FAITH VS. BELIEF

"Faith," wrote Rabindranath Tagore, "is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."

But there is a difference between faith and belief.  Faith implies a hoping that something is, a hoping that God really exists, for example, while not knowing for sure.

Belief, on the other hand, connotes an intellectual acceptance, an assention by reason that God exists.  The odds are that God exists, or a personal spiritual experience has convinced us of the presence of God.

Tagore's bird, then, may more correctly be a case of belief rather than faith.  The bird in not hoping that the sun will soon appear, but it knows from its past experience that it's only a matter of time before the sun shows up again.

In fairness to Mr.Tagore, though, there is a mystical overtone to this bird he calls faith sitting in the dark before dawn, feeling the sun even though there is no sign of it yet.  We are all sitting in the dark before dawn, feeling the presence of something quite other than ourselves, not knowing what it is, not seeing it, but counting on it.