Pope Francis calls for flexibility, patience as he opens talks on church teaching

[MellowDem]

44. I don't have a narrow definition of religion...

My experience has nothing to do with why I think religion is bad. You don't dispute that religion is based on faith, so I'm not sure why you're attacking my definition of it. It's commonly understood and accepted. Religion is not complex or deep. Far from it. It's as shallow as it gets. It's just also massively privileged as a system of thought.

I don't think I am in the extreme. Most religious people don't follow their own faith, much less believe it, and for good reason. They'll allow themselves to believe the vaguest notions about the supernatural. One that conforms to their values. Makes it easier to survive in reality.

Where I'm in the minority is being open and honest about faith being bad. But that's changing quickly as well.

When you say you're not religious, but you "believe in faith", I don't know what that means.

There's a big difference between making tough decisions or taking a risk and faith. The faith you're talking about has nothing to do with religious faith, which is why you aren't religious. Trusting people through experience or yourself is not done without evidence, actually, it's impossible. You are going off of evidence and experience. Religion is nothing like that at all. Religion is an assumption with nothing to back it up. Trust in people or yourself is not.

Religious faith is nothing like the faith you speak of. Such is the confusion of the definition and uses of words. Calling trust faith makes no sense IMHO, though I know that it is often used that way. People put their trust in things based on all evidence available. That's not faith, that's thinking and reasoning.

So you have not defended religious faith in any way. In fact, you have no religious faith yourself, probably for the exact same reasons I don't. If you want to defend religious faith, defend religious faith, not your personal trust in others, which is neither here nor there.