Faith and Reason Message Board

What a good idea, Atomicmutant!

Glad you like it kukkurovaca! I've been reading all sorts of stuff on all sides of the issues, and would love to find out more about great books that others have read on the topic! Thanks for joining up!

It seems to me that some people subordinate their reason to faith, some subordinate faith to reason (Kant's Religion within the Bounds and Dewey's A Common Faith leap to mind), but I'm usually drawn to the writers who try to balance them and take them both seriously -- my favorites probably being Simone Weil and William James, albeit in very different styles. Kierkegaard is probably another example of this type.

Of course, my bar for "reason" may be set differently than other folks'; my philosophical leanings are towards pragmatism and other anti-foundationalist schools -- so I don't see a radical distinction. As Quine put it in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", the gods of Homer and the objects of physics are epistemologically equivalent, although one may be superior to the other.

How do you like the group logo? Thought I'd decorate the place a little.

I would have gone with a nun and a bespectacled nerd arm-wrestling. But your thing's cool too. :)

What do you think of Susan Neiman?

I should expand on that reference a bit. We read Evil in Modern Thought by Susan Neiman in the Search for Understanding class at St. Michael's Episcopal Cathedral in Boise, Idaho. (I've set it up as a group, so you can to check out what the class has plowed through over its lifetime: Search4Understanding.) Can't do it justice here, but suffice to say you'll never think of Kant or theodicies the same way ever again!

I just say piece on Spinoza and about his contetion that divorce faith from reason was dangerous, and lead to the religious excesses that in the end were the source of much evil how this remained relevant and controversial today.

It is also interesting to me, because Quakers pretty much believe that there is no dichotomy between faith and reason, and often describe our faith as "experimental", which today would be more commonly rendered 'experiential', that is grounded in actual experience. Hoistorically, many Quakers were scientists or doctors, as scientific research was considered both a worthy and Godly pastime, with and one way of several by which God reveals the Truth to us continually.

Like Martin Luther: Selections From His Writings I feel that faith is paramount. I see it as being more like faith vs. reason. It strikes me that reason could only go so far as faith more than ever fills in the voids of our life and leads us on. We realize this in our cicumstances when we reflect on the past, think about the present, and especially try to predict what the future will be like.

Like Martin Luther: Selections From His Writings I feel that faith is paramount. I see it as being more like faith vs. reason. It strikes me that reason could only go so far as faith more than ever fills in the voids of our life and leads us on. We realize this in our cicumstances when we reflect on the past, think about the present, and especially try to predict what the future will be like.

erwinkennythomas-
Pitting faith against reason is, well, unreasonable. Without reason, how is faith to be grounded? Luther believed the bible is the word of God, but he also thought he could change it to suit what he wanted to believe (i.e., he tried to remove whole books and add words where convenient). Faith not grounded in reason is scary. But then of course, reason without faith is self-contradicting in that it fails to sufficiently observe the necessity of faith for the person.

kukkurovaca-
having not read Quine, would you mind summaring the argument? How could one suppose "the gods of Homer and the objects of physics are epistemologically equivalent"?

Well, the gist is that empiricism alone does not provide a basis for the totally definitive affirmation or negation of any specific posited entity -- these being only conventions for referring to specific aspects of the flux of our sense-data, "myths" which are laid over it as an interpretive device. Quine says that, as a lay physicist, that he considers the myth of physical objects superior to the myths of Homer, but that this is basically a judgment on his part, and that in terms of the underlying relationship between either myth and the sensations to which they refer, the two are epistemologically equivalent.

However, you don't need to take my rather botched summary, since the whole text is available online:

http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html

I guess I could have told you that at the beginning of the post. :)

New to librarything, I did not spot this group at first and instead raised a topic in the Christianity group, Is there a theology of learning. I am seeking response from those who may have a line on the question as I outline it. Thanks.

In response to rogerdavid's March 17th question, is there a theology of learning? There is a little book available on Ethics of Belief that might fit.

Pope Pius IX, put it so very well in these words:

Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, #6: " For although faith is above reason, no real disagreement or opposition can ever be found between them; this is because both of them come from the same greatest source of unchanging and eternal truth, God. They give such reciprocal help to each other that true reason shows, maintains and protects the truth of the faith, while faith frees reason from all errors and wondrously enlightens, strengthens and perfects reason with the knowledge of divine matters."

Expaining that faith and reason must co-exist and work together, since they both stem from the same tree.

Apple tree was it?

#15 - Clovis, I wonder what the current pope would have to say about that statement.

I googled "Benedict science" and came up with:

Pope says science no threat to faith

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Science made such rapid progress in the 20th century that people may sometimes be confused about how the Christian faith can still be compatible with it, Pope Benedict said on Friday.

But science and religion are not opposed to each other and Christians should not be afraid to try to understand how they compliment (sic) each other in explaining the mystery of life on Earth, he told the Vatican's doctrinal department. . . .

"The Church joyfully accepts the real conquests of human knowledge and recognizes that spreading the Gospel also means really taking charge of the prospects and the challenges that modern knowledge unlocks," he said.

The dialogue between religion and science would actually help the faithful see "the logic of faith in God," said the Pope, speaking to members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Edit: I always like the statement from Cardinal (Baronius?) in Galileo's time (1598?), "The Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

... speaking to members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Known in the good old days as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.

Progress.

*sings a song from that Mel Brooks' movie, The History of the World, Part 1*

The Inquisition (what a show)
The Inquisition (here we go)
We know you're wishin' that we'd go away.
But the Inquisition's here and it's here to staaaaaaaaaay!

You asked.
I reported.
What was I thinking of?

So sorry, margd. Just having a little fun. Actually, I'm more than just a little impressed with what Pope Benedict had to say.

That's ok. He's a better pope than I dared hope given his background. Maybe he's even learned something from recent faux pas (the remarks about Muslims). He's certainly smart enough.

Hello everybody!

Question: How many members here really believe faith is superior to reason?

Actually, I joined because I am curious about how(if) they can really exist side by side.

So, to answer your question, mysticskeptic, faith is not superior in my mind. Nice nickname, by the way.

Hi clamairy.

I am with you on this. Reason is always superior to faith. The only way faith and reason can happily co-exist is when the religious concede they maintain their beliefs in the face of all the real evidence pointing the other way. It is when they maintain they have the TRUTH, and no evidence to back up the claim, that rational people begin to worry about them.

The rational individual, by definition, is the kind who, having ALL the evidence (let us imagine this is possible for a moment) to be as certain as the religious fundamentalist says he is, can be easily thrown back into doubt by the question: 'But are you really sure?' So, for the rational person, there is always a radical insecurity about any position - precisely the opposite of the religious point of view.

Thank you for the comment on my nickname! I've called myself this for many years. It sums up my personality, and gives a hint as to my interests.

#26
when the religious concede they maintain their beliefs in the face of all the real evidence pointing the other way.

Do you run across many people who say that? I sure don't!

It is when they maintain they have the TRUTH, and no evidence to back up the claim, that rational people begin to worry about them.

Hmm. That describes most of the believers I've known. But they have evidence; they'll be happy to tell you all about it. After all, the whole point of most religions is that they have the TRUTH.

I'd be more inclined to worry about people in your first group. Believing while conceding that it flies in the face of all evidence sounds a bit schizophrenic. The folks in the second group think that the evidence IS on their side. They may be wrong, they may be relying upon centuries-old hearsay or other people's visions, but that seems less worrying to me than an adult going around muttering like the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street "I believe, I believe, it's silly, but I believe."

I was born into a nonreligious family and have always been nonreligious. However, many people I know are religious, and almost all fit into the first category myshelves mentioned.

People who concede that their beliefs are not supported by the evidence pointing the other way are not necessarily saying "I believe, I believe, it's silly, but I believe." In fact, in my opinion, they are being more rational. There is certain evidence that is difficult to dispute--evolution or the age of the earth, to take some examples. Some people do dispute that evidence, but, as far as I know, that is a minority, and they claim to have evidence and theories to back up their position, not simply an "I believe" chant.

Most religious people I know maintain their beliefs in spite of acknowledging current data which points the other way, such as evolution, etc. Their position is precisely that they don't have ALL the evidence and neither do the nonbelievers. A rational person, in my opinion, is one who believes that there is a logical explanation for something--that everything follows some sort of pattern/logic/theory that can be explained /proven if only we had the ability to collect and comprehend all the data. There are many things in life, the environment, the human body, the human mind that we, as a society, do not fully understand. I believe that given enough time, with enough study, all will be able to be explained by science--physics and chemistry. But that is simply my BELIEF because I cannot prove that it will. If someone were to ask me "but are you really sure?", I would say yes because to me, there can be no other logical explanation. The religious individual has a different theory about how the unknown can be explained. I believe my theory to be right, but I don't think theirs is necessarily illogical or irrational.

re: the two messages above.

Let me start with no. 28 and work backwards from there. Brilliant post christiguc, marred only by a faulty last line. The faith position IS necessarily illogical and irrational because - and I will repeat this until it gets through - there is no EVIDENCE whatsoever for the belief in the supernatural. If there were, the whole world would have to believe in it because it is correct - which it isn't. To have 'faith' by definition is to have hope in the face of hard truth rather than proof. You, as a rational person, do not accept reality because it feels good, but because all the provable evidence is on your side, and none whatsoever on the faith side.

myshelves, I was not trying to suggest that the believers go around denying their beliefs while affirming them. What I was saying is that, when confronted by someone persistently offering them real evidence, the believer would finally get in touch with his, or her, inner skeptic - however momentarily - and during that short period concede all they are running on is hope, which feels good and gives them strength, but is non-evidence based. All it requires is intellectual honesty, based on a little hard thinking.

It may be not enough of a concession for the rationalist, and too much for the fundamentalist, but some reasoning is always better than none at all.

I guess we are moving in different social circles. :-) I know non-fundamentalist religious people --- highly intelligent ones, some with scientific backgrounds --- who don't agree that there is any evidence that contradicts their religious beliefs. Evolution? Fine --- God did it. Contradictions in the Bible? No problem --- it contains poetry and metaphor. And so on.

Try to pin them down on the existence of god, and they may claim "personal experience" of some sort. Well, hard to argue with that, isn't it? :-) If the FSM came and laid his noodly appendage upon me, and I managed to eliminate hallucination or insanity as explanations, I'd probably shout "Ramen." :-)

Nice message. Be gentle with me, please. What is an 'FSM'?, and what does 'Ramen' mean? (I could find out, I suppose, but I am enjoying this conversation).

We are moving in the same social circles. I meet all kinds of religious people. I attract them, because I speak their language (I myself have had profound mystical experiences, through meditation practise, and it took me four years of hard thinking to return to materialistic skepticism), and they ALL get excited thinking they can convert me to their beliefs.

Believe it or not, it is precisely the people who have had 'personal experience' who can be reached first by reason. You only need to be gently persistent in your questioning - and the best question to this 'awakened' individual (they already know the 'spirit' is found within) should be: 'Don't you think that believing what you have experienced WITHIN yourself has any possible relevance to the world OUTSIDE of yourself is the height of egotism?'

I speak from experience. I have made religious people see - only momentarily, as I have said - they have NO PROOF. It disturbs them, of course - but I also am disturbed by lingering moments of 'belief', so it seems fair enough.

What I am always about is getting people to think critically. Once they have shown they are capable of being even a little rational, then I am the first to encourage those who are interested in meditation practise (a cousin of mine tells me my motto is 'More nirvana for everybody!'), and even find it in myself to support them wholeheartedly in their religious beliefs.

The FSM is the Flying Spaghetti Monster. His worshippers are known as Pastafarians. There's a Pastafarians group on LT.
Please see Open Letter to the Kansas School Board at www dot venganza.org/about/open-letter/

You have better luck than I do. (Perhaps your technique is better.) I just run into the brick wall of "I know."

The only advantage I have is knowing exactly what religious people are feeling. All you need then is a desire for reason to rule, which I have in abundance.

You forgot to tell me about 'Ramen'.

Ramen = Chinese-style wheat noodles. Pastafarian equivalent of "Amen."

Edited to add a touchstone: The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Thank you, kind one.

Peace.

#26 The only way faith and reason can happily co-exist is when the religious concede they maintain their beliefs in the face of all the real evidence pointing the other way...
for the rational person, there is always a radical insecurity about any position - precisely the opposite of the religious point of view.

I don't think this does justice to liberal belief. Rational religious people don't maintain beliefs "in the face of all the real evidence pointing the other way", but they do justifiably maintain beliefs when the evidence doesn't conclusively point either way. And they need not agree with the fundamentalist position that faith is incompatible with radical insecurity: it is possible to be, in effect, an agnostic who gives religious belief the benefit of the doubt, rather than an agnostic who adopts irreligion as a default position.

#31 'Don't you think that believing what you have experienced WITHIN yourself has any possible relevance to the world OUTSIDE of yourself is the height of egotism?'
I would say that regarding my experience as potentially relevant to other human beings is a fairly rational step. Thinking that your own personal experience is so unique that it has no application beyond yourself seems more egotistic, actually.

#33 The only advantage I have is knowing exactly what religious people are feeling That might be a bit far-fetched as a claim, since not all religious people feel the same way. I have no "proof" of any of my religious beliefs, and I don't hold to any religious belief which I regard as "disproved" (such as "special creation").

Hello MyopicBookworm!

Nice to have you in the discussion. Let me begin with message 31. My point there is precisely what you yourself just stated. The MOST we humans should claim is that we have experiences relevant to other human beings, and to a large degree, perhaps, to all living creatures. Anything else - such as firm belief in an afterlife, for example - should be excluded as (as I phrased it) the height of egotism.

Message 33. I do actually know what religious people, in general, are feeling. It is a certainty there is something 'outside' of, and 'larger' than, our current existence as temporal, vulnerable beings, something that we truly belong to, and will ultimately return to, something we must judge as being utterly 'above' nature. I myself experienced this 'supernatural' realm personally, at its deepest level, and it certainly seemed like absolute 'proof' during four years of severe self-interrogation. It took a lot of hard questioning regarding my self-importance that finally led me to the admission my 'knowledge', ANY knowledge, was to be ceaselessly questioned and endlessly re-verified. No 'faith' can survive such ruthless examination. Ironically, it was the very intensity of my mystical experieces, and subsequent 'belief', that taught me the value of profound skepticism.

Message 26. Yes, it IS possible for 'rational' religious people to live in insecurity but, to the degree they are doing this, they are not living in 'faith'. You deny my assertion that faith is belief 'in the face of all the real evidence pointing the other way', and state the religious 'justifiably maintain beliefs when the evidence doesn't conclusively point either way'. I am sorry, but the evidence conclusively says we all die. Period. You may justify (you don't need to) any belief you want to maintain. But believing in the impossible (however inspired and strengthened you feel as a result) is indefensible to anyone who does not share your faith.

I do not know of a religion which denies the certainty of death, though most of them seem to think there is some kind of afterlife (whether that be bodily revival, spiritual continuation, or reincarnation). On that subject I am unconvinced: I am not prepared to assert confidently that there is no afterlife, since I do not consider myself to have enough evidence against it. Nor do I think that a religious approach to life is dependent on belief in an afterlife: there is some evidence that early Judaism lacked such a belief, and it is absent from some contemporary religious outlooks. To quote a Christian Aid slogan: we believe in life before death!

It is only if religious people are living in insecurity that they are truly living in faith. Faith is a willingness to give the benefit of the doubt, not to deny the doubt.

I am prepared to accept provisionally your characterization of religious sensibility in terms of external "largeness". I am interested that you felt it necessary to argue yourself out of any such interpretation of your experience. It is as though a man who had always lived indoors were given one glimpse of the night sky, and spent the rest of his life convincing himself that it had been an illusion.

I will repeat what I said in my last post. When religious people are living in insecurity they are NOT living in faith - they are living in the realm of reason, along with the rest of us. Only when they are feeling safe and secure are they 'living in faith'. Faith is not a willingness to give the benefit of the doubt, it is to give the benefit of the belief, and denying doubt is precisely what religious faith demands.

Allow me to put it in the simplest terms: If you have EVIDENCE you no longer have faith. Therefore, faith is, by definition, an anti-evidence, illogical - or, if you prefer, 'emotional' - position to maintain. For instance, you refuse to assert confidently there is no afterlife because you have no evidence against it. The rational question to ask would be: Where is the evidence FOR it? When none can be found (other than what hope supplies), you can confidently assert all the evidence for simple extinction is pretty overwhelming.

I had over half a dozen 'perfect' mystical experiences, and numberless 'mini-nirvanas'. It wasn't that I argued myself out of the truth that there was a 'sky', it was rather returning to the reality that the existence of the sky did not cancel out in any way the primary reality of the house! The 'sky' is utterly unbeatable, but we all have to live in our houses, and be extremely wary of imagining there was more in the sky than what we saw. And all we ever really 'see' - in the depths of mystical experience - is not any external 'sky', but the deepest inner truth of our actual home.

Mysticskeptic,

Personally I think your definition of faith could be expanded a bit. There are ways people have faith, based on experiences in their lives, but by faith, here i mean it more in the sense of fidicia, rather than credentia (Sorry my Latin is so rusty...I think the spellings are right on these.)

For instance, I have faith that my wife is "faithful" to me. I base that on a host of things, not least of which is that all evidence I have points to this conclusion. (I know some have believed this and have been sorely disappointed, and that is always a possibility, which is why I talk about faith and not knowledge.) I have faith that certain people will not stand me up if I am to meet them for dinner, or they would help me if I needed help.

Now how that ties into spirituality is where things get problematic. When I say I have faith in some kind of spiritual process, what I mean is that over time, my involvement with spiritual practices has provided the kinds of benefits that I have come to expect. Meditation helps calm me down center me, when I sit with the Quakers, I find a sense of peace that I dont get from other contexts, when I pray, I can expect certain changes within myself, etc.

None of this, of course PROVES anything other than that I get something out of these practices, but then, that would be true of a whole host of things, not just spiritual practices.

I agree: the notion that faith and doubt are incompatible is simplistic. It is practically an axiom among liberal Christians that faith and doubt must co-exist, though conservative Christians find this hard to comprehend. "Faith" (as Arctic-Stranger points out) has a lot to do with "trust", and it is not simply a cold intellectual assessment of evidence. I hold reason in high regard, but I also respect emotion and intuition, and in rationalizing my own emotional responses I do not seek to devalue or negate them. I retain a personal loyalty to Jesus Christ, even though I disbelieve many, perhaps most, of the churches' doctrines about him, or apprehend them in purely mythological terms. (Of the three great virtues, it is Love, not Faith, which is the greatest.) I seek the truth about how the world is, and how I am to live in it. And if the world is truly meaningless, I reserve the right to project meaning upon it.

Hello Arctic-Stranger,

Very nice post.

I think one of the problems with religion is that good-hearted people have allowed the definition of 'faith' to be widened so much it has allowed the word to be exploited by those who wish to suggest belief in the supernatural is intellectually defensible.

One of the things I am attempting to do is narrow the definition to the exact meaning so as to close off all possible misunderstandings. I wish to draw a sharp dividing line between faith as an absolutely non-evidence based 'religious' belief system on the one hand, and the general belief we all share in the real world, and the people and events within, a rationally placed confidence that people and things will do the naturally expected which, for a lack of a better term, I shall call 'trust'.

The kind of things described in your message have trust at their base, rather than faith. There is nothing irrational, illogical or non-evidence based in believing, 'trusting', what appears to be clearly real.

Myticskeptic,

Of course, when words begin to lose their punch, they do need redefining, or refining, and I can understand why you want to narrow the definition of "faith" to absolutely non-evidence based 'religious' belief system, but that feels a bit like you narrowed the field too much. Many Buddhists, for example, are of the mindset that their "faith" must be evidence based. (The Buddha made several statements to that effect in his teaching.) Yet, I don't think that when we talk about various "faith groups" we can exclude the Buddhists because of that.

But for me, here is where it becomes interesting...the interaction between faith as trust, and faith as assent to a table of tenable tenets.

To go back to the the example with my wife...I take it as an article of "faith" that monogamy is the norm for human beings, at least in America. If pushed as to why I believe this, all I can offer is, "that is what I have heard." I have never had two wives, nor have I ever known anyone who has had two wives (or two husbands). I just accept it, and work within those confines.

And, given what I do know, monogamy makes sense. (I do know that my personal welfare is somewhat at stake here...if i brought home a second wife, or even suggested it, I am pretty sure I would come to bodily harm!)

But then, this really does not get at what I want to say, because there is a sense where I accept "God" as a proposition, probably in the same way I accept "monogamy." The concept of God has changed radically for me over time, actually to the point where now I can say very little about "God" yet I still have that belief. It makes sense to me, and it "works" for me. And because it makes sense, and works, I tend to trust "God" even while I harbor some doubts about the very tenets that support my "faith" in God.

As I think about it, the more I am able to doubt those tenets, the more I find I can really trust god.

So, I am either certifiably an idiot, or on to something...i am not sure what...but given Dostoyevski's work by that name, being an idiot is not a total loss!

First of all, sorry MyopicBookworm, your message 41 somehow got in before I had finished replying to message 40! So I will answer your message first.

I have not ever said that faith and reason were incompatible, they both exist in everybody, yes, even me, to varying degrees. I also, like you, have a great deal of respect for emotion and intuition. The point is I respect reason as being of the highest importance, even above love, or mystical ego-loss - which, as I have said, is the ultimate human experience.

The world IS meaningless, and you DO have the right to impose meaning upon it - in the form of non-evidence based religious belief. I have the right to reject the validity of this approach as regards the search for truth, while at the same respecting your approach - however entirely subjective - is of primary value in your life.

I believe you when you say you seek the truth about how the world is. Surely you must concede then, even if only on an intellectual level, that the best way to seek truth is through real evidence. Whether you wish to return after that to the position that love and faith are the most important things is entirely up to you.

Arctic-Stranger,

Let me start with the Buddha - an old favourite of mine. When he said his disciples were to base their 'lives' on evidence, he meant actual mystical experiences (which were not to be taken as 'proof' of anything supernatural) rather than faith. He was discouraging, in short, illogical religious imaginings in favour of experience that was grounded in lived human, rather than some 'higher', reality.

You are still melding 'trust' with 'faith'. How we choose to live in the actual world of human beings is based on what we actually know is the most likely natural result of our actions. As I said, I am defining this rational behaviour as a 'trust' position.

I totally respect your belief in the supernatural. This is because I myself also have some intermittent, lingering 'faith'. (I am simply trying to get skeptics to see there is a believer in them, and believers to see there is a skeptic in them.)

Despite my respect for the faith position, however, I am going to go on maintaining it is irrational at base. The fact that it 'works' for you does not alter that fact. When you 'doubt', you are living in the real, verifiably uncertain, contingent world. When you have faith in God, you are living in a self-created belief system that is self-created and entirely self-maintained.

To repeat once more, to the degree you have evidence you don't have faith, therefore to the degree you have faith, you must be unwilling to accept real evidence. I know this is a disturbing fact to concede. As disturbing, I assure you, as my lingering intermittent moments of 'belief' are to me.

Question: Which do you want to see rule: Reason or Faith?

Question: Which do you want to see rule: Reason or Faith?

Neither; Reason without limits is very dangerous, when wielded by the wrong people. We are in Iraq now because of the "realists" who saw that as a "reasonable" venture. Which means, essentially, that in the end, we cannot agree on what constitutes reason, and without other resources to guide us, Foucault is proven right.

200 years of modern philosophy has taught us that "reason" is an artificial construct. (See Alistar MacIntryre's "Whose Justice, Which Rationality" or Stout's "After Babel" to see the history--failed history--of the attempt to find and define "reason" as a workable construct that can carry the kind of freight you want to attribute to it. (Which is not to say that reason can carry NO freight. In fact, it is rather useful, but it by itself is not the fulcrum point that makes the heavy lifting possible.)

If given a choice, I would say compassion.

You surely are not holding up George W. Bush as an exemplar of 'reason', are you?

# 45 '''reason" as a workable construct that can carry the kind of freight you want to attribute to it'.

It sounds as if you have completely misunderstood my postion. I am not some kind of reasoning machine that will not allow all other aspects of human beings full play. What I am saying is that ALL experience, good or bad, religious or secular, is to be ceaselessly interrogated, rather than accepted blindly as 'proof' about external reality. When this is done, 'faith' collapses instantly (temporarily, until the next interrogation), because of lack of evidence.

I want everyone to experience the heights of mystical or, if you prefer, 'religious' experience. THEN, I want everyone to question persistently any beliefs that arise as a result of those experiences, rather thank think they have found the ultimate 'answers' to life, the universe and everything.

My question should have been: Which do you want to rule: Faith or Evidence?

What I am saying is that ALL experience, good or bad, religious or secular, is to be ceaselessly interrogated, rather than accepted blindly as 'proof' about external reality.

And what I am doing, in case you have not noticed, is saying you ALSO need to subject the ideas in the quote above to ceaseless interrogation. That sounds suspiciously like an article of faith for you. You seem to have much more faith in doubt than I have in faith itself.

My point about Bush is that some people DO believe Bush is reasonable. I dont, but on what grounds? It ends up being my ideas of reason against his (or Plato's, or Leo Strauss's, or whoever is feeding Bushies.

Arctic-Stranger,

Are you telling me you DON'T think all human experiences should be investigated ceaselessly, in order to weed out the improbable (i.e., supernatural) explanations, and conclude invariably that all events have (according to unarguable overwhelming EVIDENCE) a natural explanation? Is that what you are seriously telling me?

No-one can have 'faith in doubt', as I am sure you know. That statement is the equivalent of saying 'I have faith in a not-God'.

I myself have a measure of supernatural 'faith' (a lingering hope in an eternally blissful afterlife as an immortal soul, as personally experienced in meditation, and in more Christian terms, an intermittent but powerful sense of the 'presence' of Jesus, interspersed with the occasional 'presence' of the Buddha), which when I examine closely I have to humbly admit is something that happens to me only in THIS body, only in THIS mind, and any statement I make beyond that fact, regarding 'higher realities' is, as I have said on many occasions, the absolute height of egotism. That is what I mean when I say faith collapses when enquired into. All you have in the end is a human being who says I have experienced 'this within myself'. 'Faith', despite this, continually strives and yearns to overlook, to ignore, to understate, to disparage and discount if it can, this plain truth.

It is this pull by the irrational (hopeful) side of myself - a side I treasure and would never wish away, however disturbing it may be, because it is an indispensable aspect of myself as a total human being - that makes me join in discussions such as this.

I have found the 'believer' within myself and, however skeptical I may essentially be, this has enlarged my sense of wonder, and capacity for mystery. I try to win over - however temporarily - believers to the skeptical side because, however disturbing it may initially be, I think human beings are made to know the worst as well as the possible best - to accept hard facts as well as eternally embrace consoling beliefs.

Are you telling me you DON'T think all human experiences should be investigated ceaselessly, in order to weed out the improbable (i.e., supernatural) explanations, and conclude invariably that all events have (according to unarguable overwhelming EVIDENCE) a natural explanation? Is that what you are seriously telling me?

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. And for two reasons. The first is simple. Any study of modern philosophy, from Descarte on, will show the futility of said endeaver. Read Hume (and his critics).

The second is less academic, and in fact, I approach it with a lack of skepticism.

Suppose you are dying. (I am a hospital chaplain, and I see this on a regular basis.) You probably don't want a lot of objectivity. You want comfort. If I went into a hospital room, and attempted to get the patient to investigate ceaselessly the experiences of their lives to weed out the improbable, I would be leaving a load of miserable people in my wake.

I mean, can you imagine something like this?

Patient: Do you think my life had any real meaning?

Me: Well, lets look at what you attribute meaning to...Church and family. Lets start with Family. Do your Children REALLY love you? Are you absolutely positive that your wife was faithful to you all these years? Let's look unswervingly at your marriage. How good was it, REALLY?

Now for Church. I know you gave a lot of your life to the church. But what about all your doubts? I mean, how many times did you pray, but nothing ever really happened? How can you be sure, I mean CERTAIN that God even exists? Oh, yes, you say you "feel" God's presence, but isn't that just a figment of your imagination?

Patient: Gee, you are right. My life has been totally wasted.

********
OK, so this is a cheap way to make a point. But I actually encounter people every week who are on the verge of death, or who are suffering from major diseases. That is my work. There are times when I KNOW, for instance, that the patient's and family's current view of the "closeness of their family" is a total lie (There are no sinners or sons of bitches on death beds) but it is not my job to call to attention their delusions. It is my job to help them come to terms with the impending or current death.

Now I bring this up because you would think that issues like death and disease would be JUST the time to do that ceaseless investigation. That, after all, is when the rubber really hits the road. (Interestingly enough, very few people deal with issues of the afterlife while they are dying. I rarely get anyone asking me if I think they are going to heaven, or if there is a heaven. Rarely do family turn to me for support in terms of their religious beliefs. I dont get asked, "Do you think I will see my Uncle Bob in heaven?"

Dying people, I have found, are much more interested in making amends to people they love, or doing some last minute connecting with those people. They rarely, if ever, do any ceaseless investigating.

So it is NOT my job to prop up their religious delusions. Nor is it my job to tear them down. You said, "I try to win over - however temporarily - believers to the skeptical side because, however disturbing it may initially be, I think human beings are made to know the worst as well as the possible best - to accept hard facts as well as eternally embrace consoling beliefs."

If you were in my shoes, would you do the same?

That is why, when you asked whether I prefer faith or reason, I answered Compassion. If I am compassionate, I know I can always live with myself. I know this from the trajectory of my life, but I have also learned this from watching a host of people die.

Ira Byock said there are only four things we need to say in life.

"I forgive you."
"Will you forgive me"
"Thank you."
"I love you."

and at the end, "Good bye."

So I have little faith (trust) in the tools of skepticism. I have little faith in faith. I have a lot of faith in compassion.

Brilliant post!

I totally loved what you had to say - it rings absolutely true - about people on the verge of death having little if any interest in issues of an afterlife at that point, being 'much more interested in making amends to people they love, or doing some last minute connecting with those people. They rarely, if ever, do any ceaseless investigating'.

To me, Arctic-Stranger, this illustrates perfectly the human character as I have been attempting in my poor way to outline it. When the reality of death approaches and, as you put it, 'the rubber really hits the road', people stop letting religious beliefs and hopes interfere with attending to what is undeniably REAL and ACTUALLY important in life, the relationships they have formed with flesh-and-blood living human beings rather than any relationship they have formed with some supernatural being - though no doubt, when they have time for solitary contemplation, this relationship returns to do its comforting work. They do not have to do any conscious 'disbelieving' in their deity, their ACTIONS show that along with their faith in said deity, they have (and have always had) an extremely strong need to turn towards the REAL, and therefore AWAY - temporarily - from intense faith-based hopes.

At ALL times, not only in crisis situations, I trust that I would do exactly what you do in your often I expect heart-rending work. I am as compassionate as you, my friend. There is a time for intellectual discussion, such as here, and a time for the heart to open and support the one in need.

As I said in my last message, I have found nothing to fear from faith, and I would like believers to know there is nothing to fear from doubt. There is always a part of us that wishes to love the obviously real, just as there is always a part of us that wishes to accept the consoling beliefs of faith. Family and friends, as you so vividly reminded us, are - however often undervalued at the conscious level - ultimately as necessary to us as any saving, supporting, loving God.

Well, I am not sure if it was brilliant...

I think we are saying the same things, but are coming from different angles when we say them, and in the end we agree on more than we disagree on.

Just a few observations.

a) over time, I cannot predict what a person's religious convictions are from how they respond to death and the bereavement process. I have met some wonderful Christian people who faced death with a sense of celebration, and some who were completely devastated by the death of a loved one. I have met some people with no religious faith at all who entered into death (their's or the death of a loved one) with courage and grace, and others who were devastated.

In short, religion does seem to be a predicter in how someone handles death.

b) For some people, there relationship with God is way they avoid realilty. (God will take care of us) For others, their religion is a tool that brings them into a deeper sense of reality. (For one, they are better able to handle their own dysfunctions/sins without persistant denial.)

c) For some people, God is a reality. Now, you might say it is their perception of reality, but who is to argue with perceptions? (At least my perception of their reality is that God is a reality to them!)

d) I am enjoying this discussion. Glad to see you take it seriously, but not in an obnoxious way!

there is always a part of us that wishes to accept the consoling beliefs of faith.

Speak for yourself. :-) Actually, I find nothing consoling about any religious belief with which I'm familiar. Eternity is a hell of a long time, and they'd have to make the afterlife a lot more interesting to get my vote for it.

mysticskeptic writes:
The world IS meaningless

The evidence on that point seems to me still to be equivocal.

I respect reason as being of the highest importance...Whether you wish to return after that to the position that love and faith are the most important things is entirely up to you.

If you think the universe is ultimately meaningless, then it is not clear to me why reason should have priority, since what is rational is ultimately no more meaningful than what is irrational.

When you 'doubt', you are living in the real, verifiably uncertain, contingent world. When you have faith in God, you are living in a self-created belief system that is self-created and entirely self-maintained.

But what if you accept your doubt without rejecting it, and act out a religious calling in the knowledge that your faith is not an assertion of certainty, but a provisional hope and trust? I attend church services in the knowledge that much of their content is essentially a matter of community mythology: but I attend them and (sometimes) value them.

to the degree you have faith, you must be unwilling to accept real evidence

This is only true if all "real evidence" is accessible and unequivocal. It is not. In the face of equivocal evidence, you have a choice: (a) reject the uncertainty, and become either a blind believer or a blind unbeliever; (b) accept the doubt, and become a questioning believer, or an open-minded agnostic.

When this is done, 'faith' collapses instantly

No it doesn't: any more than a scientific hypothesis "collapses" if the evidence is insufficient to disprove it.

the improbable (i.e., supernatural) explanations

Some natural explanations are highly improbable. And if there actually IS a wider dimension to existence, then its causality is part of existence, not something outside it, so the term "supernatural" can be deceptive.

From another group:
For four years I focused intensely on the question: 'Am I an immortal soul?' This was all my experience seemed to really verify.

I have been puzzled by your assumption of a specific connection between "faith" in general and belief in an afterlife in particular. I don't see the link. If I get a chance to sit (zazen), it's not an afterlife I'm waiting for.

I was interested by Arctic-Stranger's observation that very few people deal with issues of the afterlife while they are dying; but the latest person of my acquaintance to die was a priest, and totally sustained through his dying by his faith in God and in resurrection.

I would like believers to know there is nothing to fear from doubt.

So would I: but is your position one of doubt, or one of established unbelief? If you truly continue to question your unbelief, then I think I agree with your outlook, even though I have come at present to a different conclusion about the potential value of religion to a doubter.

MyopicBookworm,

I really think I managed (in message 50) to sum up everything I have been trying to say (due to the patient efforts of Arctic-Stranger - thank you, by the way, A-S), so do please read that post if you want to understand what I am getting at. I will, however, add a couple of *footnotes*, in the hope that I can make my argument totally clear.

'Reason', in the special, personal sense I am using it, means the aspect of ourselves that is committed to the real world of people and things. 'Faith', by contrast, I am using to mean that aspect that is committed to abstract notions of 'higher realities'.

Just because I think they conflict (in a positive, creative sense), does not mean I believe they can ever be separated. Human nature is infinitely more complicated, and contradictory to ever allow (thank goodness!) for that possibility. The two aspects go on working within us in a dynamic yin/yang way, each inextricably complementing the other, yet often one of them is seen by individuals to be infinitely preferable to the other.

Rarely do 'rationalists' wish to destroy the 'faith' side, but it is often unfortunately the case that people of faith feel they are engaged in a life and death struggle with people who promote reason, because the security offered by the 'certainties' of faith is known (or at least suspected) somewhere deep inside to be no security at all.

I think the reason I dont see it is that most people's beliefs are hardwired by the time the Big D is approaching. Despite what Kubler-Ross said, I dont see people dying in five "stages" (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Sadness, Acceptance)

Most people die the way they lived. (See the "Death" thread in Happy Heathens.)

Thanks, mysticskeptic, for the footnotes. That'll be the problem I was having, then: you use "Reason" and "Faith" to denote aspects of thought which I simply hadn't thought of labelling in that way. Something like "the Empirical" and "the Inferred"? But having no experience of either ecstasy or death, I'll just get back to classifying my books :-)

Found this, and it struck a chord with previous discussions.

"John Do you think it's possible for someone to be very mentally healthy wihout the sense that there's something bigger and more important than themselves?
Robin I think it's impossible, almost by definition."

"John Do you realise we managed to talk about religion without even mentioning death! Yet for many people religion is mainly about the after-life and doesn't make any sense without it...
Robin But we're in good company in not making it the main issue. In those lectures William James gave in 1901-2 which became his book Varieties of Religious Experience - it's still by far the best thing we've got on the subject - he apologises at the end for leaving it out altogether."

from Life and how to survive it by Robin Skinner and John Cleese (1993; ISBN 0-7493-1108-8).

For your summer viewing pleasure: I recently enjoyed a Jodi Foster movie ("Contact") that touches on faith:reason interplay. It was dedicated to Carl Sagan.

Truth cannot contradict itself. If something is true in both Reason and Faith, no problem (although Epistemology has different theories of what truth is). The same goes for Science. The Scientific Method demands evidence, although some people interpret the evidence differently e.g. evolution. A Scientific Theory is also subject to modification e.g. the vast difference from Dalton's (or Democritus' for that matter) theory of the atom to the Neils-Bohr one is an example. And now there is the Quantum Theory of the atom!

Many faith-beliefs of various churches are ridiculous e.g. the Seven Day Creation belief (The bumper-sticker: "The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it" despite the various interpretations of Biblical texts among the denominations - people were executed for heresy in the not so long ago). There are many inspiring texts in the Bible (as in ancient texts of Buddhism and other religions) but they were all written in the Pre-Scientific era. The Bible is interesting when studied from the point of view of what the Jewish people believed at the time and how they interpreted events e.g. disasters from God's wrath due to the sinfulness of Israel. Even in the Biblical myths, Joseph Campbell, the Mythologist scholar, extracted meaning. Many of the fairy tales we tell our children are myths with a moral implication.

Reason, however, has little to contribute to such things as art appreciation. Neither has Faith. I won't go into intuition or drug-induced experience of the transcendental . Those are whole subjects in themselves being explored currently by the neuro-sciences.

I think that a scientific attitude can contribute much to the appreciation of art. I also think that it is insufficient for a full appreciation of art.

It is not clear that the ancient Jews took the books of the Tanakh as history.

Alethic logic and other exception to the law of non-contradiction are proving your initial assertion troublesome.

Otherwise, I wish more people would pay attention to the kinds of thing you are saying.

Robert

Thanks for your response.

On second thought, with regard to science and art, it is sometimes claimed that mathematicians are good musicians -- I actually know two. There is also a strong aesthetic aspect to mathematics esp. advanced math e.g group theory, topology, number theory. The symmetry of math certainly exudes an aesthetic quality - one could argue that the symmetry of every equation is aesthetic. I'm not saying that symmetry is an essential aspect of art - just sometimes, as in Islamic art.

It seems to me also that the great scientists have a strong "right brain" which induces counter-intuitive ideas leading them to then explore them with analytic "left brain" activity.

Regarding the Tanakh, the OT text comes to mind: "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, and remembered thee O Zion." And the Seder involves a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. But, as you say, "It is not clear - - - - "

Finally, is alethic logic akin to Fuzzy Logic (what an awful name!)?

My tiny introductory understanding of each is that they address similar problems and allow probabilistic truths. But don't bet anything on what I just said.

Robert

I admire your humility. Too many "know-alls" around. In Latin I've heard them referred to as "scit omnias". One pronunciation of "scit" is identical to "s**t" !

Let's keep in mind that science is a powerful pragmatic tool to understand the cosmos. Religious dogma, although personally comforting, does not provide the rigor of evidence that science provides. However, this is not to say that religion is useless in giving the believer personal insight into truths that science at present is unable to ascertain. Although it is easy to bash both science and religion for their limitations in answering big philosophical questions, both have value in guiding humanity away from the precipice of existential despair.

Could anyone please explain why the word existential is inserted above? If it wasn't there, would the sentence have a different meaning?
Could he have just as well said...away from the risk of despair?
Or is he implying that despair is inherent in human (I presume atheistic) existence?
Communion with God's Grace of Love, Hope, and Faith, seems to me to essentially preclude long-term despair, doesn't it?

>67 eschator83: I think existential is used appropriately in >66 donbuch1:'s post whether one is a person of faith or atheist. I can only speak from my perspective as a person of faith and reason.... My faith in God provides a comprehensive worldview that gives reason to the world. Without faith I would stand in a chaotic world making no greater sense than of the mechanistic processes (i.e., gravity, evolution). With my faith and a conviction that we have free will, the world makes sense, though is often depressing enough because of our cruelty to one another.

>67 eschator83:, >68 pmackey:

Despair, long-term despair, existential despair...

Despair may well be part of the spiritual journey - look at the mystics, the dark night of the soul, the desert experience, the cloud of unknowing, nada, the apophatic tradition, Jesus on the cross ("Why have you forsaken me?"). Long-term despair probably less so, for all the reasons you both state, and because one usually comes through the dark night of the soul and grows into a new phase of the spiritual journey. Existential despair - not sure exactly what that implies.

>69 John5918: I just bought the book The Cloud of Unknowing... I'm planning to read it after I finish another classic, Abandonment to Divine Providence.

Thanks for reminding me to get back to my reading!

>69 John5918: The Cloud is outstanding, I encourage you to get to it quickly and don't put it down if you can avoid it. But please comment on Abandonment. Would you think it reasonable to put it in the book discussion group (even if only for the reason that there isn't much else there--plus, it might encourage others who aren't confident enough to do a review, and feel most reviews kind of get lost unless someone is already aware of the book)?
There is absolutely no way I can believe Jesus had despair on the Cross, or that His reference to Ps 22 suggests in any way that He felt forsaken, not any more than the author of the Psalm felt forsaken. Jesus knew He was gaining His Kingdom.
I've read and read several versions of the Last Words, and several lives of Christ. Surely you are aware of some Fathers who do not accept the concepts of despair and forsaken.

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris surely provides another glance of faith traditions as believers understand them.

>72 erwinkennythomas: I am tempted, but the reviews are rather mixed for this one. Perhaps someone else does a better job on this subject. Anyone else have recommendations?