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If one person has an imaginary friend, they're crazy. If many people have the same imaginary friend, it's religion?
(cont'd again) On the contrary, faith is when you believe in something, and are not deterred by the inability to definitively prove it to a 3rd party. It is NOT a belief in something regardless of fact, evidence or logic. That, my friends, is called foolishness. I myself am wary of religions that suppress, ignore, or disregard a want for logic, fact, and science, and selfless intellectual discussion of how they pertain to their ideas, beliefs, customs, doctrines, etc.(cont'd) This leaves the term 'think', which has associations of a passive wondering, repelling those who want to express more of a seriousness about their ideas. So the default then, is to revert to the word 'believe'. The word itself is not flawed, it is merely is associations and therefore its careless application. The things I believe, I believe because of evidence and fact, though they might not be able to be downright proven. This does not consitute a lack of faith. On the contrary, (cont)"The believer can be convinced of nothing, for his beliefs are not rooted in evidence or fact, but in a deep-seated need to believe."
Belief is a sketchy term. If you truly think it to be true based on your personal spiritual/intellectul experiences, then subjectively, you may say to youself that you know it to be true. You cannot however say this to another, as the term 'know' then requires 3rd party proof that others may duplicate the results.
(to be continued)Well stated. Especially the last sentence. I have found this effective when debating religious people. If one believes in something, they must be willing to question it. If they are not willing to do so, then they have simply taken a leap of faith. Mankind's belief in deity goes back to the stone age. It is time to get over it and move on.
When a belief fails the test of reality it has to be relinquished.
What is percieved requires belief to become knowledge. Disbelief can therefore be used as a defence against either phantasies or perceptions.
We need to believe in order to act and react, and a good deal of the time we have to do so without knowledge. God is not an imaginary friend, God is a belief.
Imagination and belief are two distinct concepts.
I can imagine something while not believing it is true. I can believe in something without being able to imagine or visualize it.
When belief is attached to a phantasy or idea, initially it is treated as a fact. The realization that it is a belief is a secondary process which depends on viewing the belief from outside the system of the belief itself. [1]If one person has an imaginary friend, they're crazy. If many people have the same imaginary friend, it's religion? 
