Faith or fate?

Faith or fate?

One more useless easy to discard noun:

 

faith

noun \ˈfāth\

: strong belief or trust in someone or something

: belief in the existence of God : strong religious feelings or beliefs

: a system of religious beliefs

plural faiths

\ˈfāths, sometimes ˈfāthz\

Full Definition of FAITH

1

a :  allegiance to duty or a person :  loyalty

b (1) :  fidelity to one’s promises (2) :  sincerity of intentions

2

a (1) :  belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) :  belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion

b (1) :  firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) :  complete trust

3

:  something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially:  a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>

— on faith

:  without question <took everything he said on faith>

 

Oh we must protest here!

Firstly, we have thrown out trust; baby, bathwater and all!

We can only go on a person’s reliability. When they give their word to do something, do they keep it and how consistently it happens.

Most atheists I have encountered-there have been hundreds-attempted God and religion to no avail. No amount of praying and openmindedness reveal a God who had their back. On a good day, some folks showed up to help and usually the person got their strategy together and succeeded. Other times no amount of faithful practice and belief resulted in a desired outcome…why? There IS NO GOD except the bullshit in your head.

Certainly there is no Judeo-Christian(lol, previously demonstrated as an erroneous term), Abrahamic God. No Jesus ever existed

( www.jesusneverexisted.com ).

Have no faith in the Lord, except below my belt line when I love you my dear. For he is the Lord of the night and pleasure and the true strength of the flesh!!!

The Lord of the Old and New Testaments is a mixed bag, really a mish mosh of Old Mesopotamian deities and Hellenistic and Egyptian dying gods. All a contrivance. Maybe good for some old fashioned hijacking of entity workings…most of which will not find its way into the minds of the muggles. All bullshit contrived for your paternal yearnings.

So much of this garbage is extolled by women, sometimes I think it’s their daddy complex and their wanting to be saved by someone. Oh my princess, await my coming to your rescue.

Males may be worse, since they will use anything to gain advantage or validation…opportunism abounds.

So let’s dispense with faith maybe except- b (1):  fidelity to one’s promises (2) :  sincerity of intentions.

 

Enough written about this shit. And I mean no insult to shit, which does have good use sometimes.

 

fate

noun \ˈfāt\

: a power that is believed to control what happens in the future

: the things that will happen to a person or thing : the future that someone or something will have

This one gets me wondering…

The first one is kinda scary and may have some roots in faith, especially in a negative intent.

Maybe the second one has more plausibility?

Maybe it’s something to get experienced after the acceptance of faith and a God toilet of predestination?

Maybe it’s just another bullshit term best rooted in dismissal?

Certainly if we dismiss faith we may not consider our fates after the fact????

Defects?

MAY 17 >>> “Defects”
“We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”

Step Six

After taking the Fifth Step, many of us spend some time considering “the exact nature of our wrongs” and the part they’d played in making us who we were. What would our lives be like without, say, our arrogance?

Sure, arrogance had kept us apart from our fellows, preventing us from enjoying and learning from them. But arrogance had also served us well, propping up our ego in the face of critically low self-esteem. What advantage would be gained if our arrogance were removed, and what support would we be left with?

With arrogance gone, we would be one step closer to being restored to our proper place among others. We would become capable of appreciating their company and their wisdom and their challenges as their equals. Our support and guidance would come, if we chose, from the care offered us by our Higher Power; “low self-esteem” would cease to be an issue.

We will do well to believe we have assets and liabilities and not “defects of character”. We do not need spirituality and the care of Higher Powers or a “God of our Understanding” to recover. Believing that we have an incurable, progressive, and fatal disease can limit us severely. In fact, many have found that they were perfectly imperfect humans who can change their beliefs and behaviors by empowering themselves and learning some simple tools that don’t involve the 12 Steps and their religiosity. While we may have learned and gained some value from them, it does not happen quickly enough to have great import for most. Most have not come to NA or have left in seeing the “program” had little to offer. Many of us who stayed, worked the program, and did not relapse after many years, have distanced ourselves because of the unhealthiness that predominates the meetings. We have found many other methods that have given us good lives away from NA.

One by one, we examined our character defects this way, and found them all defective—after all, that’s why they’re called defects. And were we entirely ready to have God remove all of them? Yes.

We don’t need to get willing to have HPs or God remove our personal liabilities. We can come to believe that we have done it by our own choices; changing our beliefs, thinking, and behavior at will, once we discover beliefs that limit us. We replace self limiting beliefs with self affirming, self enhancing beliefs. These change our thinking, feelings, and behaviors. We attain the identity we always wanted.

We did this sometimes with an insight we gained from NA, but usually, we got this from outside help.

Just for today: I will thoroughly consider all my defects of character to discover whether I am ready to have the God of my understanding remove them.

JFT: We change our beliefs, thinking and behaviors through changing our beliefs, entertaining new thoughts, and practicing healthy behaviors. We do this with the support of others and mostly, through our own efforts.

______________________________________

We once again eschew the static technology of the Twelve Steps of NA for new, more elegant means of change. Usually, this comes from clearing ourselves of brainwashing. We come to believe that we have changed by our efforts and by our will and this empowers us to further growth and progress.

Many of us have done seminars and enjoined hypnosis, NLP, EFT, and other results oriented therapies, leaving behind the slow, tedious, process oriented therapies, and the impotency of 12 Step “spirituality”. We have changed ourselves for the better and for good, gaining real self esteem that does not have original sin or secular Christianity as its root belief system. We have also used cognitive behavioral therapy, and good old rational thinking to reshape our lives. Some of us have embraced religion and spirituality without becoming cultists and have enriched our lives with these pursuits.

Many members left the rooms of NA long ago, only to return periodically, purely for social contact, to reconnect with some who remain.

The more I look, the more I see people who have gone on to bigger and better things. A common theme says NA gave them a good start and delivered on the tools necessary to get clean, lose the desire to use, and to find a new way to live. Also, they found it desirable to move on, in the latterly, toward more progressive strategies than NA has to offer. I have seen many happy people with long term abstinence who rarely attend meetings or work the Steps.

They found as have I that my only “defect of character” had to do with self limiting beliefs.