what does faith mean...

if you say you "are of Christian faith" then you mean you believe in Christianity. if you say you have faith in someone, you mean you believe in them. on the first page some people were talking about life and the meaning or w/e, nobody knows the meaning. you live cuz youre born and you die cuz you have to, not because you lose hope or something that is dumb. if there is a meaning to life, only god(s) (if there is no god then there is no purpose i think) know(s) and we wont know til we die. according to Christianity, we are here now because God was lonely and we are supposed to serve him.

To me, Faith is synonymous with Trust. But my Faith is not in the existence of God, but rather in the claims about God that are made in a certain theological text. I trust that the words contained within this text are accurate and true. I put my Faith/Trust in God, not in the existence thereof.

Concerning Hope, which some have discussed, it might be of interest to know that the way we use "hope" in today's society is subtly different to how it was used in teh Bible. Yes, there is a difference in how the words are used. Biblical hope is not a case of not knowing but hoping that something might happen. Biblical hope is rather resting in the assurity that something will happen, thus the concept that a Christian looks forward to the Hope of heaven. It's not a cross-your-fingers-hope-to-die-stick-a-needle-in-your-eye kind of hope that we think of today.

But Hope is not the same as Faith. Hope is the natural expression that comes from Faith. And Faith is putting your Trust in something else (in the case of a spiritual discussion, generally God or a god/s).

~ PA

Originally posted by ParanoidAndroid
To me, Faith is synonymous with Trust. But my Faith is not in the existence of God, but rather in the claims about God that are made in a certain theological text. I trust that the words contained within this text are accurate and true. I put my Faith/Trust in God, not in the existence thereof.

Concerning Hope, which some have discussed, it m ...[text shortened]... in something else (in the case of a spiritual discussion, generally God or a god/s).

~ PA

Well done! A lot of people tend to misconstrue the word 'faith'. Paul tends to use it in both the case of "belief" and 'trust". If you also look at the latin equivalent, 'fides', this is where we also derive 'fidelity'. But yet, people tend to dismiss faith as an act of the intellect rather than the will.

Originally posted by rwingett
Faith means guessing at which form of "to, too, two" to use in a sentence, but acting with complete certainty that you got it right. Of course you didn't.

A skeptic would use a dictionary (or some reference tool other than the bible) and get it right. By using research instead of divine revelation, the skeptic would know your sentence should have read, "to you?"

Now I mean no offense here, but this is the biggest load of crap I have ever read. Granted, it was extremely poor grammar on the part of the topic starter, but to even consider that this is the result of one's faith in a particular deity is just incomprehensible. So you needed to point out the grammatical error of their ways, but to denigrate a person's English comprehension skills on the basis of what Faith they follow is just plain wrong. Skeptics make just as many grammatical errors as do believers and to make the assertion that a skeptic inherently is more intelligent or knows more than a believer does is just plain wrong. If you look through the spectrum of skeptics, you'll find that there are just as many uninformed as there are uninformed believers. It's the same as a believer saying "Atheists are immoral because they don't believe in God" - yes, that is a purely discriminatory statement also

I wish people (regardless of religious leanings, or lack of religious leanings) could work out a way to debate a topic with respect rather than with hate.