Exploring Faith and Trust

Recently the age-old topic of "the meaning of life" came up in the blog rounds. One gentleman chimed in, saying that it would be difficult to answer that question "apart from faith". I came back, pointing out that some people simply lose faith in "faith" because the answers that religion and its respective holy writs give are lacking(at best, lacking). His very next words were, "Who said anything about religion?"

Now, even if I knew not one thing about this gentleman, I feel that it would be quite reasonable of me (or anyone else) to infer that he meant his religious "faith" by his initial remark. I mean, that's one of the biggest things, if not thee biggest thing, that religion provides attempts to provide to its adherents..i.e..the sole, entire meaning of our existence. But alas, it was not my first encounter with said gentleman. No, we had previously exchanged thoughts a half a dozen times or so, and the one thing that I did know about him is that he was a believer in Christianity. Considering all of the above, this, I maintain, is why I concluded that he meant "faith" in a religious context. Notwithstanding, I apologized for making the "assumption", albeit, more or less adding the above..i.e..why it was reasonable for me to assume he meant "faith" in a religious context. But he came back, offering that....."people find meaning in all sorts of faith".

I don't know about anyone else, but this just sounds, I don't know........okay, it just sounds odd to me. It sounds as though he was attempting to conflate "faith" with the word "trust"---IOW, trying to get away from the common connotation of "faith", which, in a religious context, is **believing without seeing; believing, unquestionably, in lack of evidence, and in some cases, believing in the face of evidence to the contrary. But when he added.... "People find meaning in all sorts of faith", then citing "love and kindness" as an example of the object of one's "faith", this confirmed my suspicion that this fellow blogger, while he may be well-meaning and sincere, he was conflating the words "faith" and "trust". The two words are not mutually inclusive. The latter is something built up over time and is something that is based on repeatable, demonstrable results. It is built on a proven track record. The former is employed when there is doubt or uncertainty, albeit, this doubt/uncertainty is rarely acknowledged in circles of the very religious proponents who profess to have/employ "faith". In those instances, it's like wanting their cake and eating it, too.

For those religious proponents who are honest enough to admit that their "faith" means this**, above, they often times like to tell Atheists/nonbelievers that they, too, have "faith" in some things---for instance, "science" and "man". Again, this isn't "faith", but trust. Science is provisional, so for that reason it doesn't deal with absolutes. Nonetheless, it is, to date, the best method for determining what is actually true/real about the world we live in, and, so, I and other Atheists trust it. Science just does not require "faith".

As for "kindness", if we as humans know how we like to be treated, and normally that is kindly, then we can reasonably conclude that our fellow human beings like the same. If we know that avoiding unnecessary harm increases the chances of our own survival, then we know that we shouldn't cause unnecessary harm to others. This doesn't mean that we trust every individual, since we are individuals, after all. Some individuals are amoral, and much of the time this can be directly attributed to mental illness. I certainly wouldn't trust Charles Manson to watch my kids, and I couldn't manufacture enough "faith" to be at ease with the idea.

As for "love", it depends on which kind. I think unconditional love, by definition, should be trustworthy. I can, and do, trust it, for the most part. Romantic love? Ha! Not so much. I would say that romantic love requires a least a bit of "faith", at least until a good track record is established. But even then, all it takes for a good, romantic love relationship to be destroyed is for one person to change their mind.