Faith is a cause for belief. It is the belief that is the creative part. Large numbers of people believing in the same deity gives Religion its power. Large number of people believing in Someone helps restores that person's self-esteem. Someone believing in electromagnetism allowed us to benefit from lots of technology.
I see it the opposite way. The distinction i would make between belief and faith is that belief is a more general term that applies to any sort of adherence to an idea, usually (but not always) based in reason, wheras faith is a particular kind of belief predicated on making a leap based on intuition or postitive thinking.
For the rest of this i will use "belief" to mean a belief based in reason, to keep it distinct from faith.
A belief is not creative but merely an understanding of facts. A belief in electromagnetism is because one has seen electromagnetism at work, has performed experiments that have been consistent with a hypothesis that electromagnetism is a real force (or wave or whatever it is).
Before those experiments, all anybody could have was a faith in electromagnestism, and it was that faith that created the experiments that led to the belief (and to the real-world applications).
Not trying to say you are wrong but those are my understandings of the terms.
New question: when (if ever) is it appropriate or "good" to have faith in something?
