I’d like to pose a few questions to religious people who express that their beliefs require faith and not empirical evidence:
How did you select your particular faith? What standards do you apply to a faith before you select it, since it doesn’t necessarily have to correlate with the observed world? How many different faiths did you evaluate before you selected the one you follow?
Paul Yeah
Well, if you want to select Orthodox Judaism, be aware that the cost of crockery is quite high.
When I was younger, I always said that I would found a church with Laz-e-boys and huge televisions. I never really laid down any tenet of faith. I could never get past the idea of watching porn in church.
Assuming you want a straight answer . . .
I have to quibble ever so slightly with terming it as “selecting a faith.” Faith, to me, is the mechanism by which I believe; it is not the particular things that I do believe. That said, I recognize that religions are often referred to as “faiths,” but I wanted to point out what is to me an important distinction.
Having thought about it a bit, I guess my personal requirements for my religion are that it not contradict in any way the dictates of my conscience, and that it not require me to refrain from using the sense and brains that God gave me (for example, demanding instead blind allegience in the name of “faith”). The reason for this is that I believe God endowed me with my faith (the ability to believe), my conscience, and my brain, and I don’t believe he would expect me to ignore any of them. Therefore, any religion that does ask me to ignore them is not the religion for me.
For this reason, the distinction I draw in my own life is not so much Christian/ Muslim/ Jew/ etc. as it is extremist/moderate. I could see myself being a moderate yet true-believing adherent of a number of religions, had I been raised differently, but I can’t imagine being an extremist under any circumstances.
I am, by up-bringing, a Christian. Having examined other religions, I have decided to remain a Christian as I think it’s the best fit for me. I was confirmed into the Congregational church as a teenager, and am currently a member of the Methodist church – both nice, moderate, middle-of-the-road denominations.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
I think the question might be a moot point. Most people don’t CHOOSE a faith; their parents give it to them, and they stick with it because they’ve always been taugh that it’s the truth, and the only truth.
Oh, no - many of my friends “shopped around” when they got to an age when they started to question their upbringing. Some stayed within their faith (i.e., Christian), but found a different outlet for it (i.e., Baptist to Methodist).
Me, I was raised Methodist, but I’m feeling much better now… 
(I’m now Unitarian Universalist.)
Esprix