Which is stronger: Fact or Faith?

Faith... jk

Fact

Facts are stronger than faith. But the problem is when some facts lead to some things YOU can't explain. That's when faith comes in. In a religion, a person might see a fact. This fact might lead him to "know" that all of that religion is a fact. Faith comes to support the facts that are part of the religion when they are unexplainable, based on the person's belief that every part of the religion is a fact. For example, Christians might see some prophecies in the bible that had come true. These are the facts that make them "know" that Christianity is the truth. Muslims, like me, see the literary, numerical, and prophetic miracles in the Qur'an. Based on that fact we see another thing, which is that the Qur'an must have been written by God. Based on that we believe that all the facts in the Qur'an are true, because it has been written by God. Sometimes we don't understand them, that's when faith comes in.

That's like asking, "Which is rounder, three or iron?"

Many facts are unknown (and historically many *more* have been unknown). Unknown facts have little "strength" with regard to human perception. Take, for example, the age of the oldest star in the Andromeda galaxy. How "strong" is that fact? How "strong" is the fact of the age of our own star, the Sun? Does it matter? Yet other facts - like gravity - have a very powerful affect on our lives whether or not the fact is known.

We cannot measure the strength of faith. Besides, faith varies from person to person. If faith *does* have strength, obviously one person's "strength of faith" is bound to be very different from another's.

So the answer to your question is subjective in the best of circumstances, and something that *cannot* be measured. Different facts have different "strength". Presumably, different faiths also. There is no scale against which the strength of the two can be compared.

Jim, http://www.bible-reviews.com/

Faith precedes fact (i.e. a Hypothesis) and for those questions that have no answers, faith is the strongest.

However not all questions are unanswered and as a physics student I'm inclined to believe that facts are stronger when they are applicable.

It's when we extrapolate on the facts and claim such conjectures as fact that they become faith and the argument becomes moot.

I think there are arguments for both fact and faith, and many of the other answer-ers have made them.

However, it seems that faith relies on facts (or facts that have not yet been proven as facts), like the existence of God, the spiritual realms, etc. For a Christian to have faith, there must be the fact of a mind, the fact of thought, the fact of a promise to be fulfilled, the fact of the existence of God, the fact of the nature of God, the fact of the answer to the prayer.

It seems faith is based on facts (currently known or too-be known later). One could argue that non-proven facts are in fact not facts at all. I would agree that they are not accepted facts yet. But a fact is a fact whether we know it or not (the world is round and not flat, for example).

Ultimately though', there must be facts to back up faith (they either really exist or really don't).

So, my vote is for facts.

Fact

Fact

It really depends what you mean with "stronger"?

If you mean stronger as in, which one can make people do things, it's obviously faith. Sounds dumb, but here's an example:

Lets take prayer as an example. There has been several studies in different universities that prove that praying does not work. I can almost guarantee you even if every single religious person on the planet saw those studies and the facts were shown to them, they would still keep praying. Why? Faith; thats why.

Fact; faith only exists inside the mind and that's where it fails.

Fact.

In fact, fact. But many people have faith that the answer is faith.