[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Kanzeon

Another stunning, facile misrepresentation. Christ is clearly talking about faith in God. He isn't talking about his mind, or anyone else's mind or thoughts, creating miracles. He is talking about God performing miracles for those who believe in them.

Another "stunning, facile misrepresentation" - that is your own opinion.

Yes, Christ most definitely was talking about faith in God. And what is faith? Is it a physical object? Does it have wooden legs, or a plastic handle perhaps, could you hold it in your two hands or put it in a cupboard?

No, you cannot.

Faith is a mental attitude, a belief, a kind of thought, a state of consciousness.

When Christ says that faith can move mountains, he is therefore saying that if a person has a certain mental attitude, a belief, a kind of thought, a state of consciousness, that in itself can lead to the occurrence of a physical event that we conventionally would regard as impossible.

So of course there is a relationship between what Christ claims, and what the LOA claims.

The main difference, of course, is the absence or presence of the God element. For the Christian, the concept is that the faith must be in God. In other versions of LOA, there must be strong belief that the outcome will occur, but there is no necessity that the person believes in God.

But either way, both versions place importance on the faith, the thought, the state of consciousness.

So if I were to adopt the "God exists" paradigm, and if a non-believer in God holds an intention and it miraculously comes true, then I might possibly explain it as follows -

"God, being omnipotent, knows all people's thoughts, and may respond to those thoughts, whether the person believes in God or not."

And if I were to adopt the "God does not exist" paradigm, and if a non-believer in God holds an intention and it miraculously comes true, then I might explain it as follows -

"Thoughts create reality; that's the LOA at work."

And if I were to adopt the "God does not exist" paradigm, and if a believer in God holds an intention and it miraculously comes true, then I might explain it as follows -

"There is no God. But the person had strong belief, and thoughts create reality, and so his intention came true".

And if I were to adopt the "God might or might not exist, I'm really not sure", and if a believer OR a non-believer holds an intention and it miraculously comes true, then I might explain it as follows -

"Maybe God exists and maybe God does not. But either way, it seems that a strong belief that the desired event would occur, seems to be a very important element in determining whether the desired event would occur or not."

Etc. All of the above, to me, are quite interesting perspectives to explore. That is why I had suggested that exploring different schools could be very insightful and valuable, regardless of whether you primarily identify yourself as a Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, atheist or whatever.

After all, what did the Buddha himself say?

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then beleive them to be true. “