Thanks for your comments, friends.

HFC, you seem to be equivocating a bit with those words.   "Taken on faith" is correct if "faith" is simply meant to mean "action-producing belief".   But "faith" is NOT "blind acceptance of something one has no evidence for" or "acceptance of something despite the evidence refuting it".

Similarly, when you say "you can't prove what you take on faith", that is correct if one is talking about mathematical/"100%-certainty" proof.  But most other types of proof (scientific/Fisherian, historical, legal, etc) are not "100%-certainty" but are belief based on a proponderance of evidence.  In other words, certain types of "proof" are extremely amenable to "faith" and are even essentially synonymous with it.

Finally, you're correct when you suggest that "if you're wrong you're screwing over your country" if the politician bases his policies on his faith / his beliefs.  But consider what happens if one is right!    Or, consider what happens if one takes the opposite path: knowing that a certain course is right and another is wrong, but declining to take a public stand on the issue for fear of offending people with different beliefs.   Example: the Christian politicians, theologians, and other religious political elite who allegedly possessed "religious faith" during in the years leading up to Hitler's Germany.   Sometimes (often) if one REFRAINS from allowing one's religious convictions from influencing one's policy decisions, the outcome will be far worse.  As the saying goes, "All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."