What is faith?
And I would say that faith is on the basis of considering the evidence -arriving at the conclusion that god exists and he posseses the attributes described to him in the bible. After coming to that conclusion it is faith to put our trust in him to help us through difficulties and hard times and trust him as a worthy patron to provide us the gift of salvation he promised to us. I noticed a strong tendency in John's book to equivocate on the definition of faith. And I read in some other threads that he was accusing faith of destroying individualism and stopping thought. I strongly disagree and I do read atheistic philosphers like Bertrand Russell and contemporary Christian philosphers like Richard Swinburne and I think for myself.And I do think that we should discourage individualism for a kind of unselfish altruism.
So what do you guys think faith is? Is it rational, irrational or somewhere in between?
"When a bunch of screwballs think I'm a screwball, I must be doing something right"
-John Armstrong upon receiving his screwball award at TheologyWeb
I believe I have already defined my take on this word in my book (which you already seem familiar with). Others can offer their own definitions.
Some people's "faith" is handed to them by others (usually parents), and they simply assume it's "true." Some people arrive at their "faith" by honestly (though not necessarily correctly) interpreting pieces of "evidence" that they've encountered in their lives. Some probably even claim to have a particular "faith" that they really don't honestly believe, but they just follow along because it can be difficult to go counter-culture. Everyone's "faith" is different, because everyone is different.
That being said, I do think that most of the people of faith that I know personally are simply following what they were conditioned to believe by their families, assuming it to be true and never really entertaining the thought that it could be completely wrong.