Sometimes, I wish everyone could have a face to face with a religious person who isn't full of shit, if only to balance everything out.
Ultimately, we take on faith that our perception, emotions and reasoning are things to be valued, trusted and cherished, yet if one were to have to explain the validation for this cogently, without using mysterious language or appeals to the unknown, even if one were to have a fairly good grasp on the subject, the difficulty in this would be readily apparent.
And yet, the validity of this "faith" wouldn't be called into question by most, it's something that is inherently reasonable, that we should trust how it is that we know that we can trust things, without evidence needed.
I feel that "faith" gets a bad rap simply because it has connotations of ignorance, or blind following by a feeble mind. And more often than not, you may find people who do not know the philosophical argument that supports their claim, or the one that refutes it. Perhaps someone is convinced of something that they cannot prove to you because of a lack of intellect, a lack of personal understanding, or an inability to explain adequately. But you never doubted quantum theory because an undergrad got a C on his midterm explaining it to you. You never doubted that you value your reasoning in your decision making, even if the entire process of reasoning may have been a mystery to you.
I feel that people get this false sense of superiority when they come into a religious realm from an atheist perspective. I think we all know that this is the exact same case for most religious people, but it is a two way road. If we know that religious people are lazy in their understanding of faith, how much more lazy is the atheist who claims to know that religion is bogus from the onset of the discussion?
I don't see a great bastion of intellectual triumph in the atheist population, because the lot of anyone, be it academia, current society, "religious" people included, already agree with them. Credit should be shown at least to the person who has thought through their situation, their beliefs, and come to a seemingly untenable position, or one that necessitates the same amount of blind trust in their convictions that we all allow ourselves for our trust in our emotions, our senses and our reason.
And ultimately, we all have a "religion", a sense of a belief system that enable us to live a life we consider worth living. Like Rowen said, people tend to want to believe in things, and I would push that they tend to want to believe in things that let them feel a sense of purpose beyond simply existing. Science is a great one, religion another, humanity still another. We all have faith in something. Faith si what keeps the human condition going. Faith in meaning. Faith in happiness. Faith in pleasure. Faith in relevance. I couldn't prove to you that these things have intrinsic worth, but I think we all have a sense that these things are more important than simply being here.
Anyways, /thoughts/.
