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Faith
Topic Started: Mar 9 2009, 01:17 PM (1,025 Views)
Astennu
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What is faith?

To me faith is something that is directed towards Aten, and an act of trust and reliance on Aten. Faith causes questions and eventually leads to answers as we come to know Aten better. Faith is not obedience to a set of rules. In order to have faith we must understand who and what we have faith in, for without understanding there cannot be true faith.

Most importantly, blind faith is dangerous. Having faith means that we sometimes stop and ask questions in order to better understand and strengthen our faith. These questions may cause us to change how we see Aten and the path we are on.
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Davian
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Faith, to me, is the recognition that our existence transcends our senses. That what we see with our eyes is not all that we are.

And, as you note, there is a fine line between faith and blind obedience. True faith is based in knowledge, not unconditional servitude to a government, a church, or a scripture that has been altered and translated hundreds of times since it's conception.
"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."

Carl Sagan
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Astennu
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Davian
Mar 16 2009, 12:44 AM
Faith, to me, is the recognition that our existence transcends our senses. That what we see with our eyes is not all that we are.

And, as you note, there is a fine line between faith and blind obedience. True faith is based in knowledge, not unconditional servitude to a government, a church, or a scripture that has been altered and translated hundreds of times since it's conception.
Yes, I would agree that faith is the recognition that our existence transcends our senses. There is quite a bit more to the universe (spiritual and mundane) than what we know about. Faith is also about finding connection and communion with Aten, or whatever name one uses.

I have never liked blind faith. Too often I have encountered Christians who simply accept what they are told and never ask questions. (It is somewhat sad when someone, like myself, has a better knowledge of their Holy Book than some of them do.) I am glad to know they have faith, but they also need to explore that faith and find a true communion with the Divine.
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Davian
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Agreed. If most Christians actually took the time to read their own Bible, as you and I have, they wouldn't be Christians.
"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."

Carl Sagan
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Astennu
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Sadly, blind faith is not limited to one religion. I have run across it in many different religions, I only used Christians as they are the ones I run across the most.

Many Holy Books have unsavory passages that just wait to pop up and cause trouble. That being said, there are also parts that show that the writer did have a connection with the Divine. While I may disagree with parts of some Holy Books, I will never say that the whole is wrong. Most probably if people of different faiths, say Christians as an example, were to take a close look at the books they call holy they would probably not deny their faith but simply change it. Most probably they would realize that faith must be a living breathing thing, and that our understanding of the truth changes over time. (The truth does not change, only our understanding of it.)
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Davian
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Agreed. But of all the religious scriptures I've studied, the Old Testament of Judaism and Christianity, by far, promotes more hatred, bigotry and violence then any other.
"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."

Carl Sagan
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Astennu
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We must look beyond the hate and see the Divine Spark that exists within all of us. In the past much has been done in the name of God, which has nothing to do with Him. Books have been written with rules, and only some of those rules end up being from Him or they are translated by our own prejudices. It is time to stop pointing and saying "your religion has done that" but instead to say "we are all children of Aten and it is time we started acting that way."

I cannot say why we are here, but I can say that we are not here to argue with one another or to hurt one another. I have seen the good that exists within all of us, and it is time we learn to connect with that. It is time to distance ourselves from our destructive tendencies and instead learn how to create. It is time to accept the Divine Spark of Aten that exists within all of us, and recognize that Spark in our fellow brothers and sisters - no matter what faith they may or may no follow.
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Glenn Waters
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The power of Aten and the Amarna culture was copied in the Bible in Psalm 104, the great manifesto of God's all-encompassing power, and read how He created grass for cattle to eat, and trees for birds to nest in, and the sea for ships to sail and fish to swim in:

Bless the Lord . . . you who coverest thyself with light as with a garment . . .
Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; . . .
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and . . . the trees
Where the birds make their nests; as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.
The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; . . .
(As) the sun ariseth, (the beasts) gather themselves together . . .
There go the ships: there is that leviathan (whale), whom thou hast made to play therein.

And then among the remains of Amarna culture you read the Hymn to the Aten, purportedly written by Akhenaten himself, which says:

When the land grows bright and you are risen from the Akhet (horizon) and shining in the sun-disk by day, . . .
All flocks (are) at rest on their grasses, trees and grasses flourishing;
Birds flown from their nest, their wings in adoration of your life-force;
All flocks prancing on foot, all that fly and alight living as you rise for them;
Ships going downstream and upstream too, every road open at your appearance;
Fish on the river leaping to your face, your rays even inside the sea. (trans. James P. Allen)

The similarity is simply astounding. Comparing these passages, who could argue against some form of cultural exchange moving from Egypt to Israel—and, given the chronology, we must suppose the sharing took place in that direction—how can we avoid the conclusion that the ancient Hebrew who wrote Psalm 104 has somehow borrowed from Akhenaten's Hymn to the Aten?

With that, the realization begins to dawn that answers to the great question about the origins of Hebrew monotheism are not going to come swiftly or easily. How did a Hebrew psalmist's eyes—or ears?—ever pass near a banned Egyptian hymn? While the psalm is hardly a verbatim copy of its atenistic model, the likeness of these songs, especially in their imagery and the order in which the images come, argues forcefully for some sort of Egypt-to-Palestine contact, however indirect.

And if there is contact there, why not elsewhere? If that's the case, there clearly was some channel of intercultural communication, some literary turnpike now invisible. But if we imagine a road of some sort running between Akhetaten and ancient Jerusalem, what are we really creating: a history or a novel? And by doing so, are we not at risk of saying more about ourselves than the odd, beguiling world Akhenaten built, whose slanted light still shines from beneath sand and walls and scripture? History, you'll remember, means "question," and that is exactly where the history of Akhenaten leaves us.
Thou art throughout their lord, even in their weakness.
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Astennu
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I am sure there was cultural contact, but who can say how much? We know so little of what happened so long ago. The best we can do is create a modern Atenism based off what we know about the original and Ancient Egyptian/Kemetic culture.
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