Rhonda,

Faith and belief to me are synonymous at times, but not all of the time. We
need Jesus because we can't save ourselves no matter what we believe or if
we have faith in ourselves in that regard... that is the New Age religion
often seen and promoted in music and movies. Although we as creations of
God, do in fact have a great deal of power to be had from our beliefs which
was given to us from God. God recognized that people in the old days were
all of the same language and that  because of that, anything they set their
mind to, they could achieve... hence they worked on the Tower of Babylon.
God saw their ability and then sent angels down to confuse their language
and set them back a bit. People can believe something and have physical
affects from that belief even though it is not reality. I've heard of
scientific experiments of people given barbiturates but having affects of
the drug as though it were an amphetamine because that is what they were
told it was when given to them, and visa versa. I've herd of Multiple
Personality disorder as they called it, where a personality believed they
were diabetic and their sugar levels went wcko upon that belief, as well as
much as their eyeball color changing to meet the physical description of
the personality. We are capable of much more than we realize based upon our
beliefs, and faith that those beliefs are real and will work.
However  residing in ungodly beliefs is what God does not want and calls
sin in the first commandment, "Thou shall have no other Gods before me",
believing in ourselves and our own abilities eliminates God and puts us in
God's position of Lord over our life and we lose, in my belief, our
position of child of his. As mentioned no matter what we believe, we can't
save our selves. Opposite of the pop singer Jewel proclaims in her song
"Who Will Save Your Soul" as she continues to sing "if you won't save your
own".

Brad