Brian asked:

What is religious belief from the perspective of philosophy? Is faith rational? What is the relationship
of faith to human life?

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The answer you get is apt to differ from philosopher to philosopher, since religion is an emotional
topic.

It seems to me that religious belief should be thought of as similar to all other beliefs (although, of
course, important to those who have it). This leads me to your second question, is faith rational? Faith
seems to me just a kind of belief, although, no doubt very fervent belief. It is, therefore, not an
alternativeto belief, but like all beliefs, it needs reasons for it to be a rational belief. It seems to me a
bad error to say something like, "I don't need reason because I believe 'on faith'." That treats faith as
a kind of reason, when, in fact, it isn't. It (to repeat) needs reasons. So, to say "I believe on faith (or
worse 'on the grounds of faith')" is only to say, "I believe because I believe." So faith (or religious
belief) is not rational on its own. It is rational only if it is backed up by reasons.

Sometimes, faith is identified with revelation: direct communication with God. The philosopher, John
Locke, pointed out that even if we accept (as he thought we must) that revelation is true, since it is
the direct word of God, nevertheless we have to determine whether what we believeis a revelation
really is a revelation and not, perhaps, from the Devil, or because we are under the influence of some
drug. And the only way to decide that is by reason. So even in the case of revelation, reason trumps
faith.

Kenneth Stern