(September 19, 2012 at 1:51 pm)Chuck Wrote: No, Faith may overlap gullibility, but faith is not completely the same as gullibility.
For example, if a certain piece of information vital for definitive assessment of a situation is unavilable, and yet progress is desirable, some may get bogged down for the want of definitive support for an intermediate stage of the process. But others may may say "I have faith that this is so" and go on.
In this case "faith" is taken to mean emotional preparedness to gamble with a working assumption.
This is by no means the same as gullibility.
I disagree. It's not gullibility, but it's not faith either. Even if there isn't definitive assessment of the situation, there is some sort of assessment on which the assumptions are based. In which case, the decision to go ahead with a course of action is based on facts - albeit incomplete ones - and is therefore rational. Further, the knowledge that a definitive assessment is unavailable allows one to have doubts regarding the course of action as well. You believe that it'll work based on the facts you know, but also realize that it may not work based on the facts you don't know.
On the other hand, if you did believe in it completely inspite of knowing that definitive assessment is unavailable and facts may come out later that'd prove you wrong, then you do have faith and are gullible.
