The Secular Faith

I was having a challenging debate with one of my peers the other day over a cup of hot tea as to the concept of faith, and what it truly means to have faith in anything.
Many people today would mentally antiquate (yawn) this debate on the notion that religion has something to do with it. That religion and faith are synonymous. But, as with many of my debates in semantics, this notion is wrong. We, as free citizens, must halt the degradation of words by firmly upholding their definition and calling out those who would seek to do them injustice. Those people who honestly believe that the only rice in the world is white, and that yellow is the only color of corn.
Faith, by its only real definition, has to do with a great belief in something that can not be proven. Faith in God has been a great example of such. But it has only been an example, nothing more. When it comes to faith, even those who have claimed to have "lost all faith" still have faith in something.
For example, Faith in alcohol is a common form of faith amongst many around the world. Modern science provides us with great measurements in depression, fatalities, anger, psychosis, etc. that have been the direct result of alcohol consumption. But those who choose to consume (excluding those addicted to the substance) are choosing to put faith in the "healing" power of the poison in which they consume. This faith is so powerful today that the Obama Administration has chosen to market its own brand of beer called "White House Ale."
Faith in government is another popular form of faith. It doesn't matter whether you are a greedy American or a Socialist Bonaparte from the Chinese interior, you are going to find faithful companions at every level of every government. People who are more then patriotic, but not always blindly submissive.
Even most Atheists that I have known have been extremely faithful to their notions.
Evidently, I summarize that Faith is in no way a solely religious phenomenon. Faith is much more than that. In fact, I believe it to be atrocious to circumnavigate the inanimate nature of the word. It not a word which conveys morality, causality, or emotion. It simply is. So, my advice to all of you catechism-smuggling, atheism-doping assholes is to lay off it. Go fly a kite, unless you don't have faith in gravity, then i'd say go jump off a cliff.

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