Wow, I've hardly had breakfast and we're already onto the nature of the universe and religion. It's going to be a long day....
Faith be it personal or part of an organized religion covers a wide range of human experiences: Love, hate, relationships, self. It's many things to many people. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
One aspect of faith that's always bugged me is when it's used to explain the unknown. From Lightning to games of chance humans have always created Gods, muses, totems, rituals, etc. in an attempt to explain that which baffles us. It seems hard for many people to accept that at the end of the day we humans are basically ignorant hairless apes.
How does time exist? Is the universe finite or infinite? How did the Universe start? I could go on and on.... For many questions, the answer is: we just don't know. We are ignorant. Using religion to plug that hole and offer it as proof of a higher power seems wrong to me.
Even science is not immune to this, I always think back to the
famous comments from Dr. Carl Sagan:
When scientists first looked at Venus through a telescope they saw a featureless sphere. Why? Because it's covered with clouds. What are clouds made of? Water. Thicker clouds means more water. More water in the clouds means more water on earth. What's very wet? A swamp. Dinosaurs lived in swaps.
Observation: I can't see anything, Conclusion: Dinosaurs!