Talk:Faith

Reversion

I notice the revert basicly leaves out the entry I made concerning Christ words about a Roman Pagan Centurion and his faith. Guess Christs own opinion on the matter is not good enough.

I completely disagree, Any religion requires faith. --TimSvendsen 15:46, 2 February 2007 (EST)

Good point tim, while most religions might not actually use the term faith, the concept is quite widespread.

--BenjaminS 15:57, 2 February 2007 (EST)

Tim and Ben, you don't support your claims with anything. "Faith" is unique to Christianity, and the term is not genuinely used by other religions.

That's moronic. Very simply defined, the English word "faith" means belief in the existence, truth, etc. of anything in the absence of definitive proof. For instance, I have faith that my family will come home tonight, because I think that they will. I do not have faith in gravity; I know from experience that it works, and I have some small understanding of the mechanism by which it does so (I don't however, know the cause, but then, no one does.) Faith is not uniquely Christian by virtue of the fact that other religions exist. If their followers lacked faith, those religions would be gone. Calling it something else, or even not referring it at all does not change it's nature; is sin a uniquely Christian concept?

The powerful Greek language was essential to express the concept of faith. Not even English can describe it well.

pivstiß is the Greek word for faith, and it takes Strong's version many words to explain it:

  1.  conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it
        1. relating to God
              1. the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ 
        2. relating to Christ
              1. a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God 
        3. the religious beliefs of Christians
        4. belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same 
  2. fidelity, faithfulness
        1. the character of one who can be relied on 

---

It is false to claim that faith is only a christian concept. Other religions may not call it faith, but they still have it. For example: a muslim suicide bomber is not going to bomb anything if he does not have faith that it will send him to heaven. --TimSvendsen 10:59, 4 February 2007 (EST)

Sources:

American Heritage Dictionary

says:

faith, noun: 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See synonyms at belief, trust. 3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters. 4. often Faith Christianity The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will. 5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith. 6. A set of principles or beliefs.[1]

In other words, according to one dictionary, anyway, the word has more than one meaning. It is not being misapplied in the phrase "the Muslim faith," it is simply a different meaning of the word. This article, presently, would seem to be about the fourth meaning. Dpbsmith 18:37, 3 February 2007 (EST)

Neurocat's posting was misleading in claiming that "The concept of faith exists in nearly all major religions. Faith is mentioned in the New Testament, the Old Testament, and the Koran. Faith is also a well established part of so-called "New Age" religions, such as Wicca."

Faith, historically, was uniquely Christian. The entry demonstrates that. Others may try to make faith synonymous with belief, but that is not its original meaning. Muslims "submit" to Allah rather than have faith in Allah. The very reason for an entry here is to be precise. Broader (and less precise) colloquial meanings can be found elsewhere.--Aschlafly 23:36, 20 February 2007 (EST)

How can they submit to Allah if they lack faith in his existence and intrinsic "better-ness?"

If the page is to describe Faith as a "historically uniquely Christian" term, there should be some evidence provided to that effect. Otherwise, the page is less accurate, not more precise. Since the American Heritage Dictionary does not say that definition #4 is more valid than any other, there is no reason to assert that the other definitions are less accurate.

Neurocat, please sign your comments with the signature icon (second from the right in the row of click-on boxes).

A dictionary merely reflects common usage and, increasingly, political correctness. An entry here called Merriam-Webster criticizes some entries in the dictionary. You are free to post anti-Christian views but only if you support them with references. If you think there is a Muslim "faith in Allah," then you need to support your view or else the page will be reverted. By the way, the Koran does not support your view. It calls for "submission to Allah." The term "faith" is not a synomym for belief or submission.--Aschlafly 23:55, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I take exception to the word "merely." It's hardly a trivial job. And one of the reasons I like to cite the American Heritage dictionary here is precisely because, while not politically conservative, it was created in opposition to what was seen as the overly-permissive and overly-descriptive Merriam-Webster. A dictionary is a good starting point. Any group of people that has a sort of private definition of a word that does not match what is generally understood, it is going to be counterproductive to use that definition in discourse with others outside the group.

AHD says that "faith" has five meanings. People who refer to "the Muslim faith" are not wrong, they are just using meaning number 5. The article needs to be clearer on this point. For example, it could open by saying "Christian faith is a unique concept that means trust or complete confidence in something unseen. Although the word "faith" can be used to refer to any body of beliefs, other religions do not have any concept equivalent to Christian faith."

To insist on "faith" has having only meaning number 4 would be like insisting that the British naval power during the Napoleonic era was equal to the number of foot-pounds per minute exerted by the force of the wind on the combined area of all its sails. Dpbsmith 13:34, 21 February 2007 (EST)

So Christian faith is unique to Christianity? That statement is so self-evident as to be utterly moronic. It's like saying Buddha is unique to Buddhism.

Can you then please post a reference that cites that the original usage of the word "faith" is Christian? If you are going to call the dictionary into question as a source, you cannot selectively choose which entries you believe and which you do not believe. If you wish to cite a specific dictionary entry as incorrect, you must support that with fact. Perhaps it would be better to clarify that, in your view, the "original" meaning of the word "faith" is Christian, but current modern usage is different. After all, you do intend this to be a factual, unbiased conservapedia, not a collection of unsubstantiated right-wing beliefs. True? --Neurocat 09:48, 21 February 2007 (EST)

I added a common dictionary definition of faith, with reference link, to clarify the issue for readers. Furthermore, the first line of the entry seems to be unclear - if the word Faith descends from a Latin word meaning "to trust", how can the original meaning be purely Christian? Certainly the Greeks and Romans used the term to describe something other than a Christian "faith". Should we remove it? --Neurocat 10:00, 21 February 2007 (EST)

Re: faith in other religions

I just edited the article and included a source on the concept of faith in Islam. A few short minutes of Googling turned up a scholarly article from the 1950s about the importance of faith to Islam. Also, does anybody know how many of the mentions of faith in the Old Testament are in the parts that make up the Torah? That would go a long way toward identifying the importance of faith in the Jewish religion.

Finally, I agree completely with those who are saying that the concept of faith is common to any theistic religion. Without any exceptions that I know of (correct me if I'm wrong), any religion that requires belief in a god requires faith, since there is no evidence for any of these gods and faith is belief in the unseen/unobservable. --Haveyouseenmypants 18:20, 21 February 2007 (EST)

• Not a rhetorical question: how much similarity is there between the Muslim concept translated as "faith" and the Christian concept of "faith?" It seems to me that in the Arabian Nights the Caliph of Baghdad is referred to as "Defender of the Faithful," and certainly Moslems refer to non-Moslems as "Infidels" (i.e. "Unfaithful"), but I don't know that the concepts are necessarily the same. Dpbsmith 18:37, 21 February 2007 (EST)

• • • • • • Re: claim that "faith" is unique to Christianity and Bible, and word counts of "faith" in religious texts******

The author says above that “Jesus was unique in preaching the significance of faith exclusive to Christianity. No other religion is based on faith as distinguished from mere belief. Faith is mentioned 229 times in the Bible's New Testament.”

Above, where the author of the article is translating the Greek word “pivsti,” he attributes the definition to Strong’s. The definition he provides actually comes from the lexicon tool in a website called Crosswalk.com. Strong’s definition for “pivsti” (a word that was translated into English to mean “faith” in several Protestant versions of the Bible) is as follows:

3982. peitho pi'-tho a primary verb; to convince (by argument, true or false); by analogy, to pacify or conciliate (by other fair means); reflexively or passively, to assent (to evidence or authority), to rely (by inward certainty):--agree, assure, believe, have confidence, be (wax) conflent, make friend, obey, persuade, trust, yield. (Note: 3982 is the Strong’s reference number to the word “pivsti” as well. See the author’s link to Crosswalk.com above.)

Other Greek words that were translated into “faith” according to Strong’s were:

4102. pistis pis'-tis from 3982; persuasion, i.e. credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly, constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself:--assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.

4103. pistos pis-tos' from 3982; objectively, trustworthy; subjectively, trustful:--believe(-ing, -r), faithful(-ly), sure, true.

http://www.eliyah.com/cgi-bin/strongs.cgi?file=greeklexicon&isindex=3982

So there is no specific link between the Greek words that were translated to mean “faith” and the author’s statement that the word “faith” only applies to Christian belief.

The English word “faith” came into usage in approximately 1250 A.D. At the time, it was used to refer to a duty, or fulfilling one’s trust. It did not at that time have a meaning related to Christian faith.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=faith&searchmode=none

In fact, the word “faith” was used to refer to all religious faiths starting in approximately 1300 A.D. The Bible was first translated into English from the Latin Vulgate in 1380, and the word “faith” came to be used to refer to the Christian faith at that time.

The etymology of the word and Strong’s definitions are quite well documented and I’ve provided links here.

The author is mistaken in the etymology of the word because, as I have shown, the word “faith” was used with other meanings before it had the meaning the author is using (as that specifically of Christian faith), including its meaning as “faith in any religious belief.” In addition, while the use of the word “faith” as meaning Christian faith may have been coined, so to speak, at the time of the earliest English translations of the Bible, the original Greek words did not mean the same thing as the current translations. The original Greek (which is the language in which the Scriptures were given to us) does not have a word that has the same definition as the word “faith” given in this entry (see Strong's). And where the author said that “No other religion is based on faith as distinguished from mere belief,” he is clearly wrong because according to Strong’s, the Greek words used in the original Scriptures actually have a meaning closer to the word “belief” than they do to the word “faith.”

ASCHLAFLY's Unsupported Assumptions

ASCHLAFLY, can you give any references, AT ALL, for your recent edits to the Faith entry? You keep falling back on the "Faith is Christian" concept and keep removing all the well-documented entries that demonstrate otherwise. Once and for all, do you have any evidence to back this up, or is this "Conservapedia" just a "Schlaflyapedia" documenting your opinions rather than facts? --Neurocat 13:41, 24 February 2007 (EST)

Unlocking Faith

I think it is time we unlocked this entry. It has so many unsupported assumptions on it as to be largely worthless. It is in desperate need of editing. --Neurocat 10:54, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Faith is NOT unique

To say that the concept of "faith" is unique to Christianity is absurd, and the height of vanity. To begin with, the editors critique previous commentators who argue the non-uniqueness of Christian "Faith" by stating that they offer "no proof" that faith is NOT a uniquely Christian concept. However, the author of the article on faith (locked, Draconian fashion), states no support for the idea that "faith" IS unique to Christianity. A word count is the only proof, compared with a word count of one other holy book. That is hardly proof. Further, the originator of such an absurd idea that faith is unique to Christianity must surely have the burden of proof. In the absence of proof, discourse with any non-Christian will suffice to prove the ridiculousness of that statement.

However, proof can be clearly offered. To begin with, the author of the locked "article" on Faith suggests that "submission" to Allah is pre-eminent in Islam, displacing faith. However, faith in Allah is a necessary predicate to submission - otherwise, the submission would be worthless, if it is directed to no-one.

Further, the Roman state religion placed great import on the concept of "pietas," or "piety," which the Romans understood to include faith in the gods' good will, and the importance to daily life of satisfying the gods. A note of the importance of "pietas" in Roman life would be its prominent placement on the Clipeus Virtutis, a shield awarded to Augustus Caesar upon the First Constitutional Settlement, which noted Augustus' many virtues. Among them, "pietas" was prominently figured. (See http://www.ac-orleans-tours.fr/lang_anciennes/arapacis/images/clipeus.jpg). A second touchstone for faith in the Roman religion would be Horace's Odes (http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_horace_odes3.htm). The third book of Odes makes several mentions of "faithless foes" - suggesting that lack of faith is associated with evil, and faith therefore with the good and pious. Further, an important theme of Horace's 3d Book of Odes is the need of Rome to satisfy the Gods, demonstrating a strong faith in the relevance & role of the Gods in daily life.

I insist not only that the article on be "faith" unlocked, but that all bias be purged from this encyclopedia. You claim to to ignore any bias whatsoever, and pay heed only to the facts. However, since often the facts include a "bias" against ridiculous opinions such as this, you end up purging the facts. Please, be reasonable, for the good of the country.

Tautology!

Also, saying that Christian faith is a uniquely Christian concept is a tautology. You can't reject other people's arguments that other religions define "faith," by saying, "well, not in the same way Christianity does," and concluding "therefore faith is unique to Christianity."

FAITH is not unique to Christianity.

CHRISTIAN FAITH is obviously, by definition, unique to Christianity, but again, this is mere tautology. 1 = 1. Congratulations.

Main Page

Note that the following is still on Conservapedia's main page, forming part of the casual visitor's initial impression: "Did you know that faith is a uniquely Christian concept? Add to the explanation of what it means, and how it does not exist on other religions." Moioci 05:09, 1 March 2007 (EST)

Romans 10:17:

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. ChristianFaith 15:44, 20 July 2007 (EDT)

Bad, bad, bad

This article isn't just bad. It's brilliantly bad. Outstandingly bad. It is a paradigmatic example of bad. If this is the kind of writing that this project is going to promote, then the project should be shelved.

Alternate version

Faith (from Greek-pistis and Latin-fides) refers to confidence, trust, and hope in a God, person, community, tradition, or another locus of inspiration. The object of faith varies among people, but the common denominator is a level of conviction and an inner attitude towards a greater power or force in the universe. Etymologically, the word 'faith' is closely linked to the concept of "fidelity," which emphasizes commitment to something or someone. Thus, faith is often understood to mean 'loyalty' to a particular view of divinity, and allegiance to a particular religious community and it's cognate doctrines. Yet, faith can also be envisioned more broadly as a trust in providence, and has been used as a synonym for religion, such as in the Buddhist faith or the Christian faith.

Faith is an important aspect of the world religions, and a common theme of human religiosity. According to Christian tradition, faith is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that provides impetus for humanity to move forward, and is said to be especially important when one encounters obstacles in life. For many people, faith or the lack thereof, is an important part of their overall identities.

(Lack of?) Faith in Science

I have argued this point many times among non-believers, but most religious people will maintain that science requires a larger leap of faith than religion. Do you think this debate merits inclusion/referral in this article? --Deuteronomy 11:12, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

I would agree that things like evolution and the Big Bang require a greater "leap of faith", but not science. Philip J. Rayment 11:15, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Given the strictest definition of science, is it possible to seperate these two concepts from that definition? However I agree, the theoretical nature of both "evolution" and the Big Bang do require the greatest leap of faith. Continuing in this vein however, how do we know that many other aspects of scientific study are not also contrived fallacies? Man once believed the Earth was flat because of thousands of years of precedent. What shall we deam "science" in another thousand years in contrast to acts of God? These concepts are worthy of inclusion in the article. --Deuteronomy 11:26, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Given the strictest definition of science, is it possible to call evolution and the Big Bang science? Both are attempts to explain what happened in the past, and we cannot observe the past, cannot run tests on the past, and cannot reproduce those events. And those are the sorts of things required for science.

But as you will see from the natural science article, differences between things that are "operational science" and others that are "origins science" mean that you cannot extend that question to many other areas of science, such as medicine, chemistry, physics, etc.

The idea that man once believed that the Earth was flat is itself largely an urban myth. Sure, there were some people that thought that, but we know that the ancient Greeks knew the Earth to be round, and that almost everybody else since thought that also (and perhaps everyone before for all we know). The idea that the flat Earth belief was widespread has been shown to be an evolutionist invention to discredit creationists.

Given those points, I think that you musings about science in the future are largely without foundation.

Philip J. Rayment 22:15, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Faith in Literature

I agree with Phillip that this section is suspect. Taking the real life information and incorporating it into the article is one thing, but noting ways faith has been viewed in literary works seems to be out of place. Learn together 14:03, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

Biblical Examples

I felt that an Old Testament example would be in order. I would like to include some pictures as it would look better than this "dry" page that we have here.

ChristianFaith 15:44, 20 July 2007 (EDT)

Multiple definitions of faith

All: Not sure who's watching this page, but I want to make sure I touch base with folks before I dive in. I'd like to introduce multiple uses of the word "faith" to the article. Specifically:

• Faith as loyalty (Faithful to a spouse, or to God)
• Faith as trust (I have faith that you will do what you say, or that God will)
• Faith as a trust in the fundamental good (as the article now articulates)
• Faith as hanging on to your reason when emotion seeks to overwhelm it (per C.S. Lewis).

I'd also like to introduce and analyze the typical nontheist definition of faith -- "Believing without evidence," and to show that this concept of faith is absent from the Bible -- i.e. nobody in the Bible believed without evidence -- they all had overwhelming evidence for belief (as do Christians today) -- so faith must mean something else.

Any objections? Ungtss 15:03, 4 September 2007 (EDT)

I have always seen that faith means that one KNOWS not beliefs something is true without any proof. It does not matter if one is saying that I know that Christ died for my sins, or that I know there is one God but Allah and Muhammad is his profit, or that I know that Zeus may send lighting bolt down on me, or that I know that there is no God or gods. Pibu 23:58, 10 November 2007 (EST)

"Faith is a uniquely Christian concept"

So faith isn't a concept in any other religion? ...could somebody please just clear this up? Feebasfactor 11:20, 7 October 2007 (EDT)

Kierkegaard

I think a good source to use would be the works of Kierkegaard. His "leap to faith" discourses are wonderful and are a great supplement to faith/existentialism. Probus1