On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:11:11 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Just for the sake of argument, show me any case where blind faith that
> something is true has every turned out to be right, save by pure
> accident,

I do believe this is an unwinnable argument, though - if someone shows an 
example of "blind faith", the obvious counter is "well, that was an 
accident".

I am probably best described as emphatically non-religious, but I do have 
a certain set of beliefs that could be described as "faith".  I have 
faith, for example, that for me things will work out even when it looks 
like they're not.  Consistently that has been my experience; I lost a 
job, was unemployed for a period of months (4 IIRC), and I landed a much 
better job than the one I lost (it's debatable whether I resigned or was 
fired, but ultimately it matters very little).

Now, was it "blind faith" that I had that things would work out and that 
I wouldn't lose my house?  Probably not - I didn't sit and wait for 
something to land in my lap, but rather after a couple weeks started 
trying to find something.  The connections I made over that time were not 
expected, and I probably wouldn't have gotten the job if I'd applied 
directly for it instead of the way I did (but of course we'll never know 
if that's the case or not).  For me, that was a sort of faith that things 
will work out better in the end.  It took longer than I would've liked, 
but the end result was a positive outcome.

Someone once said "the harder I work, the luckier I am" (or something to 
that effect).  There's an element of truth in that - so maybe instead, my 
"faith" as it were, is that when the chips are down, I'm going to do 
what's necessary to make things better.

Is self-faith blind?  I dunno; maybe not blind per se, but it is 
certainly coloured by one's experiences.

Jim

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