Talk:Faith

Atheist contributions are heavily biased in this attempt for an fact based article about faith

This "talk" section was titled "11 million Mormons, one third of which is active, and they get the bulk of this article?" and it contained this content: "This page has obviously been run over with Mormon content. Not proportionally representative of the varying views. It appears we have some zealous Mormon editors." The above editor should substantiate her claims, they come across as personal attacks.

In my opinion there is an obvious lack of LDS content in this article (no mention that a correct understanding of Christ is necessary to have faith, no mention in regard to faith that God is no respecter of persons, etc.); however, it is very heavy with atheist content.

Atheistic Substantiations: Heavy emphasis on transcendence in the summary; Usefulness of faith in the here and now (present) is deleted (eg., any reference to self-help authors are deleted: Think and Grow Rich or Psycho-Cybernetics); Any description that "faith" is based on "evidence" is summarily deleted (never improved upon, just deleted with inaccurate comments); Heavy emphasis on Fideism; Clumsily forcing in William James, Bertrand Russell, Richard Dawkins; Ending the article with the "CRITICISM" instead of the "REBUTTAL."

Shouldn't a religious definition sit aside a non-religious one ESPECIALLY for an article that is supposedly part of a Wikipedia "project" on "religion?" Why won't the atheist editors allow Wikipedia articles to contain religious definitions that describe religion from the point of view of the religious? Doesn't it make sense that the religious should be able to explain their religious experience? Why look to the CRITIC for a description of how it FEELS to be on stage?

Sections that NEED to be written

The following sections are missing from this article: 1) Non-religious Faith: Faith and it's usefulness now and in the future [quote self-consistency and self-help authors and psychologists], 2) Changing Faith: How faith decreases or grows based on life experiences [quote human development and self-help psychologists and authors], 3) Rebuttal to the criticism of faith: Faith provides an individual with the joy and other benefits that come from acting as if something is true while the facts are still being resolved [quote theists and self-help psychologists].

References and Further Reading: Add relevant writings of Self-help psychologists and authors such as Jean Piaget (eg.: "Genetic Epistemology"), Prescott Lecky (eg. The Concept of Self in Medicine and Health Care), Napoleon Hill, Maxwell Maltz, Tony Robbins, etc.

Rhenrie (talk) 18:57, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Faith as commitment

Removed the section "Faith as commitment" because as it stands it is not well written section. If someone wants to re-write it, get the text from history.

(reasoning in italics): Sometimes, faith means a belief in a relationship with a deity. redundant.

In this case, "faith" is used in the sense of "fidelity." not explained

For many Jews, the Hebrew Bible and Talmud depict a committed but contentious relationship between their God and the Children of Israel. This is covered in "Judaism" with a link to "Main article: Jewish principles of faith"

For a lot of people, faith or the lack thereof, is an important part of their identity, for example a person who identifies himself or herself as a Muslim or a skeptic. way to generic for an article that goes into so much detail elsewhere, maybe add to intro?

According to Michael Green (theologian) faith is "Self-commitment on the basis of evidence". unreferenced, if included it needs expanding and explanation.

Sikh Faith

With reference to this article on Faith "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith", you forgot to include the Sikh Faith. Kindly reseach and include that to this section, because like Hindu, Christianity, Buddhu, and Islam faiths, Sikh faith is a major world religion. Thanks. Good work on the article!

Definition

There have recently been some revisions to the long-standing definition of faith on this page, sourced to multiple dictionaries. For some reason, an editor deleted multiple sources (check earlier versions of the page, e.g. March 2011). Definition issues also arose previously, and are clarified by referring to the disambiguation page (linked at the top). Although I previously favored including "lack of proof", on closer consideration this article is specifically about religious faith, and it is a matter of controversy whether the separate definition referring to "lack of proof" is appropriate in this context or not. "Lack of proof" is one of at least 8, and up to 10 possible definitions of faith directly sourced, and several of those definitions (e.g. "sincere intentions") are peripheral to the subject of this article. Scientific evidence is one exceedingly strong form of proof, and most agree that religious faith is not scientific. Mathematical proofs are not based upon science, but are proofs nonetheless. Scholars continue to debate whether or not religious faith can ever be based on deductive proof, and it is presumptuous to ignore these debates. Because this article is 1) specifically about religious faith, 2) is not a completely general definition page, and 3) controversy remains about the question of proof in the context of religious faith, it seems most appropriate to focus on the clearly applicable definition of faith as trust.Jj1236 (talk) 08:03, 28 December 2011 (UTC)