What is faith? I don't get it.?

Answer 1

Faith is substance of things hope for and the evidence of things not seen. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

Shalom

Answer 2

Sure ya do. Think about it. You have faith that the sun will rise every morning. You have that faith because you see it happen day after day. Extend that a bit to something you can't look at when you want to. How was this universe created? Many of us believe, by faith, that there was a higher intelligence that made it happen. We've given that intelligence the name God. All the mythology surrounding the various religions confuse a lot of folks, but if you cut all the silliness away, there's still that intelligence. When you look around with that thought in mind, you begin to see lots of things happening that could be the work of that higher intelligence. Above all else, don't close your mind to the myriad possibilities that exist.

Answer 3

"Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld," Paul said. (Hebrews 11:1)

This implies two things:
1. Having complete confidence in God's promises - the things hoped for.
2. Living in harmony with our confidence.


Following the definition of Faith in the book of Hebrews, the apostle Paul goes on to speak about a a number of ancient people who had strong faith. Going through their life's accounts in the Bible will help us to come to a further understanding of faith.

Answer 4

A lot of very intelligent people do not understand religious faith because the evidence simple does not hold water. A further sticky problem are the many conflicting faiths - some that clearly hate each other enough to make war. Still, in saying all this, it remains an interesting observation that as soon as a person is faced with crisis in life, that person spontaneously turns to God as his last hope to now suddenly save him where no one else can. Think about this and you will no doubt agree. When all other hope is lost, hope in God is suddenly found. My conclusion is that while we may not understand why people believe in this God or that God, there is regardless a deeply rooted instinct in all humans to turn towards God when there is no other ally to turn to - I thus totally believe that there is a God, but one that I sadly know very little about.

Answer 5

Faith is the act of trusting in something that doesn't have physical attributes.

For example, you meet someone new. That person does what is right and expected. Over time you can see what kind of person he/she is and you allow yourself to trust that person. The act of putting your trust in someone who proves themself honorable is what faith truly is. Its not closing your eyes and taking a step off a cliff. Faith is trust in someone, built up over time.

Blind faith is closing your eyes and trying to walk across a frozen lake. Each step could be your last, or it could lead to the next step. That's not faith, that's foolishness.

True faith is keeping your eyes open, grabbing a stick and testing each step over the ice until you get to the other side. Because once you have learned the lake is safe, you can trust it, have faith the ice won't break.

Answer 6

"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits." - Dan Barker (former preacher)

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." [Richard Dawkins].

"Faith is the antithesis of proof." [NY State Supreme Court Justice Edward J. Greenfield, 1995].

"Faith is a great vice, an example of obstinately refusing to listen to reason, something irrational and undesirable, a form of self-hypnotism." [Richard Robinson, "An Atheist's Values," 1964]

"Faith is possible only in the case of beliefs that lack rational demonstration. all propositions of faith--regardless of their specific content--are irrational. To believe on faith is to believe in defiance of rational guidelines, and this is the essence of irrationalism." [George H. Smith, "Atheism, The Case Against God"]

“Faith is believing what you know ain't so. ” - Mark Twain


There are three kinds of faith.

1.) Faith in something for which there is evidence. Like having faith that a chair is going to hold you up.

2.) Faith in something with no evidence. Like the god of Deism.

3.) Faith in something that contradicts evidence. Like faith in Yahweh or Allah.

People like to lump all three into one word, but the first kind of faith is more like trust rather than faith. There are clearly different levels of faith. The quotes pertain to type 2 and type 3 faith.

Answer 7

Faith is the belief in things unseen. Many believe that Christians for example believe by "blind" faith but this is untrue. This is not mentioned once in the Bible it is simply something non-Christians feel is true. God in fact tells us to seek him out. So if we think that evolution makes sense for example, we need to explore and understand to the fullest extent what evolution is, if its real, makes sense etc... as well as what the Bible says on the topic. Too many people give up. Their faith rests in: " well my professor, parent, friend etc told me this, so it must be true bc they are a doctor, close friend, pastor or whatever. If you believe everything other people say, you arent even just a follower, you are a puppet passed from person to person.

Answer 8

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

Answer 9

Hebrews 11:1-3 Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld. For by means of this the men of old times had witness born to them. By faith we perceive that the system of things were put in order by God's word, so that what is beheld has come to be out of things that do not appear.

Answer 10

Faith is wishful thinking

Answer 11

Faith apart from the bible might be helpful to understand first.

You get into your new car and you rely on faith that it will start. You have no guarantee that it will start, you only have a warrenty paper that states that if it will not start they will fix it.

If this happens a few times in the first few months that you own your new car, you have lost faith that it will start everytime for you.

Faith is simply believing that something or someone will do what you have been told that it or they will do.