wasn't a man of faith, not really. He would write about his mother as a woman of simple faith in a not entirely complimentary manner. You can choose to believe in things.
Tim, the fact that you go to hell doesn't mean your actions on earth are meaningless. If hell exists, and people go there, I have to presume that Hitler lives there somewhere. To say that his actions were meaningless because they still led him to hell is to say the deaths of millions are unimportant. That's bullshit.
Brian, I do confuse them. English is not my native language, that's why :)
On belief, or faith, I think I meant somthing like the intersecting subset of the two definition.
Tim, your claim is nearly true, but not quite. For example, the heedless and destructive actions of consumers are continually useful to the capitalist.
Knappster, I meant it in a very "religious" way, as you can see it from the longer description.
I do not believe this one either. Christians say the only way to get to heaven is through Jesus Christ. Ok if that is true; since 90% of everyone who has lived since Christ's time has never heard of him, then they automatically condemned to hell because God is a bad communicator! Or are they going to hell because the Christian were lousy at getting the message of Jesus Christ out to the world? (The Great Commission). No it is hubris to think that god has only told one small group of people who are infinity divided as to exactly what Jesus Christ said or told them to do are the basis of all humanities salvation. IF the second covenant Christ made is the only way to get to heaven then what happened to the first one, did God change his mind, ops so God made a mistake, so he changed his mind? well what about all the ones before the first covenant, are they condemned to hell automatically? if there are two ways or even three ways then why not 4 or 5 or 500 ways to get to heaven. Why do the Christian's have the gall to think that their god is bigger than the other ones gods but at the same time say there is only one god. Which is it. My GOD IS Bigger than your God, or there is only one God?
Anyway why would God be such a bad communicator to only tell one tiny isolated group of people such an important message about how to get to heaven if there was only one way to get there?
IF he really loved humanity would he not make sure he told more of them or even all of them somehow someway?
If he loved humans so much wouldn't he have made sure that everyone would have someway to get to him?
Stop the bovine excrement boys and girls if God is love, then he loves us of all equally, then he would have made it possible for all of his kiddies to get home to him somehow someway, not just a few wacky, poor, lazy, hubris filled, spiritually arrogant, communicators who in 2000 years still have not told everyone in the world about Jesus Christ's one sole way to the gift of salvation!
Obviously actions mean something, if they didn't mean something then why would Christians say that we would be judged for them? The real question is; is belief in Christ without actions enough? Obviously not according to what Jesus said, faith without works is dead. Jesus never said works without faith is dead. The quotes above in the text of the claim are worthless because they are not about what the Claim even talks about. The text says act on your beliefs not that works alone are worthless. Stupid people! To quote things and then use them incorrectly is stupid. However Christians are historically famous for doing that exact thing. Taking the verses out of the bible, out of context using them to defend their actions, which are indefensible.. ie slavery, kkk, racism, prejudice, the salem witch trials, the dark ages, the Inquisition, book burnings to name but a few.
depends on the action