All faith is ultimately faith in myself alone

To trust anybody else, you have to trust yourself to decide who to trust. You cannot trust others except in so far as you trust yourself.

Your trust in yourself is behind trust in God so if you say God is all that matters you are lying.

Suppose hypothetically you have to trust yourself or God. It has to be one or the other. Then which one? Obviously it has to be trust in yourself. But suppose hypothetically it is possible to trust God and not trust yourself at all. Then if God alone matters, and Jesus says he does, then you are to suffer a total lack of trust in you for the love of God. That is cruel. The comfort people get in God shows they must be fantasists.

We all base our beliefs on assumptions.

The only thing I know for sure now is that I exist now. I cannot be as sure that I existed a second ago or will exist for another moment. I simply assume that I did exist and will exist.

My dreams seem real when I am having them. I cannot be sure that I am not dreaming now. I assume that I am.

We assume other people are conscious beings. We do not assume that they are machines that merely act conscious.

We assume that nature behaves a certain way and that magic doesn't happen.

My mind could be programmed to think that 2 and 2 add up to 5. I assume that it is not.

This tells me that all faith is just a form of faith in myself alone. Even faith in God is really faith in my capacity to see there is a God and connect with him.

I have faith in my assumptions being correct.

Faith in God and Jesus is really faith and trust in those who tell you about them. Such faith does not really exist.

If I have faith in another, it is just another way of showing faith in myself. It is saying, "I trust my ability to sense that I may trust you."

Faith makes the case for atheism not religion. You can only and should only trust for yourself and in yourself - you are independent of God no matter how hard you try not to be.

Religious faith is a perversion of faith.

I can't make others happy. They have to decide to let themselves be happy. I cannot decide it for them. If a person doesn't want to be happy, nothing I do will change that. Nothing a God will do can change that. It is our freedom that must be honoured above and beyond all things and not a God, not anything.

My physical needs, for food, drink and shelter take priority over belief in God. Faith in God cannot come first. I have to have faith in myself to get what really matters.

Keep your word. Keep your promises to yourself. And to others. To do so affirms that you are wonderful and that your promises describe you as a wonderful person who can and will deliver. To break a promise or to make an insincere promise is to tell yourself that you have failed to keep your goals. Do this and you will find the secret of having a strong faith in yourself.

Being untrustworthy is the strongest proof you will ever have that others can be untrustworthy. Thus it harms your trust in others. If you become trustworthy you will find you will trust others better and give them the doubt easier should it seem that they have let you down.

I know my reasoning and my thinking can be wrong but it does not mean I should mistrust them all the time. I have faith in myself that I am right even if I am not. Faith after all is not knowledge. This faith in myself is good as long as I am open to correction and mature enough to face reality with courage.

Whether we have free will or not, we consider the loss of freedom to be the greatest evil. Our perception is that we are free and if that is taken away and if we are made to do things we do not want to do, we suffer. We will endure severe suffering as long as we consent to it or to its duration. The suffering that we despise is the suffering forced on us. It is not suffering then that we hate but the loss of freedom. We feel it is better to be harmed by choice than to be harmed without being able to choose. Choice then matters more to us than suffering.

Self-compassion means you admit you suffer, that you tell yourself you will support yourself and give yourself enough time to start healing. Self-compassion reminds you that you have to help yourself and remembering that itself helps you. You cannot be helped by others. It is your self-compassion that helps you. They are the tools through which it works but it is your work. Faith in yourself is the only way to truth and love. You cannot help yourself through self-compassion unless you have faith that you will be able to do something through your concern for yourself.

Faith in God is trying to suppress self-compassion. People do sometimes mistake self-compassion for divine intervention. Others practice it and pretend that they are getting and seeking help from God.