Why is faith considered by so many people to be a good thing?

Because the opposite of faith is logic and proof - and logic and proof (reason) are the enemy of religion. As soon as people realise that the religion has no valid answers, they no longer have any reason to believe.

Faith is by no means "firm belief in something for which there is no proof". Faith is believing in something without considering logical proof. Faith is neither necessarily at odds with reason, nor is its object necessarily without logical proof and reason. Rather faith is defined by one's motive in belief, not the object of one's belief.

As to your main question, I myself, a firm Christian, have a hard time understanding why faith is "good" and "an admirable quality." I have a hard time rationally justifying this fact which Christianity so fervently praises... but on the other hand, I find something strangely beautiful about strong faith.

"Faith can be used as an excuse to believe any arbitrary thing." Perhaps so, however, the object of faith is not always in logical congruence with reality. I do not place faith in something which I know is logically inconsistent. I could not. So yes, faith can be used as an excuse to believe anything, but if the object of faith can be rationally demonstrated to be inconsistent with itself or reality, then there is no excuse for faith in that object.

"If what you believe has rational basis in evidence or logic, why would you need faith?" Think of it like this. Faith is merely presupposition. Everyone is logically forced to make some presuppositions or other. I presuppose God, an atheist will presuppose logic. The moment someone says that "presupposition is a logical fallacy"(or something suggesting that we shouldn't presuppose), he has just disproved himself. They cannot prove "presupposition is a logical fallacy" without making a presupposition. Try it. It's impossible.

In summary:

Given this understanding of faith, whether or not it is good, it is logically necessary. And to directly answer your question, there need be no rational justification for the statement, "faith is good." Truth does not require rational justification, thus why we are forced to have faith(presuppose). Truth cannot be inconsistent, but that does not imply that it must have rational justification.

Having faith in something which you have not have been given any evidence is ridiculous. you're honestly precise! there is one greater measurement to faith which would be something like, having faith on your theory that Blind faith isn't a good venture. it could purely be so common as having have confidence in the capability of your legs for strolling up and down on a ladder. So while it contains having faith in a Deity which additionally occurs to have a faith alongside with an entourage of customs, ethic, rituals and so on. looking the terrific one or the single that appeals to you will become mandatory.

Ooh you mean like Faith Hill.

If you were in a desparate life or death situation and choosing between having faith things will turn out good or having no faith which would you determine as being a good thing?

Why is it considered by so many people to be a BAD thing? Hateful even? Something to be mocked?

Do you know that medical science finds that people of faith have much better medical outcomes for "some reason"? Whether it be because they are calmer, more hopeful or whatever, they don't know. But it IS a fact.

BTW, you don't understand how it could be defensible? It doesn't HAVE to be defended, certainly not to any human.

You forget...............

People believe because of several reasons.

1. They aren't very bright (sorry, alas, but true)

2. They have been hammered by religion since they were babies, and as well, so were their parents.

3. Lies are comforting, even if they are lies.

In reality, myths of stone age starving goat herders of the stone age substituted for the science of today.... But they had nothing else. We do.

But myths are fragile in the teeth of real science only if you're bright enough to read well, and understand, and have a chance at an education.

In Arab countries, if you as a student are spending about 35% of your time memorizing the Koran, how much is left for real study? Not too much, is there?*

*News story in The Economist a few weeks ago.

I must talk about what the Christians call faith. Roughly speaking, the word faith seems to be used by Christians in two senses or on two levels, and I will take them in turn. In the first sense it means simply belief, accepting or regarding as true the doctrines of Christianity. That is fairly simple. But what does puzzle people, at least it used to puzzle me, is the fact that Christians regard faith in this sense as a virtue. I used to ask how on earth it can be virtue, what is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements?

Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistaken about the goodness or badness of the evidence that would not mean he was a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if he thought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe in spite of it, that would be merely stupid. Well, I think I still take that view. But what I did not see then, and a good many people do not see still, was this. I was assuming that if the human mind once accepts a thing as true it will automatically go on regarding it as true, until some real reason for reconsidering it turns up. In fact, I was assuming that the human mind is completely ruled by reason. But that is not so.

For example, my reason is perfectly convinced by good evidence that anesthetics do not smother me and the properly trained surgeons do not start operating until I am unconscious. But that does not alter the fact that when they have me down on the table and clap their horrible mask over my face, a mere childish panic begins inside me. I start thinking I am going to choke, and I am afraid they will start cutting me up before I am properly under. In other words, I lose my faith in anesthetics. It is not reason that is taking away my faith: On the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.

When you think of it there are lots of instances of this. A man knows, on perfectly good evidence, that a pretty girl of his acquaintance is a lair and cannot keep a secret and ought not to be trusted: But when he finds himself with her his mind loses its faith in that bit of knowledge and he starts thinking, "Perhaps she'll be different this time," and once more makes a fool of himself and tells her something he ought not to have told her. His sense and emotions have destroyed his faith in what he really knows to be true. Or take a boy learning to swim. His reason knows perfectly well than an unsupported human body will not necessarily sink in the water: He has seen dozens of people float and swim.

But the whole question is whether he will be able to go on believing the when the instructor takes away his hand and leaves hum unsupported in the water, or whether he will suddenly cease to believe it and get in a fright and go down. Now just the same thing happens about Christianity. I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it. That is not the point at which faith comes in. But supposing a man's reason once decides that the weight of the evidence is for it. I can tell that a man what is going to happen to him the next few weeks. There will come a moment when there is bad news, or he is in trouble, or is living among a lot of other people who do not believe it, and all at once his emotions will rise up and carry out a sort of blitz on his belief. Or else there will come a moment when he wants a women, or wants to tell a lie, or fells very pleased with himself, or sees a chance of making a little money in some way that is not perfectly fair.

Some moment, in fact, at which it would be very convenient if Christianity were not true. And once again his wishes and desires will carry out a blitz. I am not talking of moments at which and real reasons against Christianity turn up. Those have to be faced and that is a different matter. I am talking about moments when a mere mood rises up against it. Now faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.

For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: But when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why faith is such a necessary virtue: Unless you teach your moods where they get off, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of faith.

Everyone has faith. It is impossible to live without it. We just differ in how we invest it in our lives. Unbelievers have faith that God does not exist. They have no proof of this belief - only faith.

Without faith people perish. Without faith that their theories are worth pursuing, we will live in the stone age. Don't you have faith when driving that you will come back okay?

Biblical faith is supported more and more by knowledge and science as they are catching up. Genesis book of the Bible told us about variation within kind and devolution thousand of years ago. Now variation within species and biological devolution such as mutation (the opposite of evolution) are science, whereas evolution remains in the realm of unproven theory. Note evolution tries to interpret itself as a catch all word because it has no good foundation.

For Christians, their vision and faith include building world peace through goodwill in people (Luke 2:14).

What are you thankful for that the “world” has given? Modern medicine, hospitals, the Red Cross’es from where the Red Crescent’s ensue, mother Teresa’s, modern democracy, YMCA’s, YWCA’s, Salvation Armies, not living as slaves, justice, reverend Harvard universities, and goodwill among people? They are the gifts of Christian world, through the Followers of Christ whom Jesus indwells and lives through.

When we research the written records of history., we will find out that it was Christianity that pervasively spreads the ideology of Agape Love and World Peace (On earth peace through goodwill in people, Luke 2:14), followed by the high quantity and quality of Agape examples by Jesus and His prophets. The world emulates Jesus as long as Christianity has sufficient influence over it. We are witnessing many third world countries grow in peace and prosperity as more and more people follow Jesus and/or His examples. Unfortunately the world will go back to its chaotic natures when Christianity influence diminishes or is removed.

We have seen how brutal the world was/is under all secular atheism and agnosticism such as the Nazi, old communist China, Khmer Rouge, and old communist Russia, resulting in the torture and massacre of hundreds of millions of people. You do not want to be there, don’t you? Better side with Jesus and build world peace.

Everyone needs to have faith in something. I know if I didn't have the faith I have in God, I wouldn't be sitting here today.