What is faith?

Question

Doesn't it always seems as if people who insist on their "faith" have never been taught how to think? Do they realise that they do not have just one single article of faith (e.g. in the resurrection), but that they are working on the assumption that the whole thing hangs together? Don't they really have to make dozens and then hundreds of interconnected "leaps of faith", until it becomes ridiculous, cosmically absurd? They have to have faith that there is a God, faith that he talked to the Jews, that he told them the truth, faith that people thousands of years ago knew what they were talking about, faith that wild prophets hallucinating under the desert sun were talked to by God, and that they passed his words on correctly, and that the people who wrote them down did so accurately. There is faith in the concepts of Messiah and Suffering Servant, faith in Mary Magdalene having gone to the right tomb.
Shouldn't we be atught to think before we're taught to believe?

Answer 1

You just need faith in God, that he exists, and is the rewarder of those earnestly seeking him. Everything else then falls into place as he gives you understanding through his Holy Spirit. Those who do not earnestly seek God because they don't believe will not be given Holy Spirit and will never ubderstand. I have reasoned and though out the existence of God and the truth of his word, it's not blind faith.

Answer 2

You are over-analyzing. Faith is a simple concept. It's what enables people to perform one simple mental leap... to believe in the unprovable despite what anyone else says.

All the connections you describe just "go without saying" in the mind of a faith based thinker. Once you relinquish critical thinking, logic crashes down like a house of cards, and anything becomes possible.

Answer 3

Faith is a thing which we have to put each and every where and this is faith only that makes ur union with supreme. If u say that i want to be logical in my approach then upto some extent u will have to be but then the majority portion is faith .
Dont u have faith in ur mother regarding ur father so what wrong if we put our faith in scriptures Religion and God. some may only ask for scientific proofs but till date no one is able to see electrons or produce absolute zero condition all prefect condition even in science are just "FAITH"

Answer 4

Faith is the will to believe without evidence. Some even call faith the will to believe despite evidence to the contrary (irrational faith). I really have no beef with people who have faith, as long as they don't expect me to have it too.

Answer 5

Faith is belief in the absence of evidence. I don't have a problem with Faith per se. I only have a problem with Irrational Faith, which is faith despite contrary evidence.

Answer 6

I love what the bible says about faith. It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And also, about those who believe: we walk by faith, not by sight.

Please don't confuse faith with a lack of reason or thought. I've studied the bible for a decade; quite frankly I've never put that much thought into anything in my life. Mine is a "reasoned" faith.

Regards,

Answer 7

Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.

Answer 8

Do you have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow? Faith isn't just about god.

Answer 9

Faith is the belief in something that you cannot prove. It is an extreme form of hope.

Answer 10

Dogmatic certainty in the absence of reason, rationality and proof.

Yes, we should be taught to think before we're taught to believe.