(May 12, 2010 at 5:18 pm)Minimalist Wrote: It's gonna take more than a dictionary.I'm not a qualified prescribing doctor, the 911 call and a dictionary are the best I can do. Like a bandaid over the neck wound he chopped his own head off from, but still....
Even though the dictionary gives additional generalized definitions of faith to mean following and trusting a religion in general, when it is specifically used in regards to the word 'belief', the definitions are as follows, from the multiple dictionaries quoted at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith , here they are:
Quote:belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
Quote:Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.There is also a bible dictionary definition that starts off ok, "Faith is in general the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true" but right after becomes a huge huge run-on paragraph of word salad and bible quotes. What is it with christians and run on paragraphs? I think this is a phenomenon worthy of research. Are they all going to the same school, and that school has a really bad English teacher? Is this a bad influence from the bible and its writing style? Is it indicative of a particular brain pattern of ardent faithful self delusion affecting the parts of the brain responsible for separating thoughts into groups? I've seen this too frequently to consider it anecdotal anymore. Here is the run-on, hidden so as to not offend those who find it unpleasant
Nowhere do the definitions say evidence is used to believe as true when using faith, trust yes, but evidence no. It says clearly that evidence is NOT used, so it's the opposite of evidence based belief.