Truly.

Moreover, if a person puts God into a personality box like the ancient Hebrew fables, then what are they going to do if God doesn't live up to their expectations of "his personality"?

Whatever will be will be, que sera sera,....

If what we imagine might be true actually CREATES our ultimate fate, that's cool with me.

I imagine a very beautiful spiritual world.

So if I "reside" with the "choice" of what I place my "faith" in, then I'll be in super great shape.

The only way I could "lose" is if my "faith" doesn't match up with "reality".

I'm not even sure if I have "faith" in anything truly. What is "faith" other than "expectations"?

All a person is saying when they claim to have "faith" in something is that they either HOPE, or EXPECT that it will be true.

Faith is truly nothing more than "hope" that certain "expectations" will turn out to be true.

Well, I certainly "hope" that my "expectation" that I will continue to exist after death turns out to be "true".

Therefore I clearly have "faith".

Does this mean that I'm "home free" and I've cheated DEATH?

Of course not.

It's just a HOPE and EXPECTATION. That's all that "faith" amounts to.

Atheism could still be the ultimate "truth" of reality, and if it it is then when I die it'll just be "lights-out" and I'll never even know that I had died, much less that I had ever lived and had "hopes" and "expectations".

"Faith" isn't going to change reality.

Whatever will be will be.

~~~~~

The Christians could potentially be right. Maybe God is the hateful demon they claim. However, the problem with that scenario is that it flies in the very face of the ideals that there doctrines claim that God is supposed to be like. Their God is supposed to be righteously, all-loving and all-merciful. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there is a verse somewhere in the Bible that claims that God's mercy exceeds his love.

Well, duh. That doesn't fit into the idea of a God who cast the vast majority of the souls he creates into a place of eternal punishment.

So it seems to me that the stories are simply inconsistent with their own demands of what "God" must be. In other words, their "hopes" and "expectations" of what God is supposedly like are in gross conflict with each other.

So it's not even a consistent or reasonable "faith" as far as I can see.

"Faith is acceptance of what is, even if you don't understand it."

aye...

well said.

Faith is also acceptance that WHAT IS will be good for you even if you don't understand why IT IS.

Yep!