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Faith vs Hope

While investigating further in to the existence of God, I came across these definitions of Faith and Hope from Wikipedia.

Faith is a belief, trust, or confidence, not based merely on logic, reason, or empirical data, but based fundamentally on volition often associated with a transpersonal relationship with God, a higher power, a person, elements of nature, and/or a perception of the human race as a whole. Faith can be placed in a person, inanimate object, state of affairs, proposition or body of propositions such as a religious creed.

Hope is an emotional belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life. Hope implies a certain amount of perseverance — ie. believing that a positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary.

I like to think I have the Hope piece down, but the Faith piece is where I tend to fall short. If you are on your own investigation, I encourage you to read through the Wikipedia articles on Hope and Faith as they are pretty interesting. I’ve only quoted a very tiny piece of the overall articles here. Just click on the words Faith or Hope in the first sentence of this post.

Thanks to the reader that put the idea of Hope vs Faith in to my head.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 at 10:33 am and is filed under Personal, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Carrier_aviator
    By faith we begin, ... Through hope we continue.
  • Scott Baker
    Mike, not to stroke you, but you are by far the smartest computing technologist I know. So I can understand why you would lean towards scientific explanations.

    Most scientists would agree that one of greatest, if not thee greatest scientific undertaking of all time is the mapping and sequencing of all the human DNA (Human Genome Project). An early pioneer in unlocking DNA secrets and the resercher steering the Human Genome Project from its inception is Dr. Francis Collins. His research has led to the identification of genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and Hutchison-Gilford progeria syndrome.

    Collins released a book about his journey towards faith as an non-believer, atheist, agnostic. The book is titled "The Language of God" and combines a personal account of Collins's faith, with discussions on the topics of science and spirituality. Since most folks leaning towards scentific explanation like to build upon the kowledge of others, I though this might be some information you'd like to read on your journey. Let me know if I an give you a copy.
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