No, John P, faith is not antithetical to rational thought. Faith is simply a form of trust in someone or something. Faith is also something you may go on when you haven't YET got any definite proof for or against something...so you go on your gut feeling.   It may well move in concert WITH rational thought and it usually does.

It is only when faith in someone or something contradicts rational thought (which is based on logic and evidence) that faith is antithetical to rational thought. Such blind faith can be seen in certain kinds of extremists, fundamentalists, political fanatics, and fanatics of very kind.

Most spiritually inclined people are just as capable of rational thought as you are, John P, they use it just as much as you do, and your inability to grasp that indicates that your own uses of rational thought are far more limited by your prejudices than you imagine they are.

Your definition of the word "faith" is also far too narrow. I suspect you think that it ONLY applies to religious beliefs. It doesn't. It applies to anything whatsoever that a person has confidence in, and that confidence is usually a result of a number of things:

- familiarity
- past experience
- rational thought
- emotional habits
- social customs
- what your parents told you
- what your teachers told you
- what your government told you
- what the books you read told you
- what your friends told you
- what your culture told you
- what your doctor told you
- what "the news" told you
- what your psychiatrist told you
- what your pastor told you
- AND what you figured out for yourself

In short, John, your definition of the word "faith" is so utterly narrow that it could probably be fit through the eye of a needle. But a camel can't. ;-) Nor can your predudices. They're too broad.