Under the buckle on the bible belt, little hawk!
My dead dad visited both his eldest daughter, and his namesake grandchild, after his death. I don't disbelieve either occurrence - I just think the experience came from the heads of my sisters rather than From Beyond.
Also, LH, you say "The FIRST thing I do and always have done IS to draw intelligent conclusions...I begin to have faith in something or someone AFTER doing all of the the above. First I observe, I gather all the information I can, then I think about it all thoroughly, then I may move to a level which can be termed "having faith". - again - use the dictionary if you have to- if it's a rational conclusion then *it* *is* *not* *faith* and so I am not arguing against it.
But it wasn't my losing my teaching job (and another job, actually, I have lost 2 to coming out) that gets my goat - it's the way that religion has pervaded the American school system so that it's practically (I mean practically, not almost) impossible to raise freethinking children.
What I mind about the faith thing is people claiming to have rational reasons for their faith. Again, if it's a conclusion, it isn't faith. It bugs me especially that many people THINK they are drawing conclusion from evidence, when they aren't. They are instead concluding *from something that isn't evidence* --and so they are back to taking whatever it was, on faith. I don't mind people with faith admitting that there is no rational reason for their beliefs. I mind them claiming that there ARE rational reasons that are based on evidence, when no such actual evidence exists.