I have learned to accept that largely and mostly things are just simply out of my control. There is no despair in that.
Agreed.
Acceptance is the fifth and final stage of grief for those that can get there. It was a few decades ago that I began to suspect that America as I knew it was disappearing and being replaced with something I could neither love nor respect. Initially, I received that I would learning that any loved one was terminally ill - acute grief. Eventually, I came to accept that this was OK. I have also gone through that process with the future of humanity. When I was younger, I was aware that man could self-destruct, but didn't expect it. I still thought that the likeliest future was better than the present. No more. Now I expect man to fail and do terrible damage to himself, other life, and clean environments. Too bad, but I've accepted it, and no longer grieve over it.
I think I might have gotten some of that from my experience with hospice, and the whole idea of accepting reality even if it is that an illness won't be getting better. I would see family members that could not do that dashed emotionally against the rocks every time their loved one lost another step, whereas those accepting the inevitable also suffered, but not in the same way, and not as much.
Without faith life and nature would fall apart. Without faith love, sex, and friendship are dead.
That's incorrect. I can vouch for that personally.
Of course, my definition of faith may not be yours. Look at the assortment of definitions we have seen in this thread, ranging from hope to courage to "the conviction that everything is as it should be." My definition of faith is insufficiently supported belief. You have a belief. Can you demonstrate that it is correct? Then it's not believed by faith. Are you unable to do that? Then you believe by faith. This definition cuts like a hot knife through butter. Any discussion using the word faith is easily resolved.
I should add that I consider holding unjustified belief undesirable in every case, even in those who consider it necessary for coping. It would be better if that could be done without holding insufficiently justified belief as I described above when describing the apparent demise of America and mankind et al.. No "it will all work out" or "It's in God's hands" is necessary. It's OK that there may be no god involved and that things not work out well if that's what's coming.
All men and women of faith have courage, sure.
Where's the courage in faith? Faith is effortless. One chooses what one wants to be true without contemplation or examination.
Here's what takes courage:
Try standing up like the bipedal ape you were born to be, and look out into the universe, which may be almost empty, and which may contain no gods at all. And then face and accept the very real possibility that we may be all there is for light years.
Accept that you may be vulnerable and not watched over.
Accept the likelihood of your own mortality and finititude.
Accept the reality of your insignificance everywhere but earth, and that you might be unloved except by those who know you - people, and maybe a few animals.
Because as far as we know, that's how it is.
Once one has reached this place, religion has nothing to offer unless one is just interested in social standing or fellowship in a religious community. Once faith is rejected as a path to truth, one's worldview then derives from the application of reason to evidence and to one's moral intuitions.
So blind trust in science is just as bad as blind trust in religion.
Blind trust is needed for religion, since there is nothing to observe - no evidence - but not for empiricism. I trust it because it works. Nothing blind there.
