I think having faith in yourself is important. Especially when faced with impossible situations.

I don't understand why anyone would use faith when science is available, other than wishful thinking and confirmation bias and we all do that to some extent.

aaaah! it feels like you have "spoken from my soul" (clumsily translated from german). i can actually not distinguish between faith & belief; both require me to see something i do not see. i reject them both, together with hope, another make-believe

One must define faith first. The dictionary definition is generally two-fold, and when you look closely, you see that they are near-polar opposites:

1. Trust based on experience, or what I call simply "trust".
2. Belief without a requirement of evidence, or what I call "religious faith".

Theists love to conflate the two, comparing the failed epistemology of religious faith to the colloquial meaning of the word, in an attempt to elevate (2) to make it more rational like (1).

@DavidLaDeau mentions he trusts his wife (definition 1) based on his knowledge of and experience with her. That's not religious faith, it's deserved / earned trust.

So ... if when asking "Is faith in anything absurd all the time", if you mean trust, the answer is no. If you mean religious faith, the answer is yes. Although religious faith can occasionally be right, like a stopped clock is right twice a day, in general, there is no difference in outcomes between religious faith and random happenstance.

I am an apistevist- I do not use faith in decision making. I do trust my wife. I do not think some magical unicorn will keep her from cheating on me. She has not and does not display the propensity to cheat on me. I trust her. I do not have "faith", in her. We have been married for 20 years I have no need for wishful thinking that she will not cheat on me. I have evidence.
Could circumstances change with new evidence that she did cheat on me. Even if this was the case '"faith" would have done me no good.

Trust, belief, confidence, conviction; optimism are some of the synonyms for the word "faith".

We can use any of them instead and it would have the same meaning. It is a personal choice and I think we sometimes use the word faith out of habit.

You can split semantic hairs with 'faith'. Maybe it shouldn't be used for belief in ordinary things. We say, I have faith in you.' People know it means I can see you going forward, hope with evidence.

faith in your fellow human being

Thank you for not just leaving the question without defining your terms - you get 10 points..

Of course that kind of faith is useless, but it seems to take us some mental gymnastics to get to that conclusion. And part of that intellectual exercise is understanding possibilities and probabilities, so my advice is to remain cautiously optimistic! It's what I do.

Per you definition, no.

"Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions." - Frater Ravus

I also like this quote.

My ex-wife's Father use to say... "You can wish in one hand, and shit in the other and see what you get first." This is how I equate faith to.

I lived in Harlem for a long time; before other people started moving. When those people were reluctant to go past 96th St. Back then, when i'd leave home I'd wonder if I would make it back home. Then I moved to Staten Island and I wonder I would make it home. Now I live in St. Alabama queens ny and I have FAITH that I will make it home. It may take all night but I have I will get there. Does that count?

I consider myself a humanist and I believe that each other is all we have so, I have faith in the positive human qualities in a large number of us. Not all, some are "lost" due to religious brainwashing and/or lack the intellectual ability to discern. However I don't feel the responsibility to try to educate them and be an atheist zealot. I believe that religion is what is wrong with the world.

Faith is a choice. There are still things of faith that we take though. You can have faith in a spouse being there for you and being true to you. You may define that as trust, so that may not be what you are talking about. But I still believe in science and what I can prove. But there are somethings that fall outside the scope of science that requires trust which some would define as faith.

Your thoughts???

Faith is not helpful. Hope is a way better condition than faith.

agree with you totally - when I first read it I thought what phrase would stand in for - Making a leap of faith? and then i just thought oh! 'rust yourself!'

I have faith when I cross a bridge that the engineers and builders did their job. Same with travelling on airplanes, trains, big boats, if we didn't have that type of faith, no one would ever leave their house! And after reading these posts, probably a better term to use in these circumstances wouldbe 'trust'.

There’s no evidence for most of what in the Bible except the Bible. What is there to have faith in? While we can’t prove there is no higher power neither can the religous nuts prove there is.

Parts of our life, and very important parts at that, are based on faith. If you think deeply, you will realize that the whole monetary system is based of faith. To a lesser degree you also have faith in your immediate family not to betray you. In short, faith as such is not an absurd, but some faiths are.