I have been on another course of antibiotics this week, this time the tablets are brightly coloured and huge, which means they are more likely to work (It is true!). I have no real idea how they work, or why they work, or even if they will work, but I have faith that my doctor prescribed them for a reason, and for my good.
Why do I put faith in my doctor? Well because she did all her training and learning and got the job as a doctor, she understands more about how the pill works, she has experience of the pill fixing problems similar to mine before, and she has one of impossibly cold stethoscopes.
This is not a blind faith, it is a faith based on good evidence, evidence that is all around me, a culmination of hundreds of years of scientific progress (I see it, for instance, in the rise in life expectancy, and in the development of my mobile phone),
I know that if i put my mind to it I could understand how this pill could fix my problem, I could read books, or find someone to explain it to me. I could do experiments myself to find out the effects of the pill (If I had a lab, and lots of time and money).
But I don't need to, as I have faith that this pill could solve my problem, and if it doesn't (and it is actually looking that way) I will go back to the doctor and she will try something else.
So, (and it especially came to mind on this Christian festival to which faith is central) please don't call agnostics and atheists faithless. It is just a faith placed in arguably more important areas, and a faith that can become fact through understanding.
Right, I need to go and try and swallow this huge pill now. I may need a miracle.
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