Young women values part 1: Faith

"Faith is belief in things which are not seen, but which are true." --Bible dictionary

In my college class, I taught freshmen about begging the question. Contrary to popular belief, it does not mean "it's as if the issue is begging us to ask this question!" It means a circular logic, a conclusion inherent in one or more of the premises.

I remember sitting in my mia maid class, discussing faith. The teacher said that we could not have faith in things like UFOs, because it's simply not true. Faith is belief in things which are not seen, but which are true. I tried to argue that if UFO fanatics believed it was true, than it was still faith. My teacher was a bit upset with me as I argued the definition, and she assured me that faith can only be in true invisible things, like god.

We also discussed how we could not have faith if we had a perfect knowledge. The prophets no longer had faith in god because they had a personal knowledge of him. I was also told on a number of occasions that the reason there is not incontrovertible proof for the Book of Mormon is because then god would take away faith from us. It is necessary for us to believe WITHOUT that knowledge. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed." The act of faith without knowledge is necessary for our salvation, a kind of benevolent gnosticism.

Faith is belief in things which are not seen, things like history, things like the testimony of others. Faith that Joseph Smith is a prophet, faith that the Book of Mormon is true. These are the two most important cornerstones of our religion. Invisible but true. The problem is the church asks more: belief in things which are not seen and demonstrably false. The Book of Mormon can be proven false on several different fronts, linguistic, historical, biological. Joseph Smith has been proven dishonest, misleading, and self-serving. So, faith is irrational belief in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.