It's also reflective of a young person's religion or faith in that it's highly charged with sacramental imagery and with country imagery because I was in the seminary for so many years in the country.

Red Sox fans have been pushed to the brink over the years but that's how faith grows stronger.

After the desperate years of their own war after six years of repression inside Spain and six years of horror in exile these people remain intact in spirit. They are armed with a transcendent faith they have never won and yet they have never accepted defeat.

I have seen doctors in good faith leave patients on steroids for years thinking they are doing right. A friend of mine was on steroids for so long she has severe osteoporosis.

Seven and half years ago I began my own journey. For me and my family it was a time of adversity. But during that adversity I derived a deeper faith. And born out of that adversity was a commitment to devote myself to those people and to those issues that truly matter to me.

What the F.D.I.C. does is to put the full faith and credit of the United States government behind every savings account in the nation up to a limit that has changed over the years and stands now at $100 000.

The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms and in forty years of searching none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief.

I've been speaking at churches for years as well as juvenile jails rehabs and hospitals and I always talk about my faith. That is a declaration of my relationship with God.

The marriage of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution honored in all cultures and by every religious faith. It's in this institution that children are meant to be nurtured. We know this after thousands of years of human experience.

For more than three thousand years men have quarreled concerning the formulas of their faith.

As a small business owner for the last 15 years when I think of what truly changed my life it was my faith a strong family my mom did a really really good job of encouraging me in very clear and discernible ways.

My mother's family were full-on Irish Catholics - faith in an elaborate old fashioned highly conservative and madly baroque style. I sort of fell out of the tribe over women's rights and social justice issues when I was just 13 years old.

So many of my friends are still trying to get record deals and I've had one for 10 years now where my only goal is to make the best music I can make. I've been very lucky. I have great faith that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be and whatever happens is going to be absolutely right for me.

I've spent the last 50 years or so steeping myself in the world's religions and I've done my homework. I've gone to each of the world's eight great religions and sought out the most profound scholars I could find and I've apprenticed myself to them and actually practiced each faith.

There were periods of my life when a lot of people didn't believe in me. I still had faith in myself. I really had to ask myself life questions. Where do I see myself in five years? Create a ladder for yourself and walk up the steps. Climb that ladder.

Since I was an atheist for many years and came to believe in God through my studies in science it frustrated me to see students and parents who viewed faith and science as enemies.

My faith is an important part of my life and over the years I've learnt that it takes a proud man to say he doesn't need anything. It has been a quiet strength and a backbone through a lot of difficult times.

I am shy to admit that I have followed the advice given all those years ago by a wise archbishop to a bewildered young man: that moments of unbelief 'don't matter ' that if you return to a practice of the faith faith will return.

If you went to your closet today would you pull out the same outfit you wore 10 or 15 years ago? You wear feelings and faith differently as well.

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith our politics and our culture are in the main less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing - good for our political culture.

Over the years my mother's steadfast faith in God has inspired me particularly when I had to perform extremely difficult surgical procedures or when I found myself faced with my own medical scare.

My father who died a few years ago was a good simple very honest man. His faith and affection for his family was just unassailable without question.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise than he was 6000 years ago.

It has now been over 7 years since Congress last raised the minimum wage to its current level of $5.15 per hour. Since that last increase Congress's failure to adjust the wage for inflation has reduced the purchasing power of the minimum wage to record low levels.