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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Driddle" data-source="post: 2363838" data-attributes="member: 3447">Faith, in the sense used for discussing matters theological, is what a person bases his belief on sans evidence. If you've got evidence of gawd's existence, then there's no need for faith.Complicating matters of faith vs. evidence is a funky mental quirk humans have that psychologists call "confirmation bias," which leads us to establish cause-and-effect relationships between all sorts of events even if such links are not justified. For example, I wear red socks and my team wins, I'm convinced that the socks and success are connected in some way. It works the other way, too, though: once a bias has been established ("I pray and good things happen"), the negative outcomes are ignored because they don't fit the bias ("Hnh. I prayed and nothing happened? Must not have prayed hard enough...")What that means is that the layman philosopher will stubbornly maintain that he has seen "evidence" of gawd's existence via prayers and miracles, even though there's no way to track it back to the source.But back to your somewhat misphrased question: Yes, I'd appreciate a relationship with any being that had proven himself by a pattern of positive actions on my behalf. Otherwise, I have to cling to a fervent hope that everything will work out.I've never suggested that faith isn't good. The human spirit needs hope, faith, best wishes, dreams, etc. to thrive. I was just poking a little fun at the wonky situation as we know it in D&D terms.I think it would be fun, and appropriate, if the DM randomly and/or mysteriously refused to grant a cleric PC's request to fulfill prayers. To continue playing under uncertain circumstances? -- THAT would require faith.</blockquote>

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