My thoughts on the notion of Faith.
What is faith? The best definition I have been able to come up with is this:
Faith is believing something to a degree of certainty which exceeds that warranted by the available evidence.
Faith is not a virtue, it is a vice.
If you convince yourself to be more certain of something than the evidence warrants, less doubtful than you really should be given what information you have, who are you fooling, except yourself? Faith is inherently, and inescapably dishonest.
Some may object, saying, "We all use faith." Supposing for a moment that this is true, that we all use faith, this does not make faith a good thing, or acceptable, or honest, or a virtue. At least I recognize faith for what it is, a vice, and strive to minimize it and eliminate it my reasoning. I don't try to convince others that faith is some sort of virtue, and that lack of faith is some sort of failing. Succumbing to the fear and peer pressure brought to bear and allowing yourself to be convinced that faith is a virtue without ever thinking to ask why you should suppose faith to be a virtue, that is the failing. Lack of faith is the virtue. Faith is the con man's greatest invention.
Further, if a person tries to justify his own use of faith by pointing out the use of faith by others indicates to me that that person, deep down, knows that there is something wrong with faith. For instance, creationists often accuse people who think the best explanation of the complexity and diversity of life is the theory of evolution of using faith to arrive at this conclusion, a conclusion with which they vehemently disagree. So, if evolutionary scientists are using faith according to the creationists, what is their point? That faith doesn't work, and is not a good way to arrive at a conclusion? Ok. (And of course it's ridiculous to suppose that evolutionary science is based on faith, there is 150 years worth of evidence, there are literal actual mountains formed out of material evidence for evolution.)
1 out of 3 people consider themselves to be a Christian, and hold by faith that Christianity is "correct," and have faith that everyone else is wrong. The remaining 2/3rds think the Christians are wrong. The Christians are the largest single group believing "the same thing." (ignoring Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox divisions, significant though they may be). If everyone does use faith to reach some conclusion, it is clear that faith fails to deliver the correct answer. In the best case scenario for faith, two out of three times faith gives the wrong answer. Clearly faith is not a good way of finding out what is true.
Equivocation. I can't tell you how many times I've been told things like: "You have faith the sun will come up," or "you have faith the chair you're sitting on will hold you up," or "Love requires faith." By my definition of faith, the available evidence for these things is plenty to warrant the level of certainty to which I believe these things.
Being asked to have faith is an insult. You are presented with an absurd proposition (usually when you are a child) and told that good people believe this, and bad people don't believe it, and that you'd better believe it, or else, when you die, you will be tortured in flames for all eternity. When you ask for evidence that such outlandish claims are true, you're told you shouldn't ask for evidence, but just have faith. Well, that is insulting. Just how dumb do you think I am? You'd have to be retarded to accept such absurd claims without any evidence. Yet this is what many believe, and expect others to find "reasonable."
So faith is not a virtue, faith is dishonest, unacceptable, and an insult to humanity. Faith is the conscious rejection of reason in favor of nonsense. If you think faith is a good idea, you are not an ethical, nor very bright* person, in my judgement..
I add "nor very bright," because if you disagree, and think that faith is a good idea, then you must argue that believing arbitrary things to a degree of certainty exceeding that warranted by the available evidence is somehow a good way of arriving at truth. If you argue that, then sorry, you are a moron.