by Ben Tasker

Created on: March 19, 2009

Faith is an interesting word, meaning so much to so many different people. For many, the word carries strong Religious Connotations, and it is undeniable that the word applies in that context. Faith however, is not unique to the world of Religion, it is a word that can apply throughout Humanity.

Faith is defined as "A strong Loyal Belief, or trust in a person, idea, or thing" or as an expansion upon that definition can also be defined as a "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or evidence". Personally I believe that Religion is the epitome of the second definition, however, within my family even, were I to proffer either of these meanings as the 'True' Definition of Faith, I would quickly be corrected.

As I mentioned earlier, Faith is a word that has been adopted by the Religious world, and is often now described in very Black and White terms. You either have faith, or you don't. To the religious mind, not having faith means that you are not a religious person. To the more evidence based amongst us, you not having faith probably means that you are concerned about some component of a hypothesis, or an experiment. Thats not to say that Atheists and Agnostics are all scientists, however you can apply some of the activities of a Science lab to many aspects of life, life is one big experiment. You can hypothesise about how it's going to turn out, and why you are here, but without conducting the experiment you cannot support the hypothesis!

So what exactly does faith represent to me? As an Atheist I don't recognise the Religous comparmentalisation of the word, and as such I view it more as a statement of belief that can be applied to anything. You can have faith in a concept, a person, or an item without needing to believe in God. I have strong faith in the concept that everything around us can exist without requiring the presence of an omnipotent deity. In fact, I have very strong faith in the idea that Religion is simply a device previously created to explain the unanswerable questions, as science has developed the number of those questions has been reduced.

Faith has become a very, very personal term to many, and the devout followers of Religion would probably like to restrict its use to represent religious connotations, but unfortunately it's not their word to claim.

So what do I, an Atheist think of the Religous Faith? How do I view it? Do I condone it? Am I Against it?

These are all good questions, and many will already believe they know the answers. But there

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