I was using the term as a tool of expression. 'We' is referring to humans, and of course not meant to be a blanket statement.
Fair enough - I was saying that to reinforce the point that you see below and to assert that not all people of faith use it in this way.
I only explained why I consider faith to be a poor justification for a belief. When someone says "my beliefs boil down to faith", they are speaking in the context of why they believe something. They are not speaking of a quality of worship. If faith is being misused then your point should be the same as mine, these people are in error.
I agree.
This seems to be my point. If anything that happens is meant to happen, how are we to ever distinguish between things that are wrong and right? If god gets credit for things like a baby being born healthy, then why does he not get blamed when the baby's lungs don't work? It would seem to have faith one must sacrifice objectivity, which again seems to be a poor way to reach the truth.
If this baby was not born healthy, then that's what was fated to happen. In a monotheistic sense, if God is the one who determines each and every person's destiny, then yes, it was part of his plan(or "his fault" if you will) that this baby didn't make it. From a polytheistic standpoint, however, one could pray or make sacrament to Frigg, the Norse goddess of pregnancy and childbirth for a healthy child. However, if this was not the fate that the Norns, the weavers of fate, set for this child, Frigg would not have the ability to change it.
I'm not sure where objectivity has been lost, can you elaborate?
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This is all predicated on god's existence.
Which is fine as long as we aren't using faith alone as our "evidence".
It seems to be saying that we should trust human reasoning and ability until it fails, at which time we should abandon it for the sake of supernatural support. The same supernatural being that designed reality to be such that our abilities and reasoning fail.
I was referring more to when we feel that the stress of life has reached a point that we feel we have reached a breaking point. I wouldn't abandon my own abilities and reasoning faculties just because I placed my destiny into my god's hands. Depending on your god, abandoning your own critical thinking skills after taking this action could be anything from frowned upon by your god, to utter folly.