Can someone justify 'faith' to me (in the context of religion)?

Question

I'm firmly of the opinion that a belief is logically unjustified if it's supported by neither reason nor evidence, and faith is a "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence", as dictionary.com says. However, religious folks sometimes claim that faith *does* constitute evidence... or at least, constitutes a valid reason to believe in something. How is this possible? Faith, to me, is a belief which has no connection with reality and is therefore self-defeating, since we could equally well have faith in both the existence *and* non-existence of a thing, with absolutely no way of knowing which was true. What's the use in that? How can faith in a thing be evidence of the very thing you have faith in? If that were so then we could wish anything at all into existence just by believing in it sincerely enough, and that is clearly nonsense.

Anyone like to have a go at clearing this up for me?

Answer 1

It doesn't seem to me that you need anything cleared up. You've just about got it pegged. 'Faith'. as a basis for belief, is nothing more that wishful thinking... and the resulting 'beliefs' are nothing more than delusions.

If a single person was running around, spouting all of this delusional crap, and declaring it to be the 'TRUTH', they would quickly be caught in a large net and sent off to reside in the State Farm for the Funny. However, there seems to be some sort of tacit immunity that is applied to mass insanity.

Religious 'belief' is, in and of itself, the real culprit here. Belief is an insidious mind-killer... it cuts one off from rational thought, and the consideration of alternative possibilities.

Answer 2

We always have faith in something. We have faith that gravity will continue to function the way we think it will. There is no proof or evidence that gravity will continue to work the way it does now. Think about this, if we tossed a coin a thousand times and it always landed heads, what are the chances it will come back tails? Its a 50% chance, no matter how many times we flip the coin, it is still 50% chance. We don't know why gravity works the way it does, we create models of time and space to come up with a representation of things in this reality, but by no means are these representations reality itself!

Just like flipping a coin, how can you have material proof, or logical proof of something that has not happened yet? Rather we use faith as a means of not worry about every little thing in our lives not falling apart.

Faith is an automatic part of us, in ways we don't realize. Maybe even though we may consciously will something, is not the same as having faith in something.

Faith is not the same as wishing. Faith is more like blind acceptance, wishing is wanting something.

For example at some point something may happen to you, and the idea that it was caused by God may come to mind. Did you wish for a God or did the event itself make you think that there is a God? You can accept this thought or you can deny it, you can't prove or disprove that God was involved or not, not as far as you can prove that gravity will continue to work the way it does, or that a coin tossed heads thousands of times will return heads the next time.

Answer 3

I would say that faith doesn't necessarily constitute evidence so much as maybe there is evidence to support faith. By saying faith constitutes evidence would mean that in order to have faith you have some proof of it. Faith, to me, is the exact opposite. It is the belief in something when you have no proof at all. That's what makes it faith. Next time someone tells you that their faith constitutes evidence tell them that's not faith. Having faith means that if the evidence one speaks of is gone, the faith is still there. Merely having faith is not evidence of anything, it can not prove or disprove anything. It is an emotion, a feeling, intangible.

Answer 4

your absolutely right blind faith is illogical and corrupts a persons analytical process.

belief is another subject all together and should not be confused.

do you KNOW that your father is your father? have you personally taken a DNA test to prove it? If not then you like most of the world BELIEVE that the man that you were told all your life is your father is.

The same is true about 99% of what we claim to know.

Ever heard the phrase beyond a reasonable doubt? That is what western nations use to judge if a person is guilty or not guilty of a crime. They dont need to be 100% sure that the person is guilty, beyond a REASONABLE doubt is enough.

the same thing goes for theology. If a person examines the evidence and comes to the conclusion that this religion or is right beyond a reasonable doubt, you might disagree with the conclusion that he came to and debate the evidence with him, but you cannot say that it is illogical the process he used to come to his "belief".

Answer 5

I myself am agnostic, and have some personal beliefs about organized religion that include my doubt in it, but that doesn't affect my respect for people who have faith, for they have an ability I lack.

Regardless, I have found in my queries to many religious folk that they have trouble defining and reasoning out their faith and what it really means. They have hit bits that seem to make sense, such as it is, but emotion and a guardedness against people like me seems to cause them to stumble in their explanation.

I, trying to work against my own biases, have tried to help them come up with it. Some people claim evidence to their faith in god, but if you could prove god existed, it wouldnt be a faith based issue - you wouldn't need faith, you would use the verification that science uses, because he is *proved* to exist in this example. God has not been formally logically proved to exist as of yet, yet many count the bible as that. When I say formal logic proofs, I mean those in science where literally, the language of logic is used. Those who have taken high-order math classes can attest to the difference between this and regular english.

The bible is not 'evidence' in the literal sense, it is inconbclusive and contradicting, and many people have many different intrepretations of it, even down to specific statements. Faith in god and religion is something that exists without evidence but it doesn't defy logic per se.

When you say 'I have faith in a person to do a task', 'faith', used in this way can mean that you have a hunch or a feeling of this person's success, even though there is no empirical evidence. Such is with religion, I suppose, in that religious folk *strongly* believe that such things are true, because they *feel* it, and that feeling is so strong and so accepted by them, that it becomes a foundation for them, and a source for inner strength of all types. Many are sensative about having their faith questioned by non-believers, so get angry when they are challenged, and that impairs their explanation. So what I am trying to say is, I guess 'don't listen to them define faith', I am trying to do it for them without having being a member of a religion. Although, I do have faith and understand faith.

I hope this helps you understand faith and helps you understand why the explanation can be so hard to extract from the faithful.

Answer 6

I odn't know about you, but I am kind of sick of everyone on here spouting bible verses about faith when you specifically said in your answer that you can't justify faith with the thing you have faith in ... if that makes sense.

To be honest, the only way anyone can "justify" faith, in my opinion, is by something you feel inside. There are some people out there who won't believe anything unless it can be proven to them, and those people can justify faith and see no way that others can justify faith. Yet people who do have faith obviously feel that they have a reason to have it. They have FAITH that God exists, and no matter what they say, the only thing that can justify their faith is their heart, a feeling they have. Which is why, to me, faith is and MUST BE such a personal thing.

Answer 7

Faith is something that you can not see or hear, in that aspect you are correct. There is no way to explain it to you so you will understand. Faith is somthing only you can feel, and nothing I do or say can make you feel it. I can tell you this though, life with out faith is like living in a the dark ,and the day you find your faith it will be like a bright light shining the way. I can tell you this from my own experience.

Answer 8

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith does have a connection.The connection is God.When you believe or trust God there will be results.True faith turns a drunkard into a good
husband,true faith turns a prostitute into a clean and changed woman
with hope,true faith turns a helpless hopeless suicide candidate into a
loving human being FULL OF LIFE AND HOPE AND MEANING (PURPOSE). You can't see it you can't feel it you can see the results of
it in changed lives. Just like air we can't see it or touch it but take it away and you can see the results of its absence.
In Christ in Love,
TJ57

Answer 9

Weeellll, okay I'll have a go at this. Faith is some deep abiding thing that will buoy one up in times of great physical or spiritual crisis. In time it can also move a mountain (either again physically or spiritually) Religion is a big gathering of often uninformed and herd-like creatures (mostly human) that for the difference in one religion to another will happily kill their fellow beings over the Name of the Divine
That's my definition in a nutshell, dearheart. Good Luck..

Answer 10

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1