Faith in an Idea

For John, BLUF:  What does "faith" provide us?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Over at The Washington Examiner we have Political Analyst Michael Barone comparing believers in "Global Warming" (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) to religious believers, even talking about the Millerites.

This, of course, raises the question of the degree to which religious faith represents a psychological coping method when someone, or some group of people, face larger background stressful situations.  In class last evening (Sociology of Religion) the Professor said that at some point in the semester we will have to define religion, to describe it.

Any thoughts?

Regards  —  Cliff