Is faith just blind naivety?

I have not forgotten my post of yesterday, but want to think about faith today.
Faith. It's a much maligned word these days. There are plenty of militant atheists who will say that faith is self delusion and that the world is better off without it.
There was a time when I would have said that I was an athesit too. At secondary school, I learnt that the Big Bang was true and that science had effectively proved that God doesn't exist. It didn't occur to me at that stage to doubt my teachers. It was only when I was a student at college that I met people who thought otherwise.
Faith is said to be a cop out because it involves believing in something or someone you can't actually see, but is that a reasonable conclusion?
There are many things we cannot see and yet still believe in and slot into our understanding of everyday life: air, magnetism, sound, love, gravity, life, death, power, electricity, democracy.... I am surprised, just writing that list, about how easy it is to think of things!
So in 1980 I went from being a person who believed there was no God, to someone who believes that God is real. The process was a combination of logical weighing of the evidence and experience of the effects of God in my life.
I believe in electricity because I had it explained to me at school (not that I understand it even so!) and also because I can see its effects.
It was the same with coming to faith in God. I looked at evidence for the life of Jesus, for the historical basis of scripture and at how the universe displays a design that seems more than accidental. It seemed to make sense. But just as electricity would stay as head knowledge if you never switched on a switch or plugged in an appliance, I had to experience the effects of God in my life in order to know for certain that he is real.
Looking at my list-

• I have breathed the air and felt the effects of not being able to breathe it underwater.
• I have felt love for my family and experienced their love for me.
• Gravity pulls me and other objects towards the ground.

In the same way, I have felt the effects of God in my life and I could no more deny his existence than I could say that gravity is a myth. So is faith self delusion simply because we cannot see God? I, of course, do not agree.

Really bad things happen

Today on Facebook, I learnt that a six year old boy I had never met had died of acute septicaemia and I cried. A few weeks ago a five year old girl was taken from the street near her home and it seems very likely that she has been murdered by a family acquaintance.
Really bad things happen.
There are many different responses to these horrible events.
The "head in the sand" approach is how I deal mentally with what is happening in Syria . I'm not saying that it is right, but sometimes I am just afraid to let the human tragedy of the situation in. It seems like a flood of murky water that will engulf me if I allow even a chink in my defensive armour. I read a headline, but don't go further, or if it comes onto the news I somehow allow the shocking words to run around my mind, rather than seeping in.
I couldn't stick my head in the sand when April vanished, because I had helped to plant fruit trees at the corner of her estate and know people from the village, which is only 30 miles away. I prayed for her safe return and could imagine a tiny part of the grief and anguish that her parents were going through, and still are.
And today I heard that Caden had died, having followed the story of his battle for survival through the gruelling testimony of his family, mainly his father, who gave a daily update on Facebook. I really respected the way in which faith, hope, love and despair were woven through the whole story of Caden's sudden illness and desperate fight for life.
Maybe faith in a loving God is easier when everything is plain sailing, but it is never more vital than when things are going horribly wrong.
That's all I have to say for now. My heart feels too heavy to know what to write next, but I will return to this painful subject soon.