Faith is the connection between two points that can not be (or at least are not) connected rationally or in a way that can be proven. The “chasm” or “abyss” in which nothing exists which you jump over by “taking a leap of faith”.
- Faith and proof.
Faith, to me, is connecting something (or basing something, though I don’t like that term, mainly because it brings an image of 2 dimension) to something which isn’t proven, understood and/or absolute. Or connecting to something in a way that isn’t proven, absolute and/or understood.
Basically, when you have faith in something, or about something, your actions, your thoughts, your emotions, the things that make up your existence, will be influenced by that faith.
How strong that influence is depends not only on how strongly you believe that thing, but also on how relevant that thing is to your “existence”.
Example :
I have faith that my family loves me. I may or may not have proof for this, if I don’t, it’s a belief, it’s faith.
Because of that belief, I will feel different, act different, see things differently, think thoughts that I would not have thought had this belief not existed or, with regards to thoughts that would have, think them in a way that is different, as if “stained” by that belief (not in a pejorative way).
It will change my attitude when talking to my familly, but it will also change my attitude when talking to anyone related to the concept “familly”, for example, someone who has no familly, who has lost his familly, I will be enclined to feel compassion for that person because (or at least in a way that is influenced by) the faith that I have.
The influence of that faith will be stronger if and according to how the “fact” (so to speak cause it’s not a fact, it’s a belief) that my family loves me is important to me. If it matters to me. How relevant that fact is to anything that I feel, do, think or whatever.
So anything that I believe will have an impact on anything that is directly or even remotely connected to it.
The way I see it, any time you think something which you can not prove, it’s an act of faith, it’s a belief. It does not necessarily have to do with the existence of God or how the universe was created.
The domain of proof by the way, is (until proven otherwise, which I don’t think it ever has been) man made (human made to avoid being sexist).
So anything related to proof exists necessarily in a domain which was “created” by people to begin with.
As in maths, you can prove certain things “If” so and so is defined as and “if” the Domain of definition (Df) is defined as and “if” such and such laws apply.
Example :
skipping the laws etc for need of simplicity :
If a is defined as the length of one side of a right angled triangle.
If b is defined as the other side of a right angled triangle
If c is defined as the length of the side that makes a and b meet
If a right angled triangle is defined as a triangle in which where a and b meet, the angle is 90 degrees
Then I can prove that every time those things are true, a2 + b2 will be equal to c2.
I can prove that, it’s absolute, but “within” that domain.
Because, applying that to reality, how do you define a triangle in reality? If you’re holding one, that’s easy, but a triangle is 2 dimensional. Our world is 4 dimensional maybe more.
So if you see a big triangle on the horizon, can you apply that in the same way and prove it?
In 2 dimensions, two parallel lines never meet.
In 3, they do on the horizon, what is that? An illusion?
edit : in 4, a triangle that exists through time is what? how about a triangle that is close to a black hole? how about that same triangle when the big bang happened? how about that same triangle moving faster than the speed of sound?
You can’t apply 2d laws to 3d let alone 4d (or more) and call them “absolute prooved and true in all cases”.
Site Title 