As I see it, "faith" is something which is accepted as being true, without objective and repeatable evidence. So if someone says "the Bible is the inspired Word of God", and I accept this as being true without any evidence to support this belief, then I am demonstrating faith in their statement.
To elevate this statement from an article of "faith" to confirmed fact, I might choose to test the Bible for accuracy by comparing claims contained within to observed reality;
Does the geologic record really indicate that, within the last 5000 years, all the land on the planet was covered by water?
Do fossils preserved actually indicate that flying creatures existed before land animals?
Did plant life exist before the existence of the Sun and Moon?
I might also check the Bible for consistency within its own pages. Does it contradict itself? (were humans created before or after the creation of green vegetation?)
Does the God described deal consistently with people?
Does what is acceptable before God change over time?
Are his judgements in accord with the severity of the offences? (death penalty for collecting firewood?)
Does the God described sound like a reasonable god? (did he really command execution of women, children, and babies, as well as the elderly, in the conquest of Canaan?)
Thinking about questions of this sort demonstrates pretty clearly why so many churches exhort their members to demonstrate "faith", i.e. just believe what we tell you, rather than thinking about it too much. Faith is another word for "opinion".
Reasoning can lead to different beliefs, not based on "faith", but on observed reality. Pretty much everyone agrees that sufficient evidence has demonstrated convincingly that Earth is spherical, despite scriptural verses referring to "four corners", and to mountains sufficiently high that all kingdoms could be viewed from their summit, and to more than 1000 years of official Christian dogma that the surface of the planet was flat.
Reasoning also led to accepting that Earth is NOT the center of the universe, and that the Sun does NOT revolve around the Earth. For centuries, "faith" required Christians to believe otherwise, despite evidence which had been available since the time of the ancient Greeks. Christians simply chose to ignore such evidence, and to burn libraries where such evidence might be viewed by the undecided, as well as burning anyone who might dare to disagree with their "revealed knowledge".
In sum, "faith" is a tool used by religious leaders to lead those who don't possess the ability to reason or think for themselves. They simply accept what they are told, nodding their heads in unison as they look up the "confirmatory" verses in their edited texts.
