An Atheist's Argument For Faith

Now, I've spent a good amount of space on my blog defending atheism/science, and arguing against most premises of religion, if not all of it. Though I would like to attempt to defend the idea of faith. Now, I'm sure most you rationalists are thinking, wow, this guy is a mormon, and those of you on the religious right are going to be likely be conjuring some plan to quote me out of context. Those who are moderates, are probably thinking... well, I don't really know what you're thinking.

Now, in recent times religion seems to have hijacked the word faith (they're quite good at that). It seems to have been made some kind of religious virtue to have, and is looked down on by rationalists, atheists, scientists, and so on and so forth.

I would however like to say that it is a very important aspect, and that most of us, to some degree have faith. Heck, I've been an atheist for as long as I can remember. (Course I kept it a secret for a very long time, didn't quite feel like being outcast just yet, though I must say I lucked out in that my family and many of my friends didn't go crazy and stop talking to me, thank Athena for making them all reasonable).

Anyway, back to the topic of faith. I always thought of the word as a type of trust in matters of uncertainty. Not always really a bad thing, and often a necessary stepping stone. For example, when I got my first guitar, I was absolutely terrible. I didn't know anything about guitars (except that they sounded really cool) and that I had nearly failed a guitar class in jr. high.  I had faith (a type of blind trust in myself) that I could in fact learn how to play guitar, and be good at it. It's taken about 5 years but I'm finally a decent player, still have a ways to go, but I likely won't make your ears bleed. The thing is that faith can be a "secular" word, and it can be a very important stepping stone in order to further yourself in situations where there is uncertainty. I still think it's stupid to think that you're right because you have faith, and that it is the pillar of truth, but it is a stepping stone. Let's not throw it away completely.   

Tl;dr  Faith isn't really such a bad thing, as long as it's used as a launching point for gathering evidence, not the verdict.

PS: Like I said before, don't quote me out of context.

Homeopathy: Why it better not be right.

So an interesting thought occurred to me. Given that we live in a age where some people consider alternate medicine to actually work (granted it can have a placebo effect, but that proves that placebo works not the actual alternate medicine) I mean, if it actually worked, then it would be medicine.

Anyway back to the business of homeopathy.

These homeopaths claim that even though the water they sell has no amount of the active ingredient in it, it takes on the properties of whatever the ingredient was in the water to begin with, and since water it all magic and stuff, even after that ingredient is gone it still somehow remembers it. So can you even imagine how much nasty stuff has been in water over just the past few million years. Think of all the fecal matter, and carcasses, not to mention all the doings of marine life, coupled with pollution and chemicals and what not. So the water you drink supposedly can remember and holds the properties of all this nasty junk.

Think about that the next time you consider listening to a homeopath. (Also think about how there is no scientific proof in favor of the mumbo jumbo "medicines")

On a side note, I just had an awesome idea for a business.
I could sell flavored water, that had "medicinal properties" and my products tagline would be. "Like Homeopathy: but with better taste!"