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.

It's just a stupid word

Faith itself is not bad. Blind belief is.

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Religious belief drops when analytical thinking rises

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

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.

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.

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.

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".

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

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.

Faith is a crutch for lazy thinkers.

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.

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?

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

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).

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