What Is Faith
What Is Faith
Religious faith is a concept that has been defined in various ways, from trust to the biblical definition found in Hebrews:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
The elusive nature of its definition makes it unclear as to what religious faith truly is. Can anyone shed some light on its true nature? Furthermore, according to the bible, why should it be considered better evidence than things that can be seen?
Superstition wrapped up with a bow in order to placate the masses. Simple as that.
Next.
I would think that's an oversimplification.
You're OP. That tracks.
I'd like to say 40ish years on earth reinforced my faith in anything but... sadly I see it as a tool to separate people from their money, time and self interests. It's a tax on people's hope for something more.
"Religious faith seems to involve believing that you know something that is impossible to know. In fact, if you substitute the phrase 'making believe you know something you can't possibly know' for 'religious faith' in any sentence, the meaning remains the same."
It's belief without evidence
Also it's a song by George Michael
Faith isn't just a religious term, you can also have faith about secular things, like the justice system or an ideology.
This article does a decent job explaining religious faith. Basically, it claims faith is made up of three parts:
- knowledge - observations, like what the Bible says about Jesus
- assent - reasoning about which parts of knowledge are true and what aren't
- trust - testing the concepts Jesus taught
The sum of that is faith.
why should it be considered better evidence than things that can be seen?
Just as an illusionist misdirects, so should we be careful about trusting what we see.
Think of it like the theory of relativity. Einstein didn't just make it up, he developed it as an explanation for observed phenomena and prior work. He followed essentially the steps above, he gathered evidence (knowledge), distilled that evidence through reason (assent), developed a theory to explain it, and tested the theory through experiments (trust).
So for me and probably most other religious people, faith is the religious analogue to the scientific method. But instead of limiting ourselves to secular explanations, religious faith is based on religious explanations for phenomena, and it can be tested in a similar way as a scientific hypothesis.
So for me and probably most other religious people, faith is the religious analogue to the scientific method. But instead of limiting ourselves to secular explanations, religious faith is based on religious explanations for phenomena, and it can be tested in a similar way as a scientific hypothesis.
This is where I'd say no. Faith is in no way an analog to the scientific method as faith can not only lead you to a correct answer but it can also lead you to an incorrect one just as easily. The scientific method doesn't do that.
As to your Einstein illustration, he gathered evidence THAT WAS SEEN NOT UNSEEN, and tested his theory NOT TRUSTED IT.
The scientific method leads to incorrect answers all the time. Sometimes your data is poisoned, other times your random sample isn't truly random, etc. Your model can hold up given your observations, but you can't know what you haven't observed.
And that's where faith comes in. The more evidence you have supporting a theory, the more you trust it, and the more you'll scrutinize any competing theories. If I presented an alternative to the theory of relativity, scientists would rightly scrutinize it because Einstein's theory is so well established.
The problem with any kind of faith, be it religious or secular, is trusting it in spite of evidence to the contrary. It's fine to scrutinize alternative explanations, it's not okay to reject them altogether. A lot of religious people do the latter, such as rejecting evolution in favor of intelligent design, when there's absolutely space for both to coexist (i.e. maybe God used evolutionary processes and "day" in Genesis was a long period of time, not a literal 24h window). But a lot don't, and there are plenty of religious people actively involved in the sciences who have to adjust their religious views as new scientific evidence corrects some assumptions.
If your faith is edged out by evidence, you need to reevaluate your faith, taking in the new knowledge, assessing how much you trust it compared to other evidence, and then testing it to gain trust in that faith. It's the same idea as the scientific method, but with things that cannot be seen. Unfortunately, a lot of people (secular and religious) exercise "blind faith" in their pastor, college professor, or some other influencer. That's unreasonable, regardless of the type of faith.
So faith is intended to be the religious equivalent of a scientific theory, something refined and tested as new evidence comes out, not some hard and fast truth that must push against competition.