I was sitting in my Religion and Popular Culture lecture tonight and the prof was making a point about how everyone has faith in something.

Basically he started with the 'big' things (i.e. faith in gOD) and moved down to less and less 'big' things (i.e. faith in self, faith in others, faith in bus driver not to crash). And finally he closed by saying that we even have faith in simple things, like a lightswitch and its connection to the lights turning on and off.

Ame made a similar point in the "Faith" thread recently.

He seemed rather pleased with himself, but I was left with this thought:

We don't have 'faith' that a lightswitch will turn on a light, we 'assume' that a lightswitch will turn on a light.

Clearly his was starting from the 'big' end of things in an attempt to show how faith in gOD is justified because we use it all the time.

But could the same thought experiment not be done in reverse using the word 'assume'? You assume that the lightswitch will turn the light on and off, you assume that the bus drvier will not crash, you assume that others will not fail us, you assume that if we work hard we can succeed. And finally, you assume that gOD exists.

If nothing else, this shows that the two words are clearly interchangeable.

So, religion is based on an assumption. Who could've seen that coming? Oh wait...me.