A summary of faith;''Religious apologists are like litigators, who must keep defending their clients and pretending they’re innocent, even when they know they’re guilty, because they’re beholden to a belief system with required beliefs and prohibited beliefs. Scientists on the other hand are free thinkers, because they’re investigators. They’re often forced to reconsider their own initial perceptions, and are therefore free to follow the facts wherever they may lead.''
''Faith is literally a matter of make-believe, convincing yourself of whatever you want to believe. That’s why the faithful have a practice to ‘reaffirm’ their faith. Faith is neither virtuous nor moral; it’s a matter of self-deception and manipulation of the masses. It is already dishonest to assert as fact that which is not evidently true, but that’s what all religions do. Worse, they also post a statement of faith wherein they admit, (as if this were something to be proud of) that they will automatically and thoughtlessly reject any and all evidence that seems to challenge their preconceived notions, which must be defended a-priori. Because of this, faith is fundamentally fallacious and inherently dishonest, but I haven’t described the worst of it yet. Faith takes away reason and accountability. It means never having to accept responsibility for your own mistakes, because it means never having to admit when you’re wrong. Instead you label your lies as truth with a capitol T, and hope that a show of confidence is convincing. That’s why they invented apologetics, to make excuses to rationalize, justify, or otherwise explain away all the evidence against their required assumptions. Consequently, faith is not an allegiance to truth; in fact, faith is the most dishonest and unreasonable position it is possible to have; it is the most counter-productive too. Faith has always only ever served to impede, retard, or reverse progress in whatever socio-political medical, educational, economic or environmental application it has ever touched.
According to a consensus of every authoritative or definitive source available anywhere -including dictionaries, scriptures, hymns, sermons of theologians, past and present, everything, -faith (in the context of religion) can be accurately defined as a stoic, unwavering conviction; a positive belief –which is not dependent on evidence, and will not change because of evidence. Believers usually want to argue this point trying to conceal the fact, pretending that ‘faith’ is synonymous with ‘trust’, but in the religious context, there are qualifiers, such that faith = a
complete trust that is
not based on evidence. To prove that here, I’ll cite several dictionaries just to establish consensus:
Faith:
[originally]”
Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing, that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.”
[currently] “belief that is
not based on proof”
-
Dictionary.com[originally]
1. “complete trust or confidence.
2. Strong belief in a religion.
3. a system of religious belief.”
[currently]
Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
-AskOxford
