On the subject of faith (#824)

Faith can be found everywhere. I have faith that my body will move when I get up without even thinking about it because it does every time I have tried in the past. I have faith that the sun will rise when it does even though I know the science behind it dictates it will, regardless of whether I have the faith that it will. I do not need a religion to know that faith in something will give me hope. Let us be sure not to confuse faith with expectation. Faith is my understanding that a possibility exists that something may happen. Expectation is my hope that something will happen and I have conditions on it doing so. Sometimes I push my faith to the outer edges by using a belief that it will occur but that is excessive hopefulness on my part. Now and again I do realize some great hope achieved and have given my faith, that it would occur, more credit than I should have since other actions beyond my control had to come into play for the achievement of a hope to happen. Here is the crossroads I was hoping to get at with this post. Religion relies on faith, as a crucial ingredient of it's sustainability. My point is that faith can also exist outside the doctrines of religion. It can manifest itself in almost any daily circumstance dependent upon it's user's purpose. I do not spend all my time precisely in the present moment of time and as such I use faith to allow me to move out a bit ahead into the future as to planning and otherwise thinking thoughts. The faith I naturally exhibit is that I can come back into the perfect present moment without any fear that it would not be there for me when I did. Faith in the unknown and it's eventual knowing is another fine example of how I use faith outside the contours of a belief system. I am not condoning religion for anyone one way or the other but what I am condoning is the right and proper thought that faith on it's own, is a tool for anyone to use despite it's historical relation to religion.