What is the relationship between faith and evidence?

Question

Discuss!

Would anyone like to discuss and expand on what has already been said?

Answer 1

Faith is belief without the need for physical proof.
evidence is factual information about an action or event.

Generally, religious people have extreme difficulty in accepting facts, which probably explains why they readily believe everything that is said in the news, and within religious scriptures...

Answer 2

there is no relationship, Evidence does not require faith.... and faith does not require evidence.
Anyone can have faith about anything ... the term "faith based" means based on nothing other than hope and imagination... which is one reason why I have so much of a problem with terms like "Faith based education".

---- edit ---contrary to the statement above, from pnbttrtoast, Faith requires no evidence. An Indian will probably be brought up to believe in an elephant headed god. An Arab will be brought up to believe that Mohamed is gods prophet. a mid-western American will be brought up to believe that a man was resurrected a few days after being executed by Crucifixion. None of these rely on any evidence. just tradition and culture

Answer 3

The relationship between faith and evidence is never a close one. Faith doesn't require evidence. Sometimes evidence exist that strengthens someone's faith, but evidences also exist that would blow someone's faith out of the water. Evidence is just that...evidence. It isn't proof of anything. It's just one more piece of the puzzle that you can apply or not apply at will.

Answer 4

I wasnt going to jump in with an answer, but I had to make a comment on star n's answer (above):
Asking for evidence, before commiting to a religion is not sin, it is sensible.
Consider; there are many thousands of religions, faiths and cults, of which Christianity is just one sub-section.
Why would a just god (or even a foul, jealous, mean-tempered god, as depicted in the OT) require faith without evidence when there are so many competing religions. why should I have faith in christianity without evidence, but not have faith in mithraism, without evidence?

Answer 5

Without any evidence at all, there is nothing to base faith on, so faith begins with some sort of evidence. However, faith will over-ride evidence if the evidence is contradictory to the belief, and the faith (belief) has been known to change in the light of evidence.

Evidence is the base of belief, but faith is the controlling factor.

Answer 6

Simple: people with faith ignore the evidence

Answer 7

Faith means an unjustified belief. Evidence justifies belief.

Answer 8

you have a theory about something, and you may have evidence to back up that theory, but sooner or later, with religion, you need to make a jump of faith and say 'i believe it's true'. faith can be backed up by evidence, but only so far. faith cannnot be proved logically from evidence.

Answer 9

Faith is trust in the person of Jesus, the truth of his teaching and the redemptive work he accomplished in Calvary. Faith is not to be confused with intellectual assent to the teachings of Christianity; although that is important. It includes a radical and total commitment to surrender one's life to Jesus.
A person who demands evidence before making a leap of faith to God's offer of salvation means that person remains in sin and is eternally lost.

Answer 10

faith requires no evidence, evidence requires no faith.