From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Fri Oct 22 1999 - 07:41:01 MDT
On Thursday, October 21, 1999 6:03 PM Aaron Davidson ajd@ualberta.ca
wrote:
> What other meaning of the word faith is there?
>
> I have never heard anyone properly use the word faith in any other way --
> religious or not.
I've seen people using faith generally in two ways. One, in the way your
dictionary defintions define it -- as a form of irrational belief -- i.e.,
"I believe it because it's absurd." (This does not mean belief without
proof, but belief when it contradicts all else.) The other, is as a form of
confidence. An example of this is when someone says she has "faith in her
friend to do the right thing." She's not saying this because she does not
have evidence. In fact, it's usually because she does have evidence.
Those two ways of using it are often confused, especially since the latter
type of faith has certain positive emotional connotations. Even so, this
does not help out the person who first brought up the issue. The first type
of faith is wrong period. The second type does not support what is
conventionally called religion -- not when people can have faith in the Ford
F150 truck.:)
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
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