I just don't get it!
I was brought up as a Catholic but presently do not adhere to any formal religious grouping and do not believe in the likely existence of a Western style God.
Nevertheless, as I do not have an alternative explanation for the purpose, if any, of our existence, I do spend quite some time discussing and reading about religious matters.
My many religious friends and acquaintences invariably cite "faith" as the key component to attaining what they term "salvation".
Please understand that I greatly admire these people for their tranquility and desire to help others and in no way have I ever belittled their beliefs nor do I intend to in the future,
But I just don't understand what they mean by "faith".
However, it does certainly seem that it entails dispensing with all rationality and resorting to some type of mysticism which lies well beyond scientific analysis.
I know that if I were to proclaim a new found faith in a benevolent God and the possibility of eternal happiness in front of certain audiences, my views would be greeted with rapturous applause and perhaps a few tears.
If, however, I announced to the same audience that my faith also extended to a belief in the existence of the Yeti and the Loch Ness monster and that a rhinocerous was going to be the next President of the United States, I would be considered a lunatic.
But why is one type of faith highly acceptable and the other viewed as ridiculous.
Could it be that one type of faith fills a major gap in our lives and makes us feel good about ourselves and, particularly, our prospects for avoiding the horror of a finalization of our existence? The other "faith" does little other than provoke a momentary giggle.
I am fully aware that the vast majority of humans who have lived on this planet have spent their lives in misery as do very many people today. Indeed, I have myself seen how severely miserable the lives of many people can be. Now if these people can benefit from a faith in a supposed loving, caring God who can offer them an eternity in paradise, then that's marvelous. It gives them hope and allows them to put up with their degrading conditions here on earth and even feel happy about it (as I have seen many times myself).
Faith, therefore, would be defined as a type of benevolent self-delusion,
I think, however, what concerns me most is that I have been told that without "faith", I will be condemned to eternal damnation. This implies that those who insist on applying a degree of rationality and scientific appraisal to their thoughts about their lives, instead of just settling for a blind faith, are considered unworthy of salvation by the Almighty Creator.
This just doesn't seem right.

Religious faith to me, is a cop-out, a way for weak people to have every hardship explained away in a convenient manner, for them to be excused all sorts of prejudices, a way of absolving themselves for all manner of behaviour. Its for people that cannot face up to the fact that they are meaningless, their lives are meaningless and that when they die, thats it - nothing.

Religious types always use the same excuse that faith cannot be explained, and that God cannot be proved to exist or not exist, and that there must be more to life (why?). But lack of proof either way is not reason to believe in something.

It all comes back to ego and arrogance. That's all religion essentially is.

That's a good point. I suppose faith could be defined as "belief without sufficient evidence."

IMO, the only thing that lends more public respect to one faith versus another is the sheer number of people who hold the view. As Robert Heinlein said "One man's theology is another man's belly laugh."

And yet most Christians will be offended if you retort that they have "blind faith."

No world view is founded on proof. We've already covered in other threads that even science doesn't deal with proof, it deals with evidence and probability: theories to explain things in nature we don't fully understand.

As such, whatever one believes -- even if he believes humanity doesn't have the answers -- is going to be based on some degree of subjectivity. Even evolution requires "faith." Maybe not as much as the various religious, but you still have to believe the evidence is conclusive, you still have to believe that the scientists who actually know what the heck they're talking about haven't had a lapse in judgment when they tell you what to believe.

It's a matter of having reached a threshold where you say "the evidence != 100% proof, but I choose to believe anyway, and trust that it's true." I believe Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and I believe in time dialation and that stars are giant balls of flaming substances. I've witnessed none of the above.

Being subjective choice, faith is heavily subject to bias. It takes place on the intuitive level, and intuition, amazing powerhouse of human genious though it be, is largely emotional and unguided by strict reasoning.

Everyone has faith. We just have faith in different things, some more absurd then others.

SigmaX

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.-- Benjamin Franklin

Faith is when one accepts a statement as true without evidence for it, or in the face of evidence against it.

"Many people confuse belief with faith. It's said that if you believe something, you must be taking it on faith. This is a denial of the fundamental distinction between reason and faith. It pretends that evidence for or against an idea is irrelevant."

"Faith is an act of mental destruction. If there is no evidence for a claim, then accepting it is irrational. It is more likely to be false then true (since there are more false ideas then true ones, being that their is only one reality). Building a structure of knowledge on such a flimsy foundation will leave it shaky and unstable. Eventually, even if confronted with evidence against it, one's mind will be so dependent on the belief that fear of one's world view collapsing will encourage one to reject the evidence. When this happens, one acts against reality. This is an act of destruction."

That's a good point ... IMO though, belief is not binary. The strength of one's beliefs should be proportioned to the available evidence.

Usually with "faith" the strength of belief goes to 100% ... although evidence can never provide this much certainty. More rational belief generally hovers closer to 50% strength (ambivalance) than 0% or 100% (certainty). A weak belief in God is not necessarily "faith" as some things could be construed as positive evidence.

Firstly, faith is not to dispense with rationality, but to adopt rationality. However, these people to whom you spoke are very likely not evidencing genuine Christian faith, but rather replace it with some kind of emotional ("spiritual") experience. Christian (biblical) faith is most definitely rational.

Secondly, though, you will probably have difficulties with this if you are equating rationality with scientific analysis.

Firstly, because the first type of faith is highly supportable. For example, there are at least seven arguments from the existence of reason which elaborate the vast difficulties which naturalism or materialism run into in trying to assert a fully physical universe. While these are not proof for only the Christian god, they are certainly strong arguments for theism in general. However, there are no such evidences for yetis, the Loch Ness Monster, etc.

Secondly, if human beings do have a "major gap" in us which is filled by religion (and I agree that man is incurably religious), in what way does this fact lead necessarily to your conclusion that it is because we wish to feel good about ourselves and avoid the horror of the finality of our existence? You seem to be assuming the consequent. This "major gap" could equally be explained by the fact that we are created in the image of God, and made to be in communion with him. Either conclusion is quite supportable given the premises, and which one we choose is a matter of our existing presuppositions. So we should examine those.

You have misunderstood both faith and rationality. Science is not rational; it presupposes a number of things which are quite unjustified, and does not even claim to be able to justify them. For example, it presupposes a commonality of experience between people, which in turn presupposes people and an external world. It presupposes that our memories are reliable, and then, based on the this assumption and the fact that we remember the past being consistent, it fallaciously (inductively) infers that the future will be like the past, and arrives at the principle of the uniformity of nature. This is just to start with. On top of this, although science assumes an empirical epistemology, it denies the need for a metaphysic (though obviously, by taking an empirical epistemology it implicitly adopts an empirical metaphysic as well). But without a metaphysic it has no basis for an epistemology, and since an empirical epistemology is self-refuting in the first place, it has no basis for knowledge-claims whatsoever. I'd be happy to go into that further.

Faith, on the other hand (and I am talking about biblical faith) is a justified and true belief in God's promise. It was founded and perfected by Christ, who was God; and, this being the case, and since all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ himself, it is impossible to describe faith as irrational or uncertain. The biblical word refers to forensic proof, or to a trust in something on the basis of such proof.

Heh, because if someone famous said it, it must be true! Wait, are you taking that on faith...?

That may be how most people define faith, but it is certainly not Christian faith.

Since evidence is only data interpeted according to a set of presuppositions, you have to take something on faith before you can even get to the point of talking about evidence. Sorry.

I think the Duhem Quine Thesis addresses this problem, and provides a workable solution.

Faith is a silliness. I realized it when I was 4 years old and my parents brought me to church every Sunday. Luckily, neither of them are religious now.

IMO, Faith is to believe in something for reasons other than scientific.

Extreme Coder

Hmmm.. are we getting confused about what we mean by the word rationality?
I have spoken to very many sincerely religious people on this very topic and literally all have underlined the fact that you simply must have FAITH in order to be able to comfortably overcome the very many rationally-based obstacles impeding the acceptance of the existence of God.
In other words, if you insist in dragging in scientific and rational arguments, you will miss out on what for them is the supreme objective ie to believe.
So, I'm really confused how you can say that this is rational.

Well, if science isn't intended to be rational, I'm a monkeys uncle.
However, nobody is saying that science comes up with 100% truth. The best we can expect is a theory that, based on our knowledge at the time, comes closest to predicting what will actually happen under various sets of future circumstances. Shortcomings in the theory will lead to an improved theory which will then undergo further testing. The approach to absolute truth for complicated situations can only be assymptotic and therefore never actually reached in finite time.
On the other hand from what I can gather, religious belief encourages........no demands, dispensing with all of this preliminary theorizing and jumps right in at the end ie the 100% truth bit "Yes there is a benevolent God who is looking after all of us".

The reason for me posting this in the first place was just to hear from others why I cannot get to this point of 100% certainty in the existence of God (IOW faith) which is apparently so easy for many others. I must say I have given it my best shot but it really just sounds like balderdash to me

I'm sorry, I did not realize that the christians had redefined the word to suit their puposes. But it does not surprise me.

Unfamiliar with the concept of axioms, you are?

"An axiom is an irreducible primary. It doesn't rest upon anything in order to be valid, and it cannot be proven by any "more basic" premises. A true axiom can not be refuted because the act of trying to refute it requires that very axiom as a premise. An attempt to contradict an axiom can only end in a contradiction."

The three primary axioms:

1. Existence exists
2. The Law of Identity - things are what they are, or A is A
3. Consciousness is the faculty that perceives that which exists.

Faith not required.

You may have spoken to many religious people, but you have not evidently spoken to any Christians (or, at least, certainly not any mature or educated ones). Of what rationally-based obstacles do you speak? I know of none.

You would be surprised how many people say that science comes up with 100% truth. Or, you would be surprised how many people acknowledge that science is incapable of proving anything, but then still reject Christianity on the strength of scientific claims. Since science is, in fact, all about being wrong, I lend little credence to it when it contradicts the Bible. Science is an operational tool, not a system of knowledge-acquisition.

Don't be silly. The term faith has been redefined by both anti-intellectual religious types and anti-religious intellectual types; not by Christians. Christians have been using it for a very long time; it is only within the past half a century or so that it has started to mean an irrational, unthinking, often emotional belief, which may or may not be against evidence to the contrary.

I have no problems with these, but they are not scientific. The scientific method relies on a great many more unjustified assumptions than those.

Modern day christians have a bad habit of thinking faith is a thing, something they possess, and something to work up, stir up, or release, but that's not biblical faith. The trend in the bible is
-God said something not seen
-people believe
That is faith. Most modern day christians do not have faith because they don't believe his words. They claim to believe the Word of God, but they don't believe the words of God, and how could they since most don't know what his words are? What of Abram? What was it he believed? Just that his old body, dead in the area of producing seed, was capable of having a child simply because God said so. That he'd have a baby. That's it! Christians are supposed to believe they are dead. Crucified with Christ, and alive unto God, as those alive from the dead. If a christian can not do that and overcome this little world by walking after the Spirit not after the flesh, why would there be any evidence of faith in their life? There wouldn't. So they have to attribute things in their life to faith even though it has nothing to do with their faith, but actually their lack of faith. God disciplines those he loves that do not obey. If faith is proof of what is not seen and proof of the things we hope for, where is the proof? Where is the faith? the believing?
Faith without fruit (I don't mean a good person) is dead! as said already...

Actually, the majority were, or at least called themselves, Christians.
This is an innappropriately facetious remark that does little to support your point of view.
Some examples from history may help your memory:
1) Galileo was forced to essentially retract his view that the earth revolved around the Sun rather than vice versa by none other than His Holiness, the Pope. Even with the retraction, he was still made to spend the last thirty years of his life under house arrest.
2) Many Christian sects have, even today, great difficulty in accepting the Theory of Evolution in preference to the Intelligent Design assumption implied in the Bible. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church did, in recent years, issue an encyclical more or less proclaiming the validity of evolution. However, this was 141 years after the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species".
As a footnote. it is interesting to recall that Darwin delayed publication of his treatise for about twenty years, exactly because he feared the negative outcry that would result from various religious bodies (and he wasn't wrong).

It occurs to me that the various points of view on the meaning of faith are leading to all sorts of generalizations we're making about the word, ourselves, and others. A lot of projection going on:

If we admit that the definition of faith seems to be a little different for each of us, will it help us to get to the core of the issue?

SigmaX

It seems different because nobody have stared from afar. If, in general, without any misconception guiding, you try to define faith, you'll notice it is a stronger state of hope, made stronger by the fact that hope is the desire for something to happen, while faith is the firm conviction that it will happen.

So, it's incorrect to say you have faith in someone, when actually your faith is in what that people said.

That's an excellent observation.
We demand as an incontrovertible truth that which is most convenient for ourselves. IOW, that which makes us seem better than others and/or assures us of a free ticket to paradise after death.
If it happens to be inconvenient for others, our natural tendency is to belittle or humiliate them until they do at last accept what we find convenient (did somebody mention the Spanish inuisition?).

When the bible uses the word faith it simply means trust. To have faith in God means to trust him. To have faith in Jesus for salvation means to trust that Jesus will save you. It's simple. Too many people have over spritualitized faith.

What do you mean by "a thing"? The Bible refers to faith as a gift of God (Eph 2:8), so it is certainly something more than a mere human belief. After all, Jesus founded and perfected our faith (Heb 12:2), and he is God. So faith is not merely belief, but in fact is knowledge of God, given by God himself. We can stir ourselves up to love and good works in light of that faith, but the faith itself remains steady, since it does not rely upon our own effort, but God's. I'm not sure exactly what you were meaning by your post, so I am not sure if I am agreeing with you or not; merely clarifying my own position.

I am aware of that.

No it isn't. If the "Christians" you spoke to were not even able to give you a sound definition of the cornerstone of Christianity, then they are either uneducated in their religion, or immature, or both. How is mentioning this inappropriate or facetious? It seems both appropriate and necessary to point this out, lest you get a false impression of what biblical faith is. Far too many people think they understand Christianity because they have spoken to, or were even brought up as, "Christians"—despite that there is nothing biblical about any of the doctrines they think they understand.

How is this a rationally-based obstacle to belief in the Bible? It is an historical event which has been vastly misrepresented and misunderstood by the majority of people, both religious and non; but it doesn't even describe a rational objection to the Christian faith, let alone a current one. Galileo was not alone among Christians who believed in heliocentricism and the authority of the Bible, instead of geocentricism and the authority of a doddering old fool.

I don't really care what the Catholic Church has or has not done, nor what orthodox science believes. Since science relies on faulty presuppositions to begin with, any attempt to interpret data according to those presuppositions so as to arrive at "evidence" will generally result in error. Evolutionary Theory is only a "rationally-based obstacle" to belief in the Bible if one erroneously believes that evolutionary theory is rational. Since this is not the case, there is no problem.

Obviously it is different; I am clarifying the meaning of biblical faith, as opposed to the faith of other religions.