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If you mean religion (ie Christianity) is based on blind faith, then Christianity would be no more valid than any other new age crock.



Indeed and no offense but this is true for Christianity too.

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Jesus isn't saying, "Blessed is he who believes despite having no reason to." What He's essentially saying is, "Blessed is he who doesn't ask for excessive evidence."



Yes, among other passages this is indeed the one I meant, however it's open to interpretation wether or not 'evidence' or 'excessive evidence' is meant here. Infact, it's rather unlikely because it says 'who have not seen', well why would you believe if you have no reason to believe because you haven't seen? The same goes if you already have seen some evidence, why not believe? So either they say you should have blind faith in other people's word ór they meant it's a good thing to believe without evidence. Basically that's what 'faith' in any religion stands for anyway.

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(keeping in mind that the hebrews had a honor-shame culture similar to feudal Japan).



In the feudal Japan (up to now to some extent btw) people often believed things purely based on blind faith because a.) someone old, wise and respected told that something was true and you don't question them or b.) eventhough people know that something is not true it has always been seen as a truth and you don't tamper with that idea because it's part of your great culture. Well, just look at world war II and Japan's role and it'll be instantly clear that I do not have to explain the dangers of such a mentality, let alone state the countless things that were part of their ideology but very untrue.
A honor-shame culture relies very heavily on blind faith of people, I'd even go as far as stating that it's worse because people accept things eventhough they know it's untrue,

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