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Faith... is it good?

Why do people think faith is a good thing? When you ask them why they believe in god they say “I just have faith” like it’s a good thing and the discussion should be over.

Nathan65 4 June 12
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45 comments

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3

Faith and ignorance live together; good and bad are elusive ideas. An ignorant person has little to say.

EdEarl Level 8 June 12, 2018
1

No !

1

When they use the word faith that way they mean they've decided to believe something without proof.
Jesus supposedly said people who believed without proof were "blessed" so that's what they are going for.

John 20:29 King James Version (KJV)
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

0

It's just a stupid word

2

Faith itself is not bad. Blind belief is.

0

...

2

The problem with 'faith' is that it is used in two different ways. As pointed out in responses, one meaning is belief in something without evidence, or indeed despite the evidence, as in the case of faith in Jesus even though there is a lot of historical study showing the real Jesus, even if he existed, was little like the story, and the story itself was largely made up. Faith as in belief without evidence based on unproven authority. This is bad.

However, people also use faith in a different way, as a synonym for "hope". Someone might say they have faith in something happening or someone doing something. In this case it means hope based on some knowledge of the situation. Doesn't mean it's always right, but it is based on something, knowledge or experience, not blind faith based on false authority, a strong hope based on that. It's like you might have faith in your doctor. It's not blind faith in him or her, but a faith based on experience, knowledge, and confidence in their abilities. Religionists sometimes claim non-believers have faith in things too, like science or a secular world. Perhaps we do, but it's faith as in hope, and its based on reality and ultimately on knowledge and reason. Religious faith never is.

2

Religious belief drops when analytical thinking rises

Ryksie Level 6 June 12, 2018
0

I don't think faith is bad. Faith has been a great comfort to those who haven't known anything else or need an outlet for their comfort. But faith mixed with intolerance it was I don't find amusing

3

Honestly when I stopped being religious I didn’t think I would have much use for faith.

At some point I realized I had a lot of faith in humanity. That I might be helping someone and it might not seem very effective but there is faith that they will eventually make progress and improve their lives, and that has happened multiple times.

My faith switched to humanity and that has been so much more satisfying.

Myah Level 6 June 12, 2018
0

I don't shy away from the word or use of faith. We all use it, in fact. It holds different connotations, certainly, when I say I arrive at this or that through faith, or have faith that such and such is the case. For example, I have faith that my memory is reliable. I cannot prove that it is without employing it in the attempt. This might seem counterintuitive to some; "of course I know my memory is reliable because of how continues to produce reliable results." But what are you using when you draw that conclusion? The memory of the times your memory produced reliable results. Such things cannot be rationalized as they are pre-rational. They are our starting points from where we begin to rationalize. And, as such, they use be taken on faith in order for us to move forward in reasoning.

Big difference between what is happening in what I've described and a believer describing their pathway to belief. In my view, one of us has no choice but to use the faith we use, the other uses faith in areas beyond the boundaries of necessity (i.e. faith that a god exists is not pre-rational).

It's a club we think we have to beat believers with, but it doesn't work that way.

3

Faith is good shit man.

Don't let logic and reason anywhere near you though.

2

Because they conflate two nearly opposite definitions of the English word "faith".

Colloquially, faith is trust based on experience, simply put. When I mean that, I just say "trust".

Religiously, faith is belief in asserted "truth" without requiring that it be substantiated. When I mean that, I qualify it as "religious faith".

This conflation is partly unconscious but largely deliberate. A very common tactic of religion is to elevate the ridiculous by associating it with the sublime. Or to pull down the sublime by associating it with the ridiculous. Often both at the same time. As with "faith".

2

If "faith" means blind belief in anything, it is no virtue

0

Faith in witnessing is the most fundamental way for humans to reach a truth of any kind, especially those inaccessible to humans directly.
Both past and future are not.directly accessible to humans. Thus our written history are human accounts of testimonies. Our.daily news are accounts of testimonies from reporters and journalists. Our Science are accounts of testimonies of our scientists. Hey we know for a fact that black holes exist not because they are made evidenced to us. Instead, we have Faith in our scientists to get to This fact.

That said. Christianity is the accounts of testimonies testifying an advocate about a future which is inaccessoble to humans and can only be reached by Faith in testimonies, shall it be a truth.

Except eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable, so much so that it holds less weight than anything else in our courts. Our “faith” in historians and scientists is dependent on the fact that any thing they testify can be verified in multiple ways. Be it archeological, geological and fossil records, or through publishing their experiment to a peer reviewed journal and requiring some independent verification. It’s not faith in a testimony that allows us to take a scientists word for something we don’t personally understand. It’s our knowledge of the rationale of their process, and knowing that if we cared enough we could study the topic and see the evidence the same way they do. And as with anything we also know we must pay attention to who funded the study because results can be interpreted with any slant you want if there’s financial motivation. Religion makes no such concessions and holds no such checks and balances of itself so its “testimonies” are pathetically useless and unbacked by any standard of logic.

Historians are notoriously biased and should never be taken on faith. I was taught English history in school not Irish history. When i did my own research it was very different (as were my experiences in recent history ?).

5

Faith is the abdication of reason. Choosing to accept something without thinking about the alternatives is not wise. There is always a reason that someone wants you to accept something on faith and the reason is not good.

4

Faith is a crutch for lazy thinkers.

1

Faith on its own is a very good thing. Faith in god is misguided and unfortunately ignorant. Faith is not owned by religions. You need to have faith in people, without it relationships suffer and collaboration deteriorates.

2

Faith, like everything else, is neither inherently good nor bad. Religious faith seems silly to me, but having faith in myself and my abilities is necessary for me to continue to get out of bed day after day. Without it, what's the point?

1

Faith is critical to anything we attempt. Believing in ourselves is critical to a satisfying life, because If we don't believe we can succeed at something, or if we don't believe in those we trust, we never get out of the starting gate. Faith is nothing more than a synonym for believing.

So faith is like any decision making. Some are more effective at deciding what to believe than others.

If we have faith in something that can harm us, then we're at risk; like the victims who keep choosing abusive partners, and end up being hurt, physically or emotionally, since emotional vultures prey on those who have misplaced faith.

In other words, i choose my 'faiths' carefully, or not.

I for one have faith in myself, in a universe which always does what it needs to do, in the fact that each day will be great whatever it looks like, in the fact that i can learn something every day, and in a narrow sense, in the future of humanity.

There's more but i need to start my day. Thanks for having the faith to join Agnostics.com LLOL

4

I have never understood blind faith in anything.

In my mind, blind faith is believing in something and not being open to any other suggestions. And that is close mindedness

@GaryShimell They are not the same. Blind faith is believing in something without any tangable reason other than your desire to believe.

1

Faith is an emotional mode of thinking and it's good to some degree if a person finds growth in it, but otherwise it's just a way to misinform people from very simple reasoning about the nature of what is out there, and the nature of the existence of God(s).

2

Faith is simply another word for trust. And as we all know, trust must be earned. Those we trust have earned it by proving that they can be trusted. Trust without proof is always a terrible idea, even if it works out for the best, because it rarely does.

3

They do that because they cannot defend it with reason and logic.
They have "faith" because they are devoid of both.

0

Well, remember the story of Pandora? When she opened the box (or sealed vase depending on version of the story), the last sprite to escape to plague man was Hope.

Most people today see hope as a positive thing, but the Greeks saw it as a negative, because it raises expectations far beyond what can realistically be expected. It may be lost in translation, but hope and faith are very similar.

Both Hope and Faith are two edged swords that can cut both ways. How you look at them is due to a cultural bias, and depends on how you were taught to think about them.

The ancient Greeks didn't believe in over reaching via Hope, and greatly disparaged it. In the U.S. as well as many other Western Civilizations, it is considered admirable to reach beyond your limits... but only if you manage to pull it off and get what you are reaching for. The vast majority fail miserably, but we lionize those few who actually made it.

It is all just due to what is considered the cultural norm as to how we look at things.

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