http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/faith

faith ‎(countable and uncountable, plural faiths)

The reasoning of beliefs hoped true by the proof of things, such as philosophy, that are without the real evidence of sight, sound, and touch.
Have faith that the criminal justice system will avenge the murder.
I have faith that my prayers will be answered.
I have faith in the healing power of crystals.

A religious belief system.
The Christian faith.

An obligation of loyalty or fidelity and the observance of such an obligation.
He acted in good faith to restore broken diplomatic ties after defeating the incumbent.

A trust or confidence in the intentions or abilities of a person, object, or ideal.
I have faith in the goodness of my fellow man.

(obsolete) Credibility or truth.
Mitford
the faith of the foregoing narrative

Spotted in the classifieds: "For sale: cemetery plot, $200, so I don'��t have to spend all eternity beside my ex!"��

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/uucollective/2012/07/the-meaning-of-faith/

Faith is not about belief. Faith in fact has very little to do with what beliefs you hold, other than that it allows you to hold them. Faith is a sacred, deep, emotionally involved kind of trust. Faith is the kind of trust that you enter into with your whole being. Faith is the kind of trust that, when it has been broken, it hurts deep inside, but faith is the kind of trust that finds a way to trust again despite the hurt.

We are all people of Faith. Faith is a basic aspect of human nature. We live in a universe that is so awe inspiring, so infinite, so grandly complicated that all of human knowledge amounts to only a tiny fraction of reality. Indeed, much of human perception about reality is pure construct, because the whole of infinity cannot be understood by finite human minds.

The realization of just how little about the universe we actually understand exists in all of humanity, both consciously and un-consciously. That realization is one understanding of why humans created religion (but not the only one).

Faith is what allows us to function despite knowing or sensing how little we actually know about all that surrounds us. This is where beliefs come into the definition of Faith. Faith does not equate to beliefs, but it is possible to hold faith in some of your beliefs.

We can have faith in (or sacred trust in) beliefs, in principles, in people, in religious traditions, in community, in systems and institutions, in ourselves, and in the universe as a whole. This last is sometimes referred to as “Faith in God”, “Faith in Dharma”, or “Faith in Creation”.

As I have found faith in the universe as a whole, that it is not conspiring against me, not indifferent to me, but rather conspiring on my behalf and that I am a part of it. I have found something to have faith in, but that is not my faith.

My faith is the ability to trust something from the very core of my being. When we are bound together by trust that touches the deepest aspects of who we are, we are living in Faith Community.

A Crisis of Faith is not when a belief is questioned, but when we sense that a deep trust has been broken.

Someone has been Faithful, a Faithful spouse, a Faithful friend, a Faithful person, when they hold not only the sacred trust they place in others, but the sacred trust others place in them as one of the most important aspects of their human existence.

A Religious Faith is not a collection of people who share beliefs, but a community of people who have made the commitment to trust one another to care for each other’s spirits and souls, and who join together for a Faith filled purpose.

Blind Faith is a trust that is not examined, not understood, and of which requires only body and soul, neglecting the mind and the spirit.

Pure Faith is the kind of trust that you hold even when your rational mind says you should not. This is a two edged sword, because at times the ability to hold a pure Faith is a blessing, at other times it is simply Blind Faith in disguise.

so what is faith?
does faith lead to spiritual growth?
does your faith define who God is to you?
does your belief in God define your faith?
what do you have faith in?

not blind faith...lol....just faith...and how does this contribute to you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith
according to WIKI...abridged version...

1. confidence or trust in a person or thing or a belief not based on proof
2. a particular system of religious belief


3. first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds, ultimately the acceptance of the divine authority.
4. involves more than outward obedience to this authority, but also must be based on a deep personal understanding of religious teachings.
5. a conviction that something is
6. a determination to accomplish one's goals
7. a sense of joy deriving from the other two
8. requires a degree of trust, primarily in the spiritual attainment on the understanding in the truth of spiritual teachings and in the community of spiritually developed followers
9. volitionally, faith implies a resolute and courageous act of will. It combines the steadfast resolution that one will do a thing with the self-confidence that one can do it.
10. to investigate any teaching and to live by what is learnt and accepted, rather than believing in something simply because it is taught


11. the Greek word ('#######') which can also be translated 'belief' or 'trust'. the word "faith" generally corresponds to the Greek noun (πίστις) (pistis) or to the Greek verb (πιστεύω) (pisteuo), meaning "to trust, to have confidence, faithfulness, to be reliable, to assure".


12. a belief not to be distinguished by faith, but by the object of its faith.
13. belief in something when presented with adequate evidence that it is true.
14. includes doubt, since there is almost nothing we can be absolutely certain about, faith must include an element of doubt in order for us to believe anything.
15. not static but causes one to learn more of God and to grow
16. causes change as it seeks a greater understanding of God, not fideism or simple obedience to a set of rules or statements.
17. includes understanding in whom and in what to have faith in
18. without understanding, there cannot be true faith, and that understanding is built on the foundation of the community of believers, the scriptures and traditions and on the personal experiences of the believer.


19. Alister McGrath quotes the Oxford Anglican theologian W. H. Griffith-Thomas (1861-1924), who states that faith is "not blind, but intelligent" and that it "commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence...", which McGrath sees as "a good and reliable definition, synthesizing the core elements of the characteristic Christian understanding of faith"
20. In contrast to noted atheist Richard Dawkins' view of faith as "blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence".
21. British Christian apologist John Lennox argues that "faith conceived as belief that lacks warrant is very different from faith conceived as belief that has warrant".
22. Peter S Williams holds that "the classic Christian tradition has always valued rationality, and does not hold that faith involves the complete abandonment of reason"
23. Moreland states, faith is defined as "a trust in and commitment to what we have reason to believe is true."


24. the conscious awareness of humanity to realize its sacredness that we are all a form of God.
25. the one universal breath that is uniting us all in our aspiring journey towards the quest of the eternal truth constantly.


26. complete submission of self, which includes belief, profession and the body's performance of deeds, consistent with the commission as vicegerent on Earth, all according to God's will.
27. recognizing and affirming that there is one Creator of the universe and only to this Creator is worship due.
28. willingness and commitment to submitting that God exists, and to his prescriptions for living in accordance with vicegerency


29. not in itself a religious concept, but requires first to know God followed by to believe and to understand, thus denoting descending importance.
30. emphasis is placed on true knowledge, true prophecy and practice
31.to honour a (personal) idea of God, supported by the many principles. Very rarely does it relate to any teaching that must be believed.
32. refers to how God acts toward his people and how they are to respond to him


33. belief in doing a thing or act to save one from bad company and keep one close to God.


34. St. Augustine of Hippo and Alvin Plantinga, hold that all of our beliefs rest ultimately on beliefs accepted by faith.
35. C.S. Lewis, hold that faith is merely the virtue by which we hold to our reasoned ideas, despite moods to the contrary.


36. independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths.
37. needed to determine some philosophical and religious truths, and it questions the ability of reason to arrive at all truth.


38. that belief in God is more analogous to belief in a person than belief in a scientific hypothesis. Human relations demand trust and commitment. If belief in God is more like belief in other persons, then the trust that is appropriate to persons will be appropriate to God.
39. that all knowledge and justified belief are ultimately based upon what are called properly basic beliefs.


40. Plantinga holds that an individual may rationally believe in God even though the individual does not possess sufficient evidence to convince an agnostic.


41. Professor of Mathematics and philosopher of science at University of Oxford John Lennox has stated, "Faith is not a leap in the dark; it'��s the exact opposite. It'�s a commitment based on evidence. It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule. That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion."��


42. We may define "��faith"�� as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "��faith."�� We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups substitute different emotions.


43. Christians have faith in the Resurrection; communists have faith in Marx'��s Theory of Value. Neither faith can be defended rationally, and each therefore is defended by propaganda and, if necessary, by war.

A Baby at Death's Door: The Miracle Story of Ethan Stacy
By Ken Hulme
http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/Amazing/Ethan_Stacy042905.aspx

By the time Ethan's parents took the long painful walk through the cemetery to see the place where they would bury their son, Ethan Stacy was within days of death.

Ethan was already under the care of a hospice nurse. His body was rapidly shutting down.

According to Dr. Melissa Rhodes, Ethan had AML, an aggressive type of leukemia. She serves in the oncology unit at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., where she was one of Ethan's physicians.


Ethan with AML

"Children who are actually born with leukemia don't usually do very well," Dr. Rhodes says. "The best that we could offer was to put Ethan through difficult chemotherapy and still not know that he would make it through."

In fact, chemotherapy is so toxic for newborns that doctors gave Ethan's parents the option not to treat their son. After two weeks in the hospital, Chad and Mandy made the painful decision to take their son home.

"The chemo could kill him," Chad says. "There are all kinds of risks."

"We came home and I remember lying in bed and praying," Mandy says. "We said, 'God, give us an answer'. We both woke up the next morning and both said, 'Nope, we're not going to put him through it'."

Most doctors at Vanderbilt supported that decision. "We figured if Ethan truly had the kind of leukemia that we felt he had, then even with full treatment he may not do well," says Dr. Rhodes. "For that reason we felt it was right to honor the family's decision."

After only a few days at home, Ethan's baby acne, which is common in newborns, had become infected. So they went back to the hospital. That's when the tumors began to show up.

"We noticed a lump in his calf," says Mandy. "We paged the doctor, and they told us that it could be a blood clot or a build up of the leukemia cells, which is called chloroma."

Tumors started popping up in other places such as Ethan's feet, hands, and his forearm.

"Leukemia itself means cancer of the blood; it's a blood disease," explains Dr. Rhodes. "But in this particular kind of leukemia it can also go out into the tissues. That's what we believe was happening with Ethan. He actually had leukemia in his skin, in his hands, his feet, and his legs, as well as in his liver and spleen which is more common. So he was showing that he had a very advanced disease at that point."

Ethan was now about three weeks old, and his condition really started to decline. He stopped eating and began to experience sleep apnea.

"[The nurse] told me that he might develop what's called sepsis, which would be a total body infection, and that he would go peacefully or he might hemorrhage," Mandy recalls. "I would see blood in his diaper or maybe coming out of his ears. I was so scared to open up his diaper to even change it."

When the hospice nurse arrived, Chad and Mandy knew they were near the end but Chad, Mandy and their friends continued to pray. believing God for the impossible.

"I remember rocking him and singing, 'Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. I want to see you'," Mandy says. "I knew that if I just focused my mind on Christ that's the only way that I could make it through."

The night that Ethan faced his greatest medical crisis, something happened. "Mandy late that night started feeding, and he started taking his bottle a little bit at a time," Chad says.

The next day, Ethan was a little stronger… But was he having one final rebound before death?

Mandy says, "I remember sitting at the kitchen table and saying, 'I believe God’s healing him. I can see God working.' Then he just gradually started getting better. And over the next week, we were back up to six ounces of formula every three hours."

Over the next two weeks, Ethan improved! And when Mandy took him back to Vanderbilt to check his blood counts? "His platelets level was like 415,000 -- in normal range, where it had been 39,000 at his lowest point."

This stumped Dr. Rhodes and her colleagues. "Ethan had gotten about as sick as a baby could possibly get and then spontaneously got better. So we wanted to look. We did the bone marrow test, which showed no evidence of leukemia. The tumors gradually went down over a period of probably a week or so. It was just remarkable to witness it."

Chad and Mandy knew they had witnessed a miracle when they repeated the bone marrow biopsy in July with the same results.

Ethan Stacy todayToday, Ethan Stacy is a strapping two-year-old, who loves playing with his dad and big sister Kaylee. It goes without saying that the Stacys are thankful.

"The prayers of my friends and church members meant everything to me," Chad says.

Mandy agrees. "It’s just awesome that we have a God like that. I just can't get over the miracles. I can't wait to see what God has in store for him because I know it’s going to be big."

you better put your reference or url link....you may give people the wrong idea...lol

what proof are you looking for?

well...just one God for me...lol...
i try to learn about him not basing on religion, but i do use the bible as reference

are we talking about Noah and the flood, here?



you want to prove God as a scientifically reproducible concept?

i dunno...sometimes i think...if we want to prove anything as a scientifically reproducible concept...then that means we can induce it....

so to prove God as the same, you are saying that we can induce God?

so take for example the concepts of justice, love, integrity...etc...and their antitheses......to prove the existence of all of these, it should be explained by something that is not on the grounds of someone just writing a story about these things....that we would have to be able to show that these are reproducible and inducible, to say that they actually exist...otherwise, they really don't exist but are just figments of our overactive imagination...




well yes. because people are terribly terribly flawed.

say for example, if someone were to tell you and explain to you what virtue is, but live their life in vice, then does that mean that what they claim virtue to be is not credible?
same as with the opposite...if someone were to tell you how it is to be bad, but live their lives above par...does that mean their entire explanation of vice is not acceptable?

i dunno...it doesn't seem right, nor fair to judge God based on the credibility of people...people will always fall short, not just because of being flawed, but also because the person looking also has their own expectation of people.



i don't see it.
yes, science produce an accurate picture of the physical world we live in. all of it are governed by laws, and we did not know it first. it was set upon as such before we even knew of it.

hence, it becomes the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg.

you are saying that science came first, and we created the concept of God because of a lack of understanding in science...and the more we discover scientifically, the less is the power of God...

whereas the flipside is, God created it all, set with order and balance and such is what we discovered to be science...and the discoveries will be unending because we can only come to discover what has already been there since the beginning of time.

do you believe that it is possible for us to discover ALL that there is to be discovered in science to prove beyond doubt that God does not exist?



i think, those who were raised to question and examine everything are probably more likely to find God...
whereas those who think that they have found all the answers they need, are the ones who won't bother too much to examine who God really is...



but you are already assuming that he doesn't have a girlfriend...lol...

i think he has been establishing that for sometime. but some people don't want to acknowledge it for what it is, and gives different meaning to it.

like say a guy who loves a girl and does what he can accordingly... she could ignore it completely, acknowledge that it is there but reject it, wait and see if she develops feelings, try to take advantage of him, learn to trust and love him as well....or whatever else she chooses to do in between.

its a two way street...recognition is part of it.

Dude, you have a purse?

I agree.
Free will is a gift from God.
What we choose to do with it in light of the situation we find ourselves in, partially defines the quality of a relationship with him.

Yes. That is also why i ask the question.
We kill off each other because of survival. The eternal rat race. We want to come out on top and be able to assert ourselves, financially, sexually, reputation, power...etc...
I dont see the point of denying God's existence while at the same time blaming him for the atrocities human nature is capable of for the sake of survival...

So the issue is more because you dont see reason to believe in what people have to say about God.
You want him to be the one who would actually talk to you about himself.

Reappeared? Right. Like magic.



As i am sure you have your own following as well.



The root of politics is social control.
The root of religion is something else, that sadly evolved and stemmed to serve politics in many cases.