I agree both taste as if they were made from sweetened sawdust about a century old.

Am I wrong?...

@Lizard_of_Ahaz nope

Faith in anything without evidence it is true is mental illness and intellectual laziness... Once you have evidence though faith isn't needed.

This is the apostle Paul's definition of faith:

Faith makes us sure of what we hope for and gives us proof of what we cannot see.   

This rationalisation is perfectly sane in that it is a proposition about an uncertain matter that people feel is proved by their faith. If it that is insane, so is the search for the Higg's Boson. Faith involves accepting certain propositions and then seeing how they match to life as it is experienced. Many people see this fit between faith and facts. I believe they are in error but no way are they insane.

@brentan Faith (AKA belief) without evidence what you believe is real and which has strong evidence it is false is delusion.... Delusion is a form of mental illness....
As for the search for the Higg's Boson particle there is strong mathematical evidence for it to exist as well as strong scientific evidence...
[home.cern]

@brentan Obviously Paul was full of shit...

What happens is that Christians see the evidence worked out in their own lives. I agree it's delusion but it would be insane to classify everyone who falls prey to delusion as mentally ill. I think the difference - that is, the thing that used to get you locked up - is if you cannot function because of your delusions. So I leave it as a case of being in error and keep my respect for people who are in error. I've often needed that respect myself and may well need it again in my dotage.

@brentan Being older I see no reason to delude myself... "seeing evidence" that does not exist no matter what your age is mental illness and I for one will avoid it at all costs. If it makes me unpopular that just means I have that much more time and peace in my life to continue looking for the truth instead of believing bad fiction is how I should spend my life.. If religion was based on evidence there would only be one religion.

When I said see, I was talking about perception. I'm not talking about someone like William Blake who really did see heavenly objects in out mundane world. Incidentally, Blake was not only fully functional but a wonderful poet and artist. He was also considered to be an extremely decent human being. The apostle Paul meant faithful Christians would perceive the truth of what they had learned as they went about experiencing things in their lives. One of the things they would perceive is the insanity of building up treasures in this life, an activity many people rate very highly. So each side looks on the other as mentally unstable. Here is Paul's take on the mental condition of pagan people:

As a follower of the Lord, I order you to stop living like stupid, godless people. Their minds are in the dark, and they are stubborn and ignorant and have missed out on the life that comes from God. They no longer have any feelings about what is right, - Ephesians 4:17, 18.

@TCorCM I have a lot of solid gold memes...

@TCorCM Never liked Paul to be honest.... He endorsed prejudice against Gays by purposely misinterpreting the Greek custom of little boys being used as prostitutes. What happens between adults has nothing to do with forcing young boys to be used sexually by adults against their will.... Yet the church he founded has become the world's oldest and largest pedophile ring in human history....

@TCorCM Religion has always done far more damage than good. The people who invent them don't believe them they start as powerful tools to control the gullible being used by people who want power over others. No god or goddess ever invented was superior to those who followed them they always had the vices of those people greatly magnified.

I wrote that about 12 years back and people pretty much freaked out.... For a while I had a lynch mob after me... It was amusing as hell.