Is 'faith' really a 'great cop-out'?

[Edwardo Piet]

Faith doesn't imply blindness or lack of knowledge. You get to know your parents, your friends, your mate - and have faith in them based upon what you have come to know about them, not what you feel or are blind to.

As others are pointing out there is a huge difference between faith of the religious kind (faith without knowledge & often in spite of it as Dawkins would say) and faith based on reasonable expectation (the kind based on experience) ... I have "faith" that the sun will rise in the east each morning, that faith is not religious but based on reasonable expectation based on the fact that I have been taught that it does so and my own experience has confirmed that. I have faith that my family loves me because I have a kind of idea what love is and because they are fairly demonstrative people and make it clearly known to me that I am in some way very important to them (and not just for the money) ... again, although it is possible to interpret these things in a variety of ways, that is not a religious faith but one based on experience.

Religious faith OTOH is inherently based on blind trust and if you like we can put it to the test

Kyu

Yes but I wouldn't call believing that he sun will come up "having faith" I would call that just a matter of understanding. Not absolute knowledge. Just understanding. You may not have to understand "Why?" the sun comes up, you just have to understand that it does. Perhaps you trust that the sun comes up you could say.
Faith is irrational trust.