Why is faith important?

[FallentoReason]

It takes faith, in the sense of trusting without knowing whether something is true, to understand science as a non-scientist. You must trust that you are receiving the correct ideas.

In the world of science, a "new discovery" is compiled into a journal and then chucked out into the world for the rest of scientists to tear it to pieces. If it doesn't and experiments reproduce the same observations and similar data, then guess what, you most likely have something reflecting reality. The same amount of "faith" goes into this as the faith I have that there's a computer in front of me, which can be verified by my different family members.

It takes faith to learn a language. You must trust that the concepts you are learning are meaningful and that the words that you use have some sort of validity.

Wrong. You can test the things you have learned by asking a native speaker e.g. "where's the toilet"? Their response and/or reaction will be the evidence you can then use to know if you indeed asked "where's the toilet"? No faith required whatsoever.

It takes faith to learn about anything.

This proposition is still just a baseless claim so far, except for when it comes to religion. Learning a particular theological construct about a given god requires faith, obviously.

So it takes faith, in the sense of trusting without knowing whether something is true, to understand religion. But religion can be verified, it is possible to know that God exists. When you seek God and develop intimacy with God, you will know that God is real, God reveals God's ways. I do not ever doubt God's existence. It is not like the mental process that is going on in my head is similar to one in which you are trusting an authority. It is more like one in which you know something very clearly because you have an absolutely clear series of experiences that prove conclusively that what you are seeking is real.

Said every religious person that ever lived. Warm, fuzzy feelings aren't proof of anything. Good for you that you feel that way, and only you.

I know God is real and when people say I think God doesn't exist, I feel badly for them, because I know they are ignorant. I know that they don't really know that God doesn't exist, and I do know, because I have experience God. Science cannot prove God does not exist anymore than it can prove Jupiter doesn't exist, but maybe if people are arrogant enough they can prove to themselves that their reasoning and psychologizing about religion equates to real knowledge. It doesn't.

Science isn't concerned with God's existence, but when your god's followers make a faith-based claim inspired by the Bible about the physical world, science usually bulldozes that claim to the ground.

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." ~ Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615 during Galileo's trial.

Are you entirely sure that you're calling the right group ignorant, or do you simply know you're right through faith? Because that would be original...

Faith is necessary, because God tests the heart, to see who wants to follow God. God doesn't want to just give people a test in which they make a purely reason-centered selfish choice for God, without any risk or testing the heart. He tests the heart to see who wants to follow God, and who will answer the call to be a moral person.

But of course faith is required. Faith is the very reason why people at my Pentecostal church keep on praying for healing despite never getting results. I spent 6 years as a devout Christian there and not once did I see e.g. the girl with the crutches walk back to her seat without needing them. Faith is the snake oil salesman's greatest accomplice.