When I was a believer I saw faith as being like trust, in that it was based on some form of evidence. Jesus had explained to his disciples that there would be signs, and the faithful would recognize those signs and be strengthened by the knowledge that the time of his second coming was near. I think that for believers, faith really is "evidence-based". It's just that the "evidence" is either very flimsy or only recognizable as a sign if you convince yourself that it is. Thus, when the new pope was chosen recently, a cloud formation over Florida that had a vague bird-like shape was determined to be a sign of approval from god. And if that isn't silly enough, remember that crowds of worshipers will show up to venerate the moldy spot on your window that looks like the virgin Mary.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
