What is "Faith"?

Interesting comments everyone.  Thanks for indulging me.  I am always fascinated by others definition of faith.

I agree that faith does not necessarily have to be related to religion, though I do think that many people have come to believe the words are interchangeable. 

To me faith is more than hoping or wishing. It is an inner knowing, a confident expectation in or of something that can't be seen, heard, or felt. Like the sun coming up tomorrow morning. You don't hope or wish that the sun will rise tomorrow; you just know that it will.

Spoken like a true Scarlett, Diana!  Great topic, Btw.

There's the common denominator, Jason, in all "faiths" I think.

Here's something that I read in my daily devotioanal this morning.  The devotional's call God's Word Today," and it's meditations on scripture.  The theme of the June issue is "How Do You Describe Mystery."  The Catholics always talk about the "mystery of faith."  I like the way this particular passage describes the God I have faith in.  The author is Arthur E. Zannoni and the article is called "Imaging God:  How Do We Describe the Indescribable?"

God, the One in whom "we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28), is illusive and breaks all boundaries of mind, heart, and soul.  The axiom that God is always more than anything that can be said about God is always true.  God transcends all languages, ideologies, world religions, and Christian denominations.  God is beyond all genders, metaphors, and sacred texts.  God defies all forms of packaging. This realization develops a healthy sense of wonder about God.  Wonder-filled believers in God do so with the fervor of deep faith in hope of calming the restlessness and ache found in all human hearts.  (emphasis mine).  For "no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him. (I Corinthians 2:9).

For me, that's a pretty good description of what my faith life means to me.

Hi Diana:  Hope you're having a lovely Friday.  I'm off to the stone now, I'm afraid.  If I don't talk to you, have a great weekend.

I do believe in God although I no longer go to church on Sunday. I also have faith in fate (whether this is sent by God I do not know) - I always believe we are shown signs and we should follow them if we can.

Years ago my boss used to drive like an idiot and he overturned the car and walked free. Unfortunately he didn't heed the warning and a year later he overturned his car and got killed. I always try to heed the signs and act on them.

I do try to have faith in human beings although I think that there are fewer and fewer people to have faith in - it is very much a world of being "out for themselves" but there are always the special people to renew our hope and faith when they cross our paths like my dear friends on POE.

You know, I have phenomenal things happen to me all the time to remind me that "God" is listening..and yesterday was no exception. As I watched the storm alert going across the bottom of the TV set, I was worred about my big Oak trees...they are to be an symbol of Truth, the American sense of "freedom" of protection, but these two trees have gotten so big they literally tower over my two story house as if it was an dwarf these days. These wild winds and storms always have me in concern that they will be destroyed, and it is, I always pray for their, if not our protection. so after seeing the first alert, I was battening down the hatches as they say, bringing in the animals, folding up outdoor chairs and I went to get the daily mail out front, when I saw this very older man I'd never seen before, walking with an stick in his hand, much like I do...and I wanted to tell him about the storm, but he just kind of dissapeared somewhere...as I took the mail into the house and came back  I thought afterwards, perhaps he represented the "personaification" that God was indeed listening... that storm last night, an tiny blob of it broke loose about where we live and all we got was an little heavy rain and an brief moment of wind...the worse of it was on both sides of us as it passed over.  The little blob to the north of us, and the main storm cell to the south of us. Kind of short of an miracle wouldn' t you say? Trees otherwise are down all over the place. Temperatures dropped instantly 20 degrees with it passing over also. We were something like 89 degrees and after the front went through it came down to about 69 degrees. My body is in adjustment mode right now. I have some of the most "awesome" days!