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Originally Posted by Ace

You've got the right point, but it doesn't make all beliefs the same, it's ultimately the responsibility of each person of Faith to have the correct Faith (once again you can't prove this to someone through debate.)

But by what criteria does one decide one's belief is correct? If there's, in principle, no way to prove (or I'd use demonstrate, support with evidence as synonyms here) one belief as opposed to another one, then by definition they are all equally valid.

I don't know if it's helpful to maybe define some words? Belief to me usually means holding an idea to be true, and faith is holding something to be true without unambiguous evidence (or sometimes faith just refers to one's particular religious beliefs if that's the context).

Originally Posted by Ace

This is different from believing what you "want" to believe.

In what way? If I cannot support my beliefs in any way (i.e. can't be proven or disproved), then I cannot see any difference that ultimately doesn't boil down to wanting to believe. I may derive my religious beliefs from scripture, accepting it on faith, but if I can't prove that that scripture is divine while all others are not I'm choosing that particular one based on nothing except desire. If I derive my religious beliefs from what my parents taught me, but I can't prove my parents beliefs are divine while others are not, same thing.

It may not be a conscious desire, but deciding which religious belief to accept based purely on faith leaves it up to a feeling, a subconscious judgment based on subconscious criteria, which still boils down to desire.

Originally Posted by Ace

I might want to Believe that I have a God who just wants to give me a bunch of nice things, but this is far different than having Faith in God and following His principles. For instance Faith possibly means sacrifice and abolishing of personal wants and desires to live out as directed.

Live out as directed by whom? What directions are chosen to the exclusion of other conflicting directions, and why? Since one cannot prove one set of instructions are superior to another, all you can say here is you're choosing the set of instructions that best fits your existing views.

Originally Posted by Ace

This is where I think the debate gets lost, there are just too many people that claim Faith, but are really living out of a mentality of receiving. In my mind Faith is about giving and belief tends to be about getting, and I think a significant portion of the "Faith" group may not really be focused on the giving part. [not talking about money, more like giving yourself to your faith]

I see what you are saying, being selfless can be virtuous, and some people derive that from their religious belief, but that doesn't speak to why that particular religious belief is true. In fact it goes the other way, if a religious belief was true it could advocate murder and by definition murder would be virtuous. But instead we judge what our scriptures say and our derived beliefs change to fit our social beliefs rather than the other way around.