What is Faith?

Since there are many definitions of faith, first of all, I want to make clear that in this post I will use this word in religious way. There are two kinds of religious faith: objective (the objects of faith) and subjective (the act of believing).

Objective faith includes doctrines of a certain religious system and the contents that an adept of this religious system should believe in, that is, certain concepts of God, mankind, universe, angels, Satan, and so on.

Subjective faith is the person's act of believing. Of course, objective and subjective faith are related because subjective faith is the act of believing in the objects of objective faith.

By the time I left the cult, I completely lost my faith which, of course, means that I lost ability to believe. I know that some other ex-members of mind-controlling Bible-based cults had a similar experience. For quite a long time, I felt disappointed that I was unable to believe without any reasonings and doubts as I used to do. Then, I read something that really encouraged me.

There are two kinds of faith. The first is when you believe just because you follow what somebody tells you to believe. This is the imitative faith, and it is promoted in cults and cultic churches. The second is when you had your own considerations, examined pros and contras, and made your own conclusions. This is the reasonable faith. Actually, the second kind of faith is considered to be higher and more matured.

I realized that I do not want to just follow others. I want to consider and examine everything and make my own conclusions before believing in something. This means that I do not want to have just an imitative faith, but I want to have a reasonable faith.