Pretty interesting take, I especially liked your mind-shape idea.
Another way to view faith is an attempt to find “God’s will” which is like a vector pointing toward an undefined point (God) which represents an idealized version of the best possible outcome of things. Ideally, a person of faith is always adjusting the vector of the direction of their lives (based on the outcomes of things), and not intentionally taking a vector known to point away from God (sin).
Some people think religion is useless, but actually, this approach is similar to the process of achieving any complex goal. Only, goals can be wrong to begin with unless the goal is God, which is the correct goal by definition. The Bible is a set of stories, rules, and lessons that provide a shortcut to a well-aimed vector (rather than pure trial and error, which is a costly process).
The “idealized version of the best possible outcome of things” is an intimidatingly ambiguous concept, but why would we want to aim for anything less? Religion is a method to achieve this goal that has been refined and field-tested over thousands of years.
I have a feeling this might be a bit more complex. So I’d say there is vector pointing from where you are to where God want’s you to be, and that if on each step you always minimize the distance, then you’re getting closer to what God wants as the crow flies, but that there are a bunch of traps, detours and other such things along the way. And that if you just directly follow the vector, you’ll probably end up in a bad place because you’ll take a bad path.
So just following the vector would be a form of consequentialism, where a naive approach ends with you falling into a hole from which you can’t get out, or ending under a cliff which you can’t climb. And the main value of religion (either as God’s laws, or a collection of known paths) is that it will lead you along a safe road, even if that doesn’t always seem to be pointing in the right direction.
I like how you frame searching for God’s will as a facet of a more general process, where often the best road to a very complex goal might seem pointless or at least strange.
Pretty interesting take, I especially liked your mind-shape idea.
Another way to view faith is an attempt to find “God’s will” which is like a vector pointing toward an undefined point (God) which represents an idealized version of the best possible outcome of things. Ideally, a person of faith is always adjusting the vector of the direction of their lives (based on the outcomes of things), and not intentionally taking a vector known to point away from God (sin).
Some people think religion is useless, but actually, this approach is similar to the process of achieving any complex goal. Only, goals can be wrong to begin with unless the goal is God, which is the correct goal by definition. The Bible is a set of stories, rules, and lessons that provide a shortcut to a well-aimed vector (rather than pure trial and error, which is a costly process).
The “idealized version of the best possible outcome of things” is an intimidatingly ambiguous concept, but why would we want to aim for anything less? Religion is a method to achieve this goal that has been refined and field-tested over thousands of years.
I have a feeling this might be a bit more complex. So I’d say there is vector pointing from where you are to where God want’s you to be, and that if on each step you always minimize the distance, then you’re getting closer to what God wants as the crow flies, but that there are a bunch of traps, detours and other such things along the way. And that if you just directly follow the vector, you’ll probably end up in a bad place because you’ll take a bad path.
So just following the vector would be a form of consequentialism, where a naive approach ends with you falling into a hole from which you can’t get out, or ending under a cliff which you can’t climb. And the main value of religion (either as God’s laws, or a collection of known paths) is that it will lead you along a safe road, even if that doesn’t always seem to be pointing in the right direction.
I like how you frame searching for God’s will as a facet of a more general process, where often the best road to a very complex goal might seem pointless or at least strange.