This is one of my pet peeves. EVERYBODY uses the word faith as a sort of catch-all. It doesn't actually mean anything when you do that! When the atheist uses it, he usually means the opposite, or even more precisely the lack, of reason. Unfortunately, when the average Christian uses it, his meaning usually meanders around the ballpark!
So here is what faith means. Say you have a friend named Bob. Bob tells you he will bring a six pack to your house on Friday. Your faith in Bob is essentially how much you believe Bob will do what Bob said he would do. When you say you have faith in Bob you are not stating belief in Bob's existence, nor are you being particularly irrational.
Some Christians treat faith like it's a brand of soda or something. Gee, if we could only crack another ice cold bottle of faith and move a few mountains here and there, well everything would be al-right. But faith isn't the Disneyland mantra that if you just believe hard enough it will come true. Faith requires action. If you believe Bob, you'll stay at your house to meet him, and you won't go get your own six-pack. You don't just sit there believing in Bob or trying to visualize the six-pack!
So there isn't any great hocus-pocus here. There is every reason to give Bob a chance. In fact, it's quite rational to give Bob a chance.
It's the same with God. Just a bit more complicated, as far as what He said, and what we need to do.
The faith is the same though.
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