Faith, short cuts & authority

We all need short cuts to understanding because it is simply not possible to know everything. I read on the internet yesterday (and therefore it must be true) that the sum total of human knowledge is doubling every 15 years. Even if this is radically inaccurate it is clear that one can not be an expert on everything.

For that reason we all need short-cuts, rules of thumb to run our life by. Without these short-cuts we would be lost in a sea of detail that one lifetime is too short to comprehend.

Where do we get short cuts from? Those who have or seem to have authority. Authority we confer on them by believing what they say. Is belief another way of saying faith?

Sometimes, especially when we first meet that authority, we will test it against what we already know. If it measure up and agrees with our principles of how the world works then we will go on to be more accepting of what the 'authority' says. We have faith until we perceive a gross deviation from our world model. That deviation may be found by scientific test or by personal deductive thought. Perhaps at that point we may say that we have more faith in our self than in the authority of others.

Is this a form of enlightenment?