What is Faith? Asking the People

Where to Start?

Any conversation of religion usually begins and ends with a discussion of faith (besides those that end with "And I hope they burn in hell!"). So before you can move forward to tackle the issues of communication between faiths this needs to be addressed. Besides everyone has some kind of faith.

We all have faith that the buildings we are in are not going to collapse or faith that the chair you're sitting in right now can support your weight. Without this faith, which is built upon evidentialism, it would be near impossible to live our daily lives but this is not what we mean when we speak of religious faith.

"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." - John 20:29 KJV

To me that is faith in the religious sense: believing with limited evidence, no evidence or even when the evidence says not to. But there is nothing worse than an someone defining a group of which they are not a member. Of course I could scroll to the appropriate page in each holy text but dictionary definitions just state it and don't live it. So I asked some religious friends of mine...

Faith in their Words

"FAITH is Knowing and Believing with out having to see or touch"

"Faith is the real feeling of blind trust"

"Perceiving the reality of something known as unreal, the access to something intangible, the possibility of something impossible, and the expectation of the unlikely."

Now we can begin.