Faith on its own is a very good thing. Faith in god is misguided and unfortunately ignorant. Faith is not owned by religions. You need to have faith in people, without it relationships suffer and collaboration deteriorates.

I don't think faith is bad. Faith has been a great comfort to those who haven't known anything else or need an outlet for their comfort. But faith mixed with intolerance it was I don't find amusing

When they use the word faith that way they mean they've decided to believe something without proof.
Jesus supposedly said people who believed without proof were "blessed" so that's what they are going for.

John 20:29 King James Version (KJV)
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

No !

Unquestioning, blind faith builds the object of faith into the creation "YOU" wish them to be (instantly, or thru long term indoctrination). Making them into such an ideal, forces "your" mind to make that object a key portion of "your" reality.
Thus, even when confronted with evidence to the contrary, "you" are forced to ignore or argue it away, otherwise "your" basic universe crumbles.
This is why logic/reasoning does not work with zealots. (Religion, politics, lying significant other, abusive spouse) Dislodging such insanity takes much more than talking.

True trust, of necessity, builds slowly, thru logic and reason.

Faith is a huge deterrent to knowledge and progress.

A Christian has faith in his version of the god myth
A Jew has faith in his version of the god myth
A Muslim has faith in his version of the god myth
A Hindu has faith in his version of the god myth

They all claim they are right because of their faith
They all claim the others are wrong because of their faith

Therefore faith can lead to both right and wrong conclusion
Therefore faith is an unreliable way of determining anything
Therefore faith is useless and dangerous.

Faith is a thing. Good or bad depends on what you have faith to.

If it makes someone feel better power to them.

You can have faith in things other than a deity. for instance ... I believe all things work on a cycle of + and - . I don't let the negatives get me down because I know a positive is around the corner if I am experiencing a negative now. That is faith.

Faith is usually conceived of as religious faith but I could have faith in my own ability to sew my daughter a dress, knit my son a pullover - or faith in a hammock that it will stay up because I tied good knots. I havent ever had a god and can't really conceive of having a faith in something that isnt demonstrably strong, something I can't see or test.

We all have faith to a degree. When we step on an airplane we have faith that the mechanics have done their job properly. Or when we drive though a green light that someone won't drive though on red etc. Society could not function without it. Blind faith is something else and faith in a deity is just superstition.

Faith seems equivalent to trust. For this, I like the words of Ronald Reagan....Trust but verify!

My friend is religious and she was saying that i became religious because she didnt feel she could face her problems without 'God'. So to answer your question... it depends who you are. If you think you need faith to get through the day, then yes.

Are you talking about faith in a god? If so...I don't think it's a ''good thing." It's just a drug to get you through a rocky night or a death or fear of your own death.

Well, remember the story of Pandora? When she opened the box (or sealed vase depending on version of the story), the last sprite to escape to plague man was Hope.

Most people today see hope as a positive thing, but the Greeks saw it as a negative, because it raises expectations far beyond what can realistically be expected. It may be lost in translation, but hope and faith are very similar.

Both Hope and Faith are two edged swords that can cut both ways. How you look at them is due to a cultural bias, and depends on how you were taught to think about them.

The ancient Greeks didn't believe in over reaching via Hope, and greatly disparaged it. In the U.S. as well as many other Western Civilizations, it is considered admirable to reach beyond your limits... but only if you manage to pull it off and get what you are reaching for. The vast majority fail miserably, but we lionize those few who actually made it.

It is all just due to what is considered the cultural norm as to how we look at things.

Faith in witnessing is the most fundamental way for humans to reach a truth of any kind, especially those inaccessible to humans directly.
Both past and future are not.directly accessible to humans. Thus our written history are human accounts of testimonies. Our.daily news are accounts of testimonies from reporters and journalists. Our Science are accounts of testimonies of our scientists. Hey we know for a fact that black holes exist not because they are made evidenced to us. Instead, we have Faith in our scientists to get to This fact.

That said. Christianity is the accounts of testimonies testifying an advocate about a future which is inaccessoble to humans and can only be reached by Faith in testimonies, shall it be a truth.

I don't shy away from the word or use of faith. We all use it, in fact. It holds different connotations, certainly, when I say I arrive at this or that through faith, or have faith that such and such is the case. For example, I have faith that my memory is reliable. I cannot prove that it is without employing it in the attempt. This might seem counterintuitive to some; "of course I know my memory is reliable because of how continues to produce reliable results." But what are you using when you draw that conclusion? The memory of the times your memory produced reliable results. Such things cannot be rationalized as they are pre-rational. They are our starting points from where we begin to rationalize. And, as such, they use be taken on faith in order for us to move forward in reasoning.

Big difference between what is happening in what I've described and a believer describing their pathway to belief. In my view, one of us has no choice but to use the faith we use, the other uses faith in areas beyond the boundaries of necessity (i.e. faith that a god exists is not pre-rational).

It's a club we think we have to beat believers with, but it doesn't work that way.

...

It's just a stupid word