My personal view is that faith is the ability to trust. It comes from the inside and cannot simply be imposed by somebody who proclaims that we should have faith in them. My own faith (in others) has sometimes been fractured by self proclaimed spiritual know-it-alls. I think that the path to goddessence gets blocked by egotistic "leaders" who think we need them in order to know spirit. I thnk the path to spirit needs no guides, no shamans, and no priests. We can all get there without the guidance of others who all to often have a hidden agenda.

At my most cynical I think of what Mark Twain had to say about faith "Faith is believing in what you know ain't so"

It is not necessary to follow any individual in order to find faith. We can all find it using nothing but our own Goddess given hearts and brains.