Comment 25 by Andrew B. :

Comment 19 by katt33 :

I can see why militant and narrowly focused on semantics atheists and others might be offended or scared of the word faith in front of anything and why it might worry them, as there are those who will deceive and not be honest about their belief in a deity while pursuing science at the same time, which they should be if they are. Personally,I don't understand why the word faith is such a problem and why one can't simply choose not to attach a religious significance as I have done. When I say I have faith that science can explain the development of the universe, that is what I mean. I believe in the ability of science to explain how it all came about, developed, and even how deviations happen. The who it can't tell me and the why, not fully. That is okay, as that is not the job of science, that is left to philosophy and spirituality, not man made or constructed religion please as I have not much like for man made religion.

I think a better word for faith (as you use it) is trust. Trust is actually built on something. We have trust-building exercises, or we ask whether or not someone is trustworthy, and these are built on actual, easily understood experiences and evidence.

The problem is, one definition of faith is "belief without evidence" and another definition is synonymous with trust. "Have a little faith in me" could also be said "Trust me." In his debate with Richard, John Lennox tried to trip him up by asking "do you have faith in your wife?" to which Richard quickly answered "yes..." before realizing that Lennox was being duplicitous; he used one definition of faith (trust) while Richard had made it clear he was using another (belief without evidence).

So, let's make that distinction between trust as belief with evidence and faith as belief without, and call out those who knowingly use a different definition and try to pass it off as though it were the only one.

I strongly suspect the difficulty most people have is in what constitutes 'evidence'?

And too their 'capability' of dealing with 'new evidence' as well as sorting out the 'current and relevant' evidence from 'historically defunct' evidence. How to move on from arcane ways of thinking has become a science all of its own.

For example, thousands of 'gods' have been used by humans down the ages to prop up all sorts of atrocious standards and ways of life and 'class' to enslave people to. Does this stop them making up new gods- not at all. Current gods are much newer than say ones of past mythologies but the ones that 'survive' are those which have attached to the more literate ancestors of ours. They survive because records of them were kept and as such more transferable across time and ironically thus claiming to be 'original'.

But does a believer utilise this evidence to inform themselves? Well no due their closed mind to what constitutes present evidence PLUS their incapability to accept present evidence. (this last point becomes even of greater relevance than the evidence itself) Past generations may be excused for so massively getting their pseudo science wrong due the lack of alternative enlightening science they had access to. Todays people - one would hope for more!

In this respect a 'faithhead' is rendering themselves incapable of employing certain mind concepts and even a clear view of the 'critical' evidence. In this case that there can be (as far as real science is concerned) no god of their own 'suspicion'. However to them this character must exist because their mind sees it as existing and so they congregate with other similarly mutated thinkers about this especially 'script written god guess'. Can they change? - well absolutely yes! -as many examples amongst us prove. But to do so will usually take critical mind/emotion reformations. This is the painful mindset of the 'faithful' follower of a delusion - sometimes and often used to pass on the suffering to non-believers in their brand of woo! It is this which 'blinds' their comprehension to the real state of reality. Their 'suspicions' are perverted by past less educated ways of thinking, tribal group style 'follow my leader' and reluctances to liberate their minds away from fears about fears. A failure to employ intellectual honesty to the situation before them.

In this respect faith (and what is seen as evidence) is a liar and a corrupter of truth. Faith in this context is the opposite to the concept that has traditionally been attributed to it as altruistic and rooted in goodness. History has changed its 'aura'. Education has seriously dimmed its light except inasmuch as it might become transferable to one persons view of another!