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Religious Faith

Decent Essays

Evidence and Religious Faith

Some people believe that evidence and faith are incompatible, that the very idea of faith is that faith is a belief that cannot be proven, so that it does not require evidence. However, evidence and proof are two very different concepts. Scientifically, one can only ever disprove a hypothesis. In other words, while it might be possible to disprove the existence of a god or gods, it would be impossible to eliminate all other variables that might provide support for the existence of god. When one fails to eliminate a hypothesis, one gathers support for a theory, or, evidence. It is this evidence that is frequently the foundation for faith. The philosophical ideal that "faith is trusting in an object or person or belief or concept that you first of all have determined exists or is true via some type of convincing evidence" certainly applies in the religious scenario. After all, people are drawn to various religions because of their own life experiences, and those life experiences provide the evidence that forms the backdrop for their faith. People are compelled to have faith in religions not randomly; a person with one religious faith does axiomatically have that same faith in all other religions. Instead, the person has faith in a particular religion. The fact that people can discriminate between religious belief systems suggests that they use some type of criteria, or evidence, to choose between those religious systems. However, many

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