Alternative spellings

• feith, feithe, fayth, faythe, faithe (obsolete)

Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth of or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. For example, the word "faith" can refer to a religion itself or to religion in general. As with "trust", faith involves a concept of future events or outcomes, and is used conversely for a belief "not resting on logical proof or material evidence." Informal usage of the word "faith" can be quite broad, and may be used standardly in place of "trust" or "belief."

Faith is often used in a religious context, as in theology, where it almost universally refers to a trusting belief in a transcendent reality, or else in a Supreme Divine Being or and said being's role in the order of transcendent, spiritual things. In a religious context, the actual meaning of the word "faith" is very commonly misconstrued, mostly by those who call themselves faithful and very commonly even by their opponents.

These words indisputably refer to the requirement of solid and logical inferences for the foundation of a real and acceptable faith, relatively speaking. Conversely, a "believer" that does not have logical, solid, and trustworthy references on which to base their "faith" has fallen into mere credulity and fideism. Many are surprised to see that the Bible itself actually condemns illogical, unfounded credulity ("A simple man believes every word he hears; a clever man understands the need for proof").

Faith is in general the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true. It is the belief and the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, based on his or her authority and truthfulness.

The English word faith is dated from 1200–50, from the Latin fidem, or fidēs, meaning trust, akin to fīdere to trust.

Quotations about faith

Sourced

• "Faith is generally nothing more than the permission religious people give to one another to believe things strongly without evidence." ~Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006)
• "Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it - especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible"
  • Robert A. Heinlein (1991). Stranger in a Strange Land. G.P. Putnam's Sons. pp. p. 233. ISBN 0399135863.

• "Faith creates the foundation for conviction."
  • Simon Soloveychik, Parenting for Everyone (1989)

• "Faith is cold as ice. Why are little ones born only to suffer for the want of immunity or a bowl of rice? Well, who would hold a price on the heads of the innocent children if there's some immortal power to control the dice?" ~ Rush, Roll the Bones

• "Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate." ~ Richard Dawkins

• "Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe." ~ St. Augustine

• "Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated" ~Christopher Hitchens

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Fri Jun 12 20:16:47 2009