Talk:Faith

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

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?

- Part of the problem with "religious definitions" is that religious definitions are often misleading, biased, wrong and even reversed.Jmv2009 (talk) 10:23, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

"religious definitions are often misleading, biased, wrong and even reversed." Regarding a topic that has largely to do with religion, this statement is biased and makes no sense. Why even have articles about faith and religion if you will not even represent them accurately? I think there are many ant-religious editors here under the false pretense of neutrality. For example: supporting their own opinions with a secondary source and then claiming "it is a fact that it is their opinion". That is ludicrous. You are just finding what you are seeking, from your own point of view, and putting it on the page, making it seem authoritative because it is some published source. Enscion (talk) 17:41, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Faith as commitment[edit]

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[edit]

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!

It is ignorant and inaccurate to say "Faith itself is not a religious concept in Sikhism." There are many hundreds of references to faith in the main Sikh scripture, the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Please research and correct accordingly! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.183.74 (talk) 05:56, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Definition of faith based on the source, or your own opinion?[edit]

Is faith being defined based on the source or people's own opinions? Does neutral mean your own conception of neutrality (which might mean not having faith) or neutrality based on the adherence to the policy of no original research, which means you should accurately convey what you are sourcing. It is questionable here. No original research means finding the most accurate source, not utilizing secondary opinions to support your own. Don't you agree? Enscion (talk) 16:29, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Problems with the single-mindedness of this page[edit]

Faith itself does not have a single definition. However, in a recent "reversion" (but you could also call it an edit-warrior's attack) they tried to combine multiple definitions of faith into one. Faith can mean a Religion, but that comes from the act of faith itself. The article tends more toward the act itself, and furthermore, combining separate dictionary entries into one overall definition is a distortion of the truth if you don't know what you are doing (which is true). Enscion (talk) 16:45, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

combining separate dictionary entries into one overall definition is a distortion Yes, I agree. But it is equally inappropriate to cherry-pick an extract of one individual dictionary definition – "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion" is a very very narrow definition taken from one of the less relevant dictionaries. Why have a dictionary definition there at all? In addition, the final part of the last sentence of the lede is pretty questionable – "others who are more skeptical of religion tend to think of faith as simply belief without evidence", sourced to a piece by Bertrand Russell... I will not deny that Russell's writings are always well worth reading, but here, his specific definition of religious faith is used to make a claim about a point of view about faith (as a general concept) purportedly held by many millions of people. The lede is a mess, plain and simple. Is the article about faith, or about religious faith? --bonadea contributions talk 18:51, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree it is a mess. Well as it appears you agree that faith can be interpreted in more than one way, the place that I edited was where it was referring specifically to religious faith (in God, gods, Buddha, religious teachings, doctrine or so on and not to offend anyone) as opposed to the idea of "good faith" or "faith in you" which lends itself more to the idea of having confidence one person to another, or to some thing, and aligns with the first entry in the source. And I was only trying to fix one part at that moment before it was reverted to the synthesized version. As for the Russell quote, which I never modified, I don't know about the viability of providing a critique of Faith itself when it is just out of the gates trying to define it. That seems to jump to conclusions to quickly. So first maybe it should be made clear whether or not this article is focusing on faith in general, or religious faith, and emphasis placed accordingly as it is such a broad subject. --enscion Enscion (talk) 19:55, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Just one more thing, I'd like to say, if this entire article is being defined completely in the context of religious faith, it seems redundant or kind of contrarian to refer to people who have faith as "religious people", when the subject is already focused there. Enscion (talk) 20:05, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

The inaccuracy regarding God and religious doctrine[edit]

The source being used to describe religious faith defines them both in concert. To say it is incorrect to use them interchangeably would mean basically claiming the source is incorrect, which would suggest OR.

The comment about "God" not accepting "gods" is also a matter of your own interpretation. The singular does not necessarily exclude the plural and vice-versa.

However, with regards to usage of the specificity of "particular", that explicitly excludes those who have faith in God or various religious teachings but do not belong to a particular religious sect. Furthermore, the source never even used that wording so that again is OR.

Let's be considerate, and be true. Enscion (talk) 17:47, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

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