I have seen multiple definitions of this term used by believers and I have seen it expressed as both a good and bad thing. So what exactly is “Faith”? A non believer will tell you that faith is belief without convincing evidence; belief by will; wish fulfilment; belief because you want to believe; self delusion. But that’s what a non believer would say. In a non religious context, faith usually means trust. To be faithful and take something in good faith. To give people the benefit of the doubt and trust that their intentions are good. Many believers apply the word faith the same way to God. They say faith means trust in God. But what exactly does that mean? Trust that God is good and isn’t misleading and actually evil? Or trust that God even exists? I have heard of people having faith in their spouses or faith in experts like doctors etc, but that never seems to be about them existing. To have faith in somebody doesn’t that somebody they have to at least exist absent faith? So I understand a believer could have faith in Jesus, trusting that he is what he claims to be, but what means faith in God?
Let's look at some of the humour that I think is there is the conflict over how to define words like "faith." For example....I have much, much, much less faith in the vaccines for COVID 19 at this time than many of my friends have: Some of my personal and online friends take the angle that I am an ignorant and overly religious red neck because I am not entirely thrilled with the idea of making my appointment to go get either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine as soon as possible. In actuality I am conflicted over the whole question............ ... somewhat like how I am conflicted over even how to define faith?! Many Christians would tend to find my belief in the idea that YHWH "evolved" or learned over infinite time in the past as terribly offensive and perhaps even heretical?! www.CarbonBias.blogspot.ca/ I admit that my relatively high level of "faith" in the idea that YHWH is working out some sort of "Red Sea" type of event in 2021 results in my having much less faith in either Pfizer and / or Moderna but......... ..... there is a possibility that I may be doing a discussion soon in which I admit to having been vaccinated... .but I am not sure yet.... and I am asking my wife what she wants to do???????? Whatever she decides... I am tempted to follow her example????? Was this a stupid comparison?????? If so.. .my apologies... .but I thought you might rather like this. In your opinion should I have copied your post and put it over into humour and Satire or into one of the Covid 19 discussion forums?
Faith in the vaccine seems to me to be more about faith in the doctors and pharmaceutical industry that created it, and faith in the governments that encourage the populace to take it. But the vaccine, doctors, pharmaceutical industry, and governments all clearly exist, even if they are lying to you. Faith in God is the only one I can think of that is about the mere existence of the person one has “faith” in. Perhaps saying it’s faith in God is a misunderstanding. Perhaps the faith is actually in the priests, prophets, parents teaching it to children etc. Those people clearly exist even if they are wrong or lying. So saying faith in them seems more coherent to me.
Thank you for this excellent reply to my post and thank you for not being offended by my attempt to look at all of this with some humour!
When I was a Christian, faith meant that I didn't have to have physical evidence of something to accept it as true. I could *know* in my heart that there was a powerful being who created me, loved me and wanted to be in my life to guide me on the right path and was there to comfort me when that road made me weary. Now that I'm an atheist, faith means I don't have to have physical evidence of something to believe in the possibility of something (ie. when we put faith in our doctors or medicines, etc.). We take it "on faith" that it is what we believe it to be. The road to my atheism was very long. I was a devout Christian and I did all the things I "was supposed to do" to be right with God/god. Over time, I began to feel less enthusiastic because the world around me didn't fit what I was told to believe (ie. all policeman are helpful, adults don't lie to kids, work hard and your employer will reward you, etc.). In those moments, other Christians blamed me saying that I didn't have enough faith or I didn't pray right or my heart wasn't in it. None of that soothed my pain and made me feel like I was somehow "defective." Interestingly enough, my love of helping others and advocacy for the underdog has not changed throughout my life but other people get somewhat confused wondering how I can be kind and loving if I didn't believe in God/god. I never said it aloud but some of the most evil people I've ever met are believers so, to me, the contrast has to make sense too. I usually don't correct people when they make comments assuming that I'm Christian based on my actions. It doesn't matter to me if they or not but I find it's more "gentle" to not upset their apple cart. I just help when I can in every way I can and let the rest float away.
In my opinion you MJDavies are headed toward a truly positive Life Review when you meet the Being or beings of light of NDE fame who will review your life with you. I believe that you and our Creator will hit it off really well when you do meet face to face. The very fact that you are being kind to others and you are not overly worried whether or not they think you are Christian is a positive characteristic in my opinion......... An event from recent history proves your theory that people do not have to be believers in order to be ethical or kind to others. The nation of Israel faced the question of whether or not to do rescue missions to move the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia to Israel, make them into citizens... with all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizens who may have fled from Europe. It is a fact of history that Israeli Skeptics and Atheists were the loudest and most enthusiastic voices raised in support of Operation Moses and Operation Solomon that took thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moses
That is an excellent question, one that I have asked numerous times over the years and have yet to receive an adequate response, except for one, which is that for them it works. I have no problems if believing in imaginary figures works to improve your life through the use of active faith, but it is not necessarily an innate or universal feeling to have this blind faith, especially in the light of science. You see, I do place my faith in professionals who dedicate themselves to studying their chosen field because I choose too, not because I have no alternative. If I was really motivated to proving something, I would choose to study it to get to that level of proficiency and expertise where faith was not needed, but that isn't the sort of faith religious believers have in mind. What they mean is to have you bend your internal curiosity to accepting their non-scientific beliefs as "gospel, without question, without reservations, without a doubt. It is counter to how our brains are wired. Faith is just a blunt instrument used by the ignorant to make you ignorant too.
Faith is a way that people cope with the most unpleasant aspects of life by creating a fictional one that gives them hope, friends, and better health. My mother was a person of faith and it seemed to work for her. I have zero faith and have had a difficult life. I prefer a difficult life that puts me in touch with the truth over believing in things that are false. Thinking scientifically about everything and living in reality is very much at odds with human nature.
I don't we should decide on the definitions before we understand what is being said. If someone talks about orange the colour or orange the fruit, we don't decide beforehand whether "orange" truly is a fruit or a colour, we can use either definition, depending on what message we are trying to convey. On occasion, there is room for confusion, and in those cases, the solution is to provide clarification, not to insist on one definition or another.
I don't think you read the full OP. I never demanded there can be only one definition. The is used in multiple ways, two of which I referred to in the OP. What are the rest?
Faith in the religious context is a feeling, the feeling that a god exists, the feeling that death is not final, the feeling a man rose from the dead all this based on very little evidence. Faith is the feeling of certainty when no such certainty can exist, faith comes from the fear of the unknown.
faith is a strongly held belief in 'any' and 'all' contexts its also arrogance, the feeling of certainty no such thing exists
OK, but I don't see a justification for "faith in god" being as opposed to "observation of our universe" as it so frequently is today. If one actually has faith in god, what would be the reason for so totally rejecting observation? There really has to be a difference betweed faith in god and faith in a single interpretation of the Bible or some other written word, regardless of all evidence or observation. I don't believe we run into much trouble with the first of those. If people want to believe in a god, fine. But, then we get to he second of those, the dogma. That becomes a different story. Faith becomes an automatic rejection of all observation and evidence.
Absolutely it is. In science, rejection of ideas including all theories and laws is a fundamental part of the method of moving forward. And, the methods accepted for that rejection involve observation.
and your claim is that if it comes titled as science its twu-bwu! Patent BS wil, bunk science is in all cases conveniently swept under the carpet any time there is a negative economic or egoistic impact.
I note there are two basic definitions for the word "faith", one is used in a religious context and the other is to be used in a secular context. Their two meanings overlap somewhat, leaving significant differences. For me, I find it more accurate to only use the word "faith" in the religious context and not use it in the secular context at all. Instead, I use secular synonyms such as "trust", "confidence" and "high probability" instead. The reason I do this is to avoid miscommunication.
that just means the word faith applies to a belief, and the trust that believe is true despite having no proof. That does not make the word 'faith' secular or religious though as you indicated people make false presumptions. The same goes with the word religion, just because its most commonly used to indicate a b elief in G/god does not mean its limited to that meaning, which is why I have said on several occasions everyone has a religion.
