Obama's speech said very little about faith. Sure, he uses the term faith, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that he was simply being diplomatic. How can one have faith if it is not based on anything? Is believing in a compilation of ideas that have been formulated by personal experiences faith? God forbid! Imagine the consequences of a society in which faith was determined by each man's or woman's personal "journey". "Faith" is not faith unless it is substantiated by something. I do believe that true faith requires trust (there is an element of mystery), but what is trusted in must be trustworthy. "Faith" that is blind is not faith at all. It is foolishness. What is Obama's foundation for his faith?

Using your criteria, all religious faith is 'blind', since the only substantiation I have is indeed derived from my personal journey and I can't give, lend or prove it to you or anyone else.

And your faith is the same, whether you like it or not...

A better question: What does it have to do with politics?

NightSwimmer:

A better question: What does it have to do with politics?

Are you kidding? In the last several decades (perhaps forever...), every politician we've selected has been picked based on our faith in their statements.

Most of the time we got the shaft...

I assume most politicans use faith as a way to pander and thus get votes.

While this sounds bad it is actually good. The ones that are true believers, like GWB, are the nut jobs and not trustworthy (since they actually believe this crap).

Well, he obviously has great faith in bullshit and the capacity of the American people to suck up his particular brand in copious quantities liking it well enough to put his ass in the Oval Office long enough for him to kill Israel and get Red Chinese block watches set up with the Nation of Islam's blessing while they set something up akin to Darfur in the States like a small "black hole" that will eventually eat all the infidel white people on the continent leaving a smattering of good Afro-Supremacist Moslems sprinkled generously across the scape to administer the national resources for the benefit of Red China and Toady Satellites like India, SE Asia and East Africa, eventually Japan, Mongolia and Russia east of the Urals.

Dd

"I would not speak nearly so loudly if it was my due to be believed." Montaigne

In a certain sense faith is belief in what cannot be sensibly "said", proven, thought, or known, based on a very particular understanding of the limits of language and thought. It is, by definition, transcendent; but not necessarily 'religious' in the traditional meaning of the word. The brilliant philosopher and logician Ludwig Wittgenstein in his masterwork: TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS sought to define and outline the limits of "saying", in an attempt to clarify and prove that much of the confusion associated with metaphysics and philosophy is a result of attempts to say what cannot be sensibly said. Questions like: WHAT IS FAITH? result from a misunderstanding of these limits. The language of Wittgenstein can be as shockingly simple as it is deep and reads like an odd mixture of humor, poetry, mathematics, and Zen. This is from the last page or two of the Tractatus. I hope that the lines will show up in this post as they appear in the book and as I have copied them here but fear they will be reformatted when they actually appear in this post. If the following lines appear as one jumbled mass then you will have to sort out where the line spaces and indentations belong. In most cases each sentence is an entire paragraph. The numbers correspond to certain groups of sentences.
After each group there is a line space before the next number begins. Here goes:

6.45 The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole.
The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling.

6.5 For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed.
The riddle does not exist.
If a question can be, (sensibly) put al all, then it can also be answered.

6.51 Skepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would doubt where a question cannot be asked.
For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer, and this only where something can be said.

6.52 We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.

6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem.
(Is not this the reason why men to whom after long doubting the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this sense consisted?)

6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.

6.53 The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other-- he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy--but it would be the only strictly correct method.

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

And what does that have to do with his qualifications for office?

The intrusive arrogance of the media and partisan commentators these days, when it comes to the private opinions and beliefs of candidates, never ceases to amaze me.

What's YOUR foundation for faith? Why should we believe YOU when you say you believe?

Sheesh...

Spewing out all that hatred without a pause must really take it out of you, huh?

(shaking head in disbelief)

you loath the Truth coming out.

Dd