Faith – against all evidence

Theologists perform all sorts of mental gymnastics (their favourite pastime) to justify faith. They will even claim their faith is based on evidence and reason. This begs the question: “If you have evidence and reason why would you need faith?”

When it comes down to it, faith is what you use when you don’t have evidence – when you have a strong desire to believe something without any supporting evidence, or even in the face of all evidence. This is common not only to religious believers but also to other believers in the “supernatural” or “paranormal.”

Concorde religion

In his book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Daniel C. Dennett contrasts belief in god with ‘belief in belief.’ Some people believe in a god. Some don’t, but they believe that they should believe in a god. Hence ‘belief in belief.’ Dennett discussed this idea, and others from his book, in his talk at the AAI Convention (see video below).