Faith vs. blind faith

[Thanks to The Monks And Me*]

The most commonly used definition for Faith is: "belief without proof". Which of course to many people hints that people who have faith are mentally broken.

But this is actually only the second definition of faith, and is actually more a definition of "blind faith". The first definition of Faith is "confidence or trust in a person or thing", and is an entirely different thing.

If one has only ever experienced a crass, material world and selfish people, belief in a benevolent god is practically impossible. And I actually don't think anybody ever does it, hardly.
But if one has some evidence of goodness, a great kindness from a stranger, a great save in a desperate situation, or even a vision of a divine kind, like a great light and a deep feeling of eternal and unlimited Goodness, then faith has a basis, and faith is often a help on the path, to keep one's head over water.

-----

By the way, some people say almost proudly that they don't believe in anything. This is nonsense. Everybody who has consciousness believes in something. One may only "believe in what you can touch with your hands", but it's still a belief. It's a belief that the body is real and that what one experiences through the senses is real. And if you look at what the smartest people say in Quantum Mechanics, this is even quite the belief, for there is really no way to know what, if anything, our senses are connected to.


*Excellent book. Ironically she does not go all the way in her buddhism, she claims that the world is *not* a dream. But apart from that "detail", it's a very wise and warm book.