Faith is a Belief Based on Zero Evidence.

My Thoughts on the Nature of Faith and Evidence

Photo by Matese Fields on Unsplash

“Faith is a belief based on zero evidence.” That’s what a certain person here on Medium just told me. And he’s not alone in these sentiments.

Consider these variations of the same assertion from well-known atheist authors:

• “Where there is evidence, no one speaks of ‘faith’. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.” -Bertrand Russell
• “Faith means not wanting to know what is true.” -Christopher Hitchens
• “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” -Richard Dawkins

All of these assertions are just that — assertions. What’s more, they are assertions based on a “Straw Man” fallacy. They either intentionally or inadvertently misrepresent the nature of faith.

It’s like people outside of a building telling people inside of that building what the inside of that building looks like.

Go to different dictionaries and encyclopedias and you’ll see different definitions of faith, but let’s break it…