yanbu to think it, OP. Tbh I am quite convinced that if I did not have the faith I have I would be utterly scornful towards those with faith, because from the outside it looks a load of bunkum.
However, I do have that faith, and in a pretty big way. There is not much I can say beyond that on a thread like this though; I cannot qualify it with proof. I could offer many anecdotes, personal and otherwise; but as someone further up the thread yet these are seen as a shaky kind of evidence. Even if I tell about a friend who has been healed and medically proved to be this cannot be taken as a kind of proof because it's still only word of mouth, and only word of mouth from some random mad delduded woman on the internet.
So not much I can say, but thought I would join in anyway on the side of the deluded. We is not all fick as two short planks, and many of us have studied and thought through it all in a lot of depth, and still come up with the faith thing.
Riven, you make a lot of sense, as ever.
One more thing though and this will doubtless settle me in many minds as the resident nutter. To all of you making statements such as 'faith is ok as long as they are quiet about it and don't shove it at others' (or similar)....well, thing is, if my faith was so lukewarm as to support that kind of view, what would be the blardy point of it all? I'd prefer to be completely athiest than just believe in something 'to make me feel happy' but not think its importance worth talking about.
I'm not saying I'm a manic street preacher; but only that I am so very convinced and sure in what I believe that I think it would be wrong of me not to say stuff, if the opportunity arose. OK, not to shove it at people who simply don't want to hear or discuss, but at least to live my life in a way that supports what I believe, and to share that if it seems right/Ok to. Iyswim.