Starting from ourselves—our own consciousness and autonomous reasoning—we all live by one faith or another, because there is no absolutely certain foundation on which a totally incontestable view of reality can be constructed. Philosophers have worn themselves out trying. Furthermore, reason can serve many masters. Individuals often attempt to make a case for their convictions using logic based on unverifiable presuppositions. Therefore, believers and unbelievers both live by faith.
No one is totally dispassionate and objective when facing ultimate questions, because answers to ultimate questions that really matter involve us as whole persons, not just intellects. We each have biases and personal and emotional preferences, which consciously or unconsciously influence our presuppositions. In addition, each individual is influenced by his or her cultural environment.
This reality applies equally to scientific materialists in Western countries as it does to people living in cultures where religion is integrated into everyday life. Secularists and scientific materialists tend to exempt themselves from cultural influence and bias assuming they have the modern and superior view of reality---an "acid" that can eat through all other views rendering them simply as illusions or constructs of the human imagination. Given this view, they conclude that religious belief is relative and totally determined by cultural influences. However, they must recognize that materialism is also influenced by culture and is not capable of proof. It is an assumption held by faith, for no person or group of persons possess the exhaustive knowledge required to confidently assert that the material universe is all that exists.
As we advocate for our respective beliefs, we must maintain an attitude of humility, courtesy, and tolerance. True tolerance involves respecting those who actually differ with your own point of view. In some cases, tolerance has come to be understood to mean (1) that only scientific or empirically verifiable facts can be true. (2) All "meta-narratives" such as religious worldviews are completely subjective. Therefore, everyone must accept these two axioms. We can then all be tolerant of each other's subjective preferences, which we all know are not true in the factual sense, but are relative (ie. "That's true for you, but not for me."). This is not true tolerance, because it forces an underlying philosophical view (relativism, scientism, or pragmatism) on everyone and therefore actually makes a universal truth claim that is intolerant of other views. (See The Role of Logic in Examining Religious Truth Claims.)
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