Do you see any benefits to religious faith?

[bennyboy]

Oh does it? Was the NT originally written in Latin? Nope. Faith comes from pistis.


http://welldesignedfaith.net/tag/basics/

Hebrews 11:1 is the most famous definition of faith in the Bible: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Here, and in most other places translated as “faith”, the Greek word used is πίστις (pistis) or one of its related forms. This word can be translated as faith, belief, trust, confidence, or proof. Looking at secular Greek sources, Herodotus used it to refer to a pledge or military oath[1].  

Other secular authors such as Aeschylus, Democritus, and Appian used the word to denote evidence from the senses or from eyewitness testimony, or proof of intent deduced from observed actions [2].  The Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo used the term pistis in his writings 156 times with the sense of evidence in over 50% of those instances [3]. Aristotle used the term to describe various “proofs” for convincing someone of your case through reason and logic [4]. This word for faith sounds like it was often used by secular sources as a justified belief based on observation, logical or philosophical reasoning, or testimony and solemn oaths. But we can dig a little deeper yet. The word pistis is derived from the Greek word πείθω (peitho), meaning “to persuade”.

Are you persuaded blindly by any assertion you hear, or by evidence, by sound reasoning,and by common sense? It makes sense then that Aristotle would use pistis to describe the proofs of the art of rhetoric (persuasion).  It seems that Biblical faith is anything but blind. Rather, it is “God’s divine persuasion” [5]. It is also interesting that the word translated in Hebrew 11:1 as “conviction” in the NASB translation is ἔλεγχος (elegchos) which means proof, and is derived from ἐλέγχω (elegcho), a verb meaning “to convince with solid, compelling evidence; to expose, refute or prove wrong.” [6] Faith could be said to be God’s divine persuasion of the reality of the supernatural things we can’t observe with our natural senses.

First, let me give you kudos on one of your best posts on these forums. I've developed a dislike for you, but mainly because you injected your new-age woo into a science thread. However, this post was bang-on, and you've gone convincingly to the point-- except for choosing a suspect source, in which I have little "faith."

The link between Greek and latin is strong, for obvious reasons.  Strangely, after telling me my "kung fu is not strong," you gave the same definition that I did.  And then you went on to bold out the least compelling, and most full of shit, interpretation of that meaning as provided by 'welldesignedfaith.com.'

Let me ask you, when the Biblical Jesus talked about faith like a mustard seed, do you think he was talking about the process of gathering "solid, compelling evidence?"  Why, then, did he scold those who demanded miracles, saying "Do not put your lord God to the test"?  Sounds kind of like the opposite of what you're talking about, bud. It sounds like a very explicit instruction to accept WITHOUT evidence. . . which is how we view the use of the word today.

Okay, let me say something WITH you, because I also did a little deeper research into the word's use: I think a lot of X-tians, and especially Catholic, doctrine is in accord with what you are saying. I believe, in fact, you could probably find much better proof that "faith" means someone is "convinced," but you'll also find that it requires an act of participation-- someone makes a conscious choice to accept the "evidence," and fall in accordance to the will of God, etc. So in a world that is FULL of evidence against the God idea, and very little for it, how should we in the 21st century view faith? In the context of a forum whose members are not theists, what should we look at when we ask if there's a benefit to faith?

Saying, "Faith is the Truth of God, implanted into a willing soul," yadda yadda isn't going to get us very far here. Saying that it represents a suspension of disbelief-- a rational disbelief caused by the overwhelming evidence AGAINST the God idea-- and then looking at whether this suspension of disbelief has benefits, is the right way to go about it.