From what I can see, faith (misguided or not) does give a lot of people the courage and reason to do helpful things in this world. Sure, bad things have also happened, but then, no worldview is exempt from that.
Faith in what, however? The term need not be used in wild abandon as peil is apt to do. Sure, optimism makes the world go round, but unmitigated optimism? And if faith in a benevolent god is not unmitigated, wide-eyed optimism, then what is?
"The very concept of faith is an insult to human intelligence. If you take something on faith, you are in effect saying, "I don't need evidence, facts, or logic. Evidence is worthless, facts are for ninnies, logic is nonsense. I'll believe whatever I want even if reality overwhelmingly shows that it's just not true."
I'm "accidentally" (thanks to my wife) in contact with a lot of Christians, and I have yet to see one that is living The Imitation of Christ, so to speak. They are all more or less practical people.
in many ways those who defer to faith lack courage because they fear that if they examined the evidence it would lead to unplesant conclusions that they dont want to face. therefore it is easier to bury your head in the sand of faith.
There is no easier way to avoid courageous behavior than to analyze all the facts and be reasonable about them.
do you want to fly in a plane with a pilot who just faithfully hops into a plane and takes off or one who goes through his preflight checklist and analyzes the facts about the safety of the plane?
Don't try to make me the extremist. The pre-flight checklist is a subset of all the parts and systems that could be checked. For the rest, there is a reasonable expectation of performance, but no guarantee.
just trying to get you to think it through. you said that faithful people are more courageous. is courage without thinking a good thing?