"'Faith is a virtue.' This concept had become so monolithic and indisputable that now, a simple truth was revealed: 'No, it isn't.' The concept of faith tried to arouse and exploit the kind of protective loyalty we might feel towards loved ones in whose goodness we trusted. But I realized that the trust we invest in loved ones was based on very different principles.
Trust in humans was earned. We believed in the goodness of loved ones because we had direct experience of their goodness. Religious faith was not earned -- it was simply demanded based on a stack of bold claims that were never substantiated. In fact, bizarrely, if direct evidence was ever offered, faith would become instantly redundant. Faith, by its very nature, was forced to reside in the ambiguous, the circumstantial, relying purely on the believers' conviction that their inferences were correct.
Faith differed from trust in another key respect: if a loved one was accused of a transgression that contradicted our good opinion, we'd want to see evidence -- in fact, we would demand it. But in religion, all contradictory evidence is dismissed as invalid right from the start, on the assumption that if you took the time to investigate it properly, it would turn out to be false. It was as I contemplated this last point further that I experienced one of the creepiest moments in my exploration -- when I realized that what I was looking at here was the perfect system for protecting lies.
Faith required that you believed, despite an absence of expected evidence or despite the presence of conflicting evidence. But how do we detect lies? Through the absence of expected evidence, or the presence of conflicting evidence: The very things that faith demanded we disregard. Any supreme intelligence that protected lies so efficiently would lay humans open to just about any conceivable abuse. People could be manipulated to accept all kinds of deceptions. Those who complained about inconsistencies could be silenced by the devastating accusation that their faith wasn't strong enough. No supreme intelligence would entertain such a perverse concept as faith unless that intelligence was itself perverse."
TheraminTrees (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xqCkx6WQBE)
Answers In Genesis, Statement of Faith:
"By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information."
How convenient. "the perfect system for protecting lies". Determine your conclusion before you start, and ignore everything that contradicts it.
"I don't believe because I’m a skeptic when it comes to evolution."
Ray doesn't accept evolution because he's determined up front that it is wrong, and won't accept any evidence that says otherwise. That's not skepticism.