This is a tough one. Faith is a very important and personal topic for a lot of people. And I am no exception. Except for maybe different reasons…I really have a problem with it. Even though faith and trust may at first seem to have the similar belief systems…they do not. The system of trust specifies that evidence is required. I have trust (based on the evidence provided) that the airplane I’m riding in won’t crash because the airplane, the pilot and the overall technology is sound. The system of faith though, by design, specifies that evidence is not required. And this is where I take issue with it. Lets take a look at the same example above. Say we knew absolutely nothing whatsoever of airplanes. Then we are told, that someone just built this 735,000 pound cigar shaped piece of metal, that can fly us to New York from Los Angeles. And then…we are told, that we just have to have faith (without evidence) that it will get us there safely. I don’t know about you, but I sure wouldn’t be taking that first flight. People will say, “What about those times where you didn’t have evidence but you still accepted someones word and that it turned out to be true? Aren’t you taking a leap of faith?” Not really…I’m still trusting them based on set of variables I know about them. It’s not complete evidence, but it’s still “some” evidence. And it also depends on the degree of the possible outcome. To trust someone on whether something tastes good with minimal evidence, is a small risk. But to completely accept anyone’s view without “any” evidence, in my view, is completely insane. Even if the risk is minimal, it still just doesn’t make any sense. Faith asks us to ignore validation and without validation, we have no proof. I think we all can agree, that one of the ultimate pursuits of human existence…is truth. And I personally think, that faith is also asking us to suspend that.