I'm not entirely sure. I think superstition is a naturally occurring phenomenon. You aren't taught that there's a monster under your bed (unless you had particularly nasty siblings) or that if you opened your bedroom curtains, there'd be a face staring at you from the other side of the window. Something in the human mind creates these possibilities. This ability to imagine the unreal is part of our creativity.

Conventional religion is very much taught. But I believe it plays on, and was developed from pre-existing superstition hooks that are part of our natural psychology.

If religion didn't exist, someone would invent it. Irrational belief is inherent to human nature. How else would anyone beleve they could possibly beat once in 10,000 lifetime odds to win the lottery jackpot?

Faith is not given, it is forced.

True. People are brainwashed to believe, despite the evidence. That's the very definition of faith (Hebrews 11:1):

Belief in the absence of knowledge.

Depends on how you define faith.

We are hardwired to find patterns.
False positives are (in evolutionary scenarios) less costly as false negatives.
Put this into generations of people teaching false patterns to each other and a bunch of smart ones manipulating it to harness power and you have faith.
So faith is an evolutionary trap...

I sometimes wonder if "faith" doesn't have its roots in our necessary ability to make a choice when we simply don't have enough data to make a good or informed choice. We certainly have the ability today to access better information for many of the choices we make, but through most of our evolution, we had little or no data and still had to make life or death decisions. If you leap to a decision, that will cause extreme anxiety if you don't really know what the out come will be, but if you have "faith" that it is the right decision (and that gods are looking out for you), then all of those who randomly make a good decision and survive are going to think it was because of faith, which reinforces the faith. This seems to be why people who go through disasters and survive attribute their survival to gods, while never considering all of the random dead around them. Believing you survived by mere random chance induces extreme anxiety, while believing a supernatural being stopped you from dying makes you feel safe and secure.

We are all born not believing, not having any faith in anything.
Everything else is indoctrination.

Religious faith may be an evolutionary adaption (Swaab, D. 2014). Autopsies and scans of of human brains have indicated that faith may be found in the Amygdala area. In essence religion is a mutation in the brain which allows humans to band together to form societies for mutual protection.

"...you just have to have faith...there is nothing to investigate, just believe.."

I hear this all the time

"The "God" excuse. The last refuge of a man with no answers or no arguments... it came from God. Everything they can't describe must have come from God" ... Religion is foist upon young minds before they are old enough to mount a significant defense to it. It is a sad sad state of affairs. And in the US it appears we are not evolving, but rather DE-VOLVING... back to the stone age. It is a frightening time to be here. There will be another religious war... this time on our own ground. Sad species we are.

I think were born with a strong predilection to believe on faith and obey what we're told by figures in authoritative roles, e.g., our parents, as a simple matter of survival in our youth. Many of us outgrow this and become skeptical with time and experience, but many others never do and remain quick to accept claims without evidence. If we're talking about specific concepts (e.g., Yahweh or Yeshua) then, sure, those are memetic and are tied to a particular culture or philosophic teaching, but that behavior relies on an inborn willingness to accept things on faith. This is especially true in childhood, but we also see it in adulthood during times of hardship. I'm not making a case that faith is a desirable trait in adulthood, only that faith is an inherent quality that some never outgrow.

I consider faith to be a kind of innate trust.
As such I consider it something that must be earned. I have faith in the theory of gravity because it has always let me down.

I think giving faith in something or someone is an inborn ability but where to place it is a personal choice because it can be destroyed by life events and those people around them. When a person gives faith enough and that faith is not rewarded then it's clear that it can be given in poor choice as well.

As to the meme, I think it can just as often be given when all investigation is made and a person cannot come to some proof to support it. I personally don't just throw around faith in things wildly, and would rather have some indication at least that my faith is well placed... but that's just me.

Faith on what or on whom? A baby has no choice but to have faith on whomever is taking care of him or her, ergo a baby has complete trust on this person, did somebody teach this baby to trust the person who is feeding him or her? Or was the trust learnt through the positive interaction of feeding? Debatable. But if you are referring to religious faith, the answer is simple, of course it is brainwashing from your parents. No baby is born a christian or a muslim or a hindu or any other wacky religion you can think of, that is crap engrained in your brain by the constant indoctination of your parents first and then of the brainwashed people who will inevitably surround you.

According to George Michael, you got to have "faith."

I think the saying is a bit lazy, to be honest.

If a pre-logic child is surrounded by adults telling them that talking snakes are real, it’s easy to convince them. But if you delay the indoctrination process until after a child has rational thought, such a proposition is much less likely to be believed. Religion has always relied on early indoctrination to assure a steady stream of new customers. Ya gotta get ‘em when they’re young.

What percent of the faithful are unaware that scientific truths or even just cultural facts disprove their beliefs? Sloth does account for the majority of faithful staying faithful. Indeed, their religion TEACHES them to be incurious. Here is truth: religion murders the mind and the soul.

Truth? Careful study requires that one has climbed to the top of Maslow's pyramid, and that is a luxury that few attain. Even fewer have the horsepower to grasp the equations and diagrams. Tragically, the search for real truth is an undertaking that few can pursue, much less grasp. And it shows.

I’d agree but I’d want to be more specific: faith in the supernatural is given, not inborn. Faith can be useful if you’re talking about faith in yourself, and sometimes in others, and in the natural world around you. Faith in the positive sense is just a one word term for “don’t worry so much about tomorrow.” I mean, consider the sparrows and the Lillies of the goddamned fields or something. Still, faith should be used introspectively to calm the mind’s worries, not as a shortcut to stop investigating. Don’t put faith in easy answers, or people claiming to have them of course. Faith is only as useful as what you invest it in. Invest it in yourself.

Nice, and they will call it "faith" but it is really only "belief" i guess. Faith implies action?

This is what it comes down to...

Faith is ineluctable; it's concomitant with connaissance.

How about this? Isn't this true?