Faith has been used outside of religion for centuries. Every time you "believe without evidence"you are using the human construct of faith.One continually has to use faith because one has no choice, from having faith that the postman will not steal your letters to having faith in the government's promises [OR NOT. ]

Trouble is religions have hijacked this word [as they do with a lot of words] and suggest that it also has a magical ingredient that everything with faith is bound to come to pass.

In reality you always have the choice to accept faith for convenience or otherwise or start a scientific investigation.

@Mcflewster I do tend to treat the word "faith" as a dirty word, and a usless action, a reaction given freely, and demanding so much...as you say a word high-jacked by religion.....the examples you use, mailman, government promises, I guess I substitue the feeling of "trust", ...anyway, thanks for the reply

@HankSherman yes, again you are right , Trust is closely related but in the case of trust there is usually some evidence.

@Mcflewster agreed. Just can't recall ever trusting without reservations...perhaps as a child......

Do you thing the numbers of followers of a religion is inany way acceptable as 'Evidence'. We have a long way to go in understanding the existence of facts which might be proved to be evidence in all situations.

@Mcflewster The number of suckers who believe a lie does not in any way serve as evidence that the lie is true.

@BitFlipper True.

@SpikeTalon Yes he does raise some good points and stops this site being an echo chamber. But sadly I now find that most of them are shallow. Probably because my early thought that he was a thinker, was mistaken, and I now find that most of his posts/comments are just mindless parroting of the apologetic culture with which he is inbedded.

@Gwendolyn2018 I would find a middle way between you two, and say that religion did once do good and may even still do so, but its destiny is to fall ever deeper into darkness in the future, and there is no way back.

Because religion was always at its strongest when it gave people an alternate voice, to the nation state and the mainstream oppinon. But when most modern states embrace welfare and democracy as their main purposes, ( The US maybe exceptional.) and science is seen as the best source of truth, then what sort of people want an alternate voice to that ?

@Gwendolyn2018 We all get to think what we want.
I'm pretty picky about what I will respect.
Many things that people think are deserving of respect I don't agree with.

@Fernapple There is no longer any "middle ground" to be found.
At least, I'm no longer looking for any.

@KKGator It is a middle ground much closer to your ground, than most others. Real respect for your stance.

@Gwendolyn2018 At the very least I find that religious believers, fall into two groups, those who use religion to manipulate, and those who are manipulated. For those who manipulate, I have nothing but contempt, especially since they are usually motivated by narcissism. And for the manipulated, I try to find pity at least.

@KKGator Do you not think Agnosticism is a "Middle Ground"?

@Mcflewster I know agnostics may think so.
I am not an agnostic.

@Mcflewster No it is quite a clear position in its own right. The middle ground I was refering to, was the middle ground between Gwendolyn and KKGator, on the one small issue between them.

@Mcflewster, @Gwendolyn2018 Different religions vary, it is true and theist religions are certainly the worst. When they are not manipulative I would stop calling them religions anyway, and use the terms belief system or philosophy instead.

@Gwendolyn2018 And when it chooses a young girl as a goddess incarnate, it is being manipulative. So yes a religion.

@hankster Of course, but I can also imagine rape and murder. What is imagined is real, but not all that is imagined is good.

Also I can imagine that there is a fairy at the bottom of my garden, but that does not mean that I have access to its pot of gold. And it would be very dangerous for you to lend me money, on the basis that I told you that the fairy would act as a guarantor.

Imagination is real, but we do not allow imagination alone to be a source of authority, for things we do, at least not if we are wise. Not because imagination can not be good, but because imagination has no limits, and does not alone admit of qualifications.

I have long had a personal definition of religion which serves me well, though it is not the only one possible, and some may prefer others. It is that. The word "religion" is a synonym for the fallacy of, "proof by authority". Whether that authority comes from supernatural revelation, tradition, institutions or artistic metaphor, it does not matter.

All world views have to include some axioms, but honesty and wisdom requires that we should try to keep those axioms to a minimum, and openly admit that they are axioms unsupported by empirical evidence. The dishonesty of religion, is to pretend that they can support many of their axioms by appeal to the false evidence, of authority, and that therefore they are not axioms.

@As to the evidence for religion, well there is a lot of it, vast amounts in fact. Go into any church bookshop and you will encounter literally tons of it, lining the shelves, there is certainly no shortage of evidence. But almost all of it is either derivative and based on a few texts, which are supposed to be authoritative, but for which we do not have any original copies, any proof that the authors ever existed, or that they are even third hand eye witness accounts, in short the worst possible evidence.

While that which is not derivative, consists of some of the most pathetically unconvincing philosophical arguments, like the Cosmological and the Ontological which are so bad they are almost jokes. And which are endlessly reworded, in presumably the vain hope that one day, a wording will be found that will make them sound, even a little, convincing. Often backed up by bad linguistic trickery, label swapping and pseudo - science or the misinterpretations of real science, which basically show that their employers have become so lost in their subculture that they have even lost contact with basic moral principles, like honesty.

Which brings me to the point, which is. That if there was a single good bit of evidence or proof for any of it, do you not think that the apologists would long ago have dumped all the dross, and just concentrated on that one main point. What sort of an idea requires propping up with bad, banal, weak, and often dishonest evidence. The best evidence against religion, is the evidence in favour of it.

For life is short, too short to study everything, of what use therefore is it to waste time on an ideology, which makes its supporters dishonest pedallers of trash, if an ideal makes you a worse person, why waste time on it ?

I blocked that freak long ago as well. And fuck fuck fuck religion…..

@Buck add a couple more fucks and I'll agree