(July 27, 2015 at 3:18 pm)lkingpinl Wrote: I find it quite interesting how the word "faith" has evolved over the last few hundred years and even more so in the last 20 years. In the world’s eyes, to say "I have faith" means: I believe something but I’m not sure if it’s true or real, but I need it to be and I want it to be, so I have faith. You make that big leap into the dark. Strong faith, therefore, would be when you suspect what you believe isn’t true, and you are still able to believe it. That’s strong faith. The strongest possible kind of faith you could have would be when you [b]know it’s not true and you’re still able to believe it. [/b]
So are you an agnostic theist then? No shame in that, around here at least. I can't imagine being other than agnostic but I can easily imagine ways in which it would be possible to claim theism. (It just requires lowering the bar considerably, demoting God from interpersonal to intrapersonal.)
I think the emphasis with "faith" should be on your ability to trust it rather than it being empirically true. So it isn't really a matter of knowing it is or isn't true. It is simply a matter of your having embraced it as such for yourself. Faith is therefore a statement about how important something is to you, not about the world as such.
