Faith as an attitude is a very high-class attribute, when it is supported with rational local effort, and it serves to provide motivation, generate energy, dispel apathy, instill optimism and new ideas, and hold ambiguities beyond the scope of the present concern at bay. But when it is used as a substitute for looking, as a grounds for fending off the world instead of steering it forward, it is not high-class or spiritual at ll; it is a spiritual insult. It is unfortunate that both of these concepts are forced to wear the same five-letter label as though they were much more similar than they really are.

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