The major idea of this section is faith and Faith. Secular faith is complete trust, loyalty, and allegiance in or to something. Such faith is a risk, but it is a "calculated risk". Before we develop faith in something, thus placing complete trust in it, we must determine the risks involved. We must consider all the possibilites, and determine whether faith outweighs the risk involved. Calculated risk helps use to choose our faiths wisely and for good purpose. Furthermore, everyone has faith and uses faith. However, people must choose what to put faith in to. When we put our faith into positive and worthwhile things, we put our faith in the "right place' and are able to pursue a good life. Religous Faith is defined as "an intellectual assent to a loving God and His revelation. By possessing Faith, we are deeply committed to God and doing His work on earth despite any difficulties we encounter. Both Faith and faith have many components and requirements, such as grace, free human response, riskiness, reason, certainty, understanding, and virtue. Faith in God is a grace that God bestows on us, for He wants us to trust Him and be with Him. However, in both Faith and faith, we must respond to and accept an invitation to faith/Faith using our free will. Faith/faith is also a risk because there is no certain future and we do not know what the affects of our Faith/faith will be. Furthormore, we must use reason to guide our Faith/faith so that we can determine the right path to follow and calculate risks well. A goal of Faith/faith is understanding. When we put faith in something or Faith is God, we are hoping to establish a relationship and understnad the opposite so that we may grow in our faith/Faith. Finally, Faith and faith are virtues, for they establish goodness, righteousness, and moral excellence that we can only acquire with practice and patience. Faith also is a biblical idea. Faith is not completely related to intellect, but it is more based on love and trust. Faith does consist of doubt and stuggle at times, as well as risks and "darkness. Also, Faith is a constant chain of decisions, which either hinder or develop our faith.Finally, despite the many approaches to religion or life, we must know that faith is the best way to approach, for faith/Faith are beliefs and reason incorporated in one another, and neither is lacking.

Three Main Ideas From This Section

1) First of all, I want to remember the differences between Faith and faith. Lowercase "f" faith is the belief or trust in someone or something. We can put our faith in anything or anyone we trust and believe in. While uppercase "F" Faith is the total belief in God. Only a small difference, but it is a key difference that we need to remember when discovering our own personal faiths.

2) Faith: The Golden Way - The idea that Faith is a middle road between pure reason and pure belief is an important idea. The book first explains the ideas of having pure reason. These people are called nihilists because they believe that nothing (nihil) is certain in the world. They believe there is neither absolute truth nor absolute anything. Also, there are people called radicals who believe things without the proper reasoning to support it. It is dangerous being a radical because the blind obedience to a cause can lead to devastation. Faith is a happy medium of these two ideas. Faith supports reason and thinking, but it also supports beliefs and believing in things as well.

3) Another major point of discussion in this section was that if a suicide bomber in Iraq, who gave TIME Magazine an interview, was a man of faith/Faith. This question can be approached a couple different ways. One way is considering our definition of Faith and faith and to also consider that faith is based on trust and belief. If we consider this, then he is obviously a man of tremendous faith. He has complete trust in his superiors that they will give him an appropriate mission, and he will willingly do it, even if it wasn't the mission that he wanted. He believes that he is truly doing the will of Allah in trying to kill as many infidels as possible by sacrificing his own life. However, if we consider other aspects of faith, we might see that he is more brainwashed than faithful. Marwan said that he was completely ready for what he had to do, but we say that faith involves periods of darkness, doubt, and it is a struggle we have to deal with. He seemed completely confident that he was doing the right thing in giving his life. If we take this approach, he might not have as much faith as it seems.

Dick Hoyt and his son.
http://www.fathers.com/todaysfather/2002-2003/snapshots.htm

One Good Question.
Am I focusing my faiths/Faith correctly in my life?

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