Reasoned Argument

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In order to have Faith which I think is a gift from God you have to invite Him into your heart.
Everyone can ask Him to help them to know Him. All you have to do is Ask. Try it you'll like it.

Didn't Jesus Christ institute His Church and didn't He say "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build MY Church. Peter was the first Pope.
Can anyone deny this?

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Poor man tries to rationalize everything in the feature article.

Does he not know what faith is?

It is belief without seeing.

Therefore we can not give great details necessarily for our faith, and attempting to follow a logic stream as to understand our faith, is a pointless activity.

For the Holy Spirit itself is what guides those who come to Jesus Christ. Not of flesh, blood, reason nor logic.

But by the will of God himself.

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You know, respectfully, this is why 'Reasoned arguments that my religion is perfect and must not be questioned or failed to be embraced or imposed' ...are simply counterproductive.

In cases of religions which claim to be the 'One True Way,' it's essentially just a bunch of people each using more words to say, "This is the only right way because it says it is."

Hardly reasoned, that.

Is that so hard to understand?

There's a lot we can all learn from and about each other, but it's pointless if we can't be mature enough to accept a little 'imperfection.' Especially when religions may constitute political and social systems that may want a lot of the same goodies.

My neighbor's ways aren't my ways, and mine aren't theirs. Thinking they must be the same as me to live with me is arrogance and insecurity that's taken on a global scale at this point.

Perfect? No, that's not even in the ballpark.

Jesus is not even the man's real name, or original name for that matter. Jesus (or as Hispanics would pronounce "Heysoos") is an English rendering of the Greek Iesous, which in turn is a Greek rendering of his original name in Aramaic--which is according to both secular and religious scholars--Yeshua'. Jesus spoke the Aramaic tongue, a Semitic language, related to both Arabic and Hebrew, but closer to the former. The Arabs, in their Semitic dialect, knew him as 'Isaa. In the ancient times, all Semitic peoples traced their lineage through the father, and not the mother, since sociologically and genetically this is more accurate. Therefore, since Jesus was born into this world without a physical or biological father, he was not considered of that particular people or tribe, which in his case were the Hebrew people, practicing the distorted Mosaic Law of the time, and calling themselves "the descendants or children of Israel (and people of the previous Kingdom of Israel, established by King David)," or Israelites. Israel was the title of Jacob who fathered the 12 tribes. One of his many sons had the name of Judah. So the Israelites of Jesus' time and region also called themselves "descendants of Judah, (and people from the previous Kingdom of Judaea)" or Yahudis/Yehudis/Judaeans, now known as Jews. Jesus was not a Jew (since he had no biological father from that particular people), but he was a correct practitioner and authoritative scholar (Rabbi) of the undistorted Mosaic Law, established for the Israelites by the Hebrew Prophet Moses. The Jews called their scholars Rabbis, because "Rabb" means "Lord/Divine," and was applied to kings, landlords, learned men, and God Himself--since "Lord" has the connotation of a sustainer (one who provides for you basic necessities like food, drink, clothing, shelter, life, immunity, etc.). So in this last sense, just mentioned, he was a Jew, and he was also a Hebrew--only to the exent that his pure mother was a Hebrew and Israelite. Secularists and atheists are correct in maintaining that the Anglo-Saxon blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus is a definite myth or fiction. Intelligent and faithful religious people are also correct in asserting the historical Middle-Eastern man, dark-haired, ruddy, and from the land traditionally known as Palestine. For brevity's sake, Jesus is the son of God, figuratively or metaphorically speaking, since he was a great lover of wisdom or philosopher ("philo" in Greek meaning "love," and "sophia" meaning "wisdom"), just like Socrates and Plato were in ancient Greece. One of God's attributive-names in the Arabic language is Al-Hakeem or "The Most-Wise." He who loves wisdom, loves God, and the attribute of wisdom is the golden mean between being a genius and a fool, both being extremes and abnormalities. All the ancient Biblical Prophets of God were great lovers of wisdom or philosophers, and in different places and times they were called by different titles, befittingly in those different languages. In India, we have "Buddhas" or "Enlightened Ones," and one of their major prophets sent to the Northern Indian people was Siddhartha Gautama, known to us as the "Buddha." They all preached and taught against atheism and polytheism--the two main roots of all social injustices and personal psychological problems, and specifically taught monotheism. Allaah is God is Deus is Brahma is Tao/Dao is Gott and etc. Furthermore, they all "submitted and surrendered" to the will of the Father to achieve "peace," as a state of mind and as a political state. In other words they submitted their limited intellects and physical abilities to the All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and Almighty, the great spiritual and active force--Tao--of the cosmos, to become "whole and complete," which gives "peace," spiritually and politically. In the Arabic tongue, the concept of "submitting or surrendering to the will of God, in order to attain peace, psychologically and socially" is denoted by the term "Islaam," and a Muslim is "one (male or female) who submits to the will of God to achieve peace." All the messengers of the world, throughout history preached and taught this same very sublime concept (Lao Tsi the Wise Sage, Socrates the Great Philosopher, Confucius the Wise Sage, Plato the Philospher, Moses the Interlocuter, Joshua the Just Warrior, Isaiah the Visionary Prophet, Daniel the Wise Dream-Interpreter, Abraham the Great Patriarch, Jesus the Christ, John the Baptist, Siddhartha Gautama the Great Buddha, and Muhammad the Seal of the Prophets, and the many many more that are not mentioned or known to us from the Scandinavian lands, of Germanic origin, from the Black tribes of Africa, from the Native or Indigenous Americans, and etc.). Peace and blessings be upon all of the messengers and prophets of God, and especially peace be upon our beloved Prophet Jesus the logos or word of God, and His spirit, and the Messiah (or in Greek "Christos") of the Israelites, and even more so peace and blessings be upon the final messenger and prophet of God, who was an Arab, ethnically, but who was the only one sent to all of humanity, for all succeeding generations until the end of this worldly life for humanity. For God's sake why don't you people understand--is it that difficult? You only have one life, and you all shall die one day, either in young age or old age. Wake up to reality, wake up to the truth. "Don't judge the religion by man, but judge man by the religion" (Imaam al-Ghazzaali, classical Muslim theologian, may God have mercy on his soul). Religion is nothing other than the outward aspect of a spiritual tradition. Reason and Science go hand-in-hand with God's true religion--Islaam--as is historically and academically documented, when Muslims were true Muslims by the actual definition of the word as explained above, and acted according to the universal ethical laws, expressed in its most perfect sense in the spiritual tradition and religion of Islam.

Kudos to you, Sir. In Islam, the Qu'ran tells us to not blindly follow the ways of our forebeares, but rather read it (the Qu'ran) and use our own reaoned and rational and intelligent judgement to determine it's value. Doing so has led to my submission to ALLAH. I find this to be good advice in all matters. peace

Roland,

*sigh* I am in full agreement with you but for one tiny little thing. What about the point when your rights infringe on mine or even anothers? What about for example the 'right to life' movement? Christians (among others) believe life begins at conception and therefore as an (albeit tiny) human being should have the same rights as the rest of us. They believe abortion is murder, in other words you are taking the right of living away from another human being in favor or your right to choose. Obviously there is a conflict there. Who do you defend in that case? And then of course vegetarians who believe animals have souls by the same token may be extremely offended and upset if you were to say- eat one. These are cases of irreconsilable differences based on infringement of percieved 'rights'. Well who decides these rights? Who decides what is freedom and respect and what is wrong and should be illegal? Too much freedom is anarchy. I certainly wouldn't want a govornment afraid to draw the line- but where do we draw the line? Who should decide? Should it be based on religion at all? If not could facts support belief in right vs wrong?

I have read maybe 150 of the comments posted in response to various authors and it seems to me that the tone of the vast majority of them is such that the possibility of fruitful dialogue seems very remote.
Indeed, Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Agnostics, etc. all argue in favor of their view or, more often, denigrate the other's views. What's even more disturbing is that it is not just views that are being put down, but quite often also the people who hold them.
Within the framework of this discussion I have seen precious little that resembles truth SEEKING but a whole lot of "truth" TELLING.
Frankly, I find the whole thing quite discouraging.
It really doesn't matter what my personal beliefs are, I will defend your right to disagree with me but I will fight you if you tell me that I must live by your rules or else....! I don't mind if Jews don't eat Pork, but I don't want them telling me I can't. If Christians want to believe that homosexuality is a sin, by all means don't let it touch you, but don't try to make the state be the enforcer of your beliefs. If Muslims believe you shouldn't eat during daylight hours during Ramadan, go right ahead but don't come after me when I am enjoying my ham sandwich. If Atheists are convinced that there is no God, I am not in the least bit upset, but if I happen to believe in a God, I demand the right to worship as I believe I am supposed to without interference and ridicule.
What it all comes down to is that I truly and fully accept the fact that you hold the beliefs you do and I accept your honesty and integrity in that respect. In return I ask, no, DEMAND that you respect my right to hold my beliefs and I promise that I will not hold your disagreement with me against you.
For most of us, our belief system is a constantly evolving framework, as it is for me. That implies however that what I believe in today is somewhat different from what I believed yesterday. If that is the case, then I must have been at least a little bit wrong yesterday. If I was just a little bit wrong yesterday, how sure can I be that I am still not a little bit wrong today?
Just accord me the right to be wrong as I am willing to respect yours!
I don't know any Christians for instance who would today advocate that witches be burned. Not too long ago however, there were Christians who truly believed that it needed to be done!

Who are today's witches?

I think that could be a pretty good start to restore some civility and humaneness not just to this forum, but beyond it.

Michael Hull, thanks for your post. It was poetic and insightful.

"Models are descriptions of the way things might be, but never are.
Myths are descriptions of the way things never were, but always are."

Your views about inner and outer worlds reminds me of pagan Celtic mythology, in which there was a worship of landscape and a view of the self as a point between the inner and outer worlds. Celtics understood these worlds to mirror each other, and thought that the inner world required just as much exploration as the outer world. Some writers refer to thoughts as our 'inner senses'.

I think that when one dogmatically clings to a belief about the outer world that is contradicted by evidence, one should do a bit more honest exploration of their inner world to better understand why they are so tied to that belief.

'Anonymous' @11/21/2006 1:20PM

An interesting post. One item in particular caught my eye: the attempt to 'dehellenize' Christianity. That is pattently flawed: Christianity is a blend of Judaism (submission to God) and Hellenism (the individual by his actions determines his fate in the afterlife). It is also why the currently fashionable term, Judeo-Christian, is meaningless.

This attempt explains the repeated, invariably failed, attempts to 'modernize' some version or other of Christianity. As long as the responsibility remains on the individual (part of the essence of Christianity), there is no need to 'modernize' it.

PS: I used 'his' above in the English sense (generic not strictly masculine). Just anticipating the grammatically challenged.

Except to say that The Pope puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else.

yestme: you said ;

"BILL FOLD - the critical issue is the lack of authenticity in religious arguments. The fact that their foundation is a hoax MUST be paramount in any argument. All religious arguments are based upon a single presumed historical assumption, Moses spoke to God."

No, that is not true. ALL religions do NOT depend on what Moses said. The lack of "authenticity" or "proof" is what you decry and that's just Jim-Dandy dude, but what I am saying is that in the U.S.A., we should not even BE debating religion, period.

The reality of a constitutional Democracy is that in one way or the other, the Majority rules, through reasoned debate of the issues that face our society, not arguing for or againbst any Religion or God.

And THAT, is all the "arguing" I'll engage in about this silly subject.

In all of the back and forth here, are we in agreement that there is a difference between Truth and facts? And I'm sure we all agree that there are various expressions of Truth, e.g., poetry, song, fiction(yes, fiction!) and the other arts. We might analyze poetry or even, God forbid, deconstruct it, but we can never "prove" it as an absolute truth which I take to be a synonym for "fact". The extremists on both sides err because they are unreasonable, one insisting that the form used (the Bible and it's various genres) is divinely constructed, as in automatic writing, while the other side maintains that it is unproveable and therefore worthless. I fear both sides, to be honest. The literalists would, as some have indicated, welcome the chaos of the Middle East as the prelude to the Parousia, while the scientists would hold their noses in contempt for wisdom that has, in fact, been the underpinning of Western civilization, emphasis on that civilty part, even as it has been misused by religious and secular powers at various times.
I think another way of stating that we can start from a position of reasoned argument is to say to all sides, "Get a grip already!"

Best Comments on Reasoned Argument come from the Pope (and I am not Catholic):

Pope's speech at University of Regensburg (full text)
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=46474

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a moving experience for me to stand and give a lecture at this university podium once again. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. This was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves.

We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas: the reality that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason-- this reality became a lived experience.

The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the whole of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical skepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on-- perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara-- by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was probably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than the responses of the learned Persian.

The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship of the three Laws: the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qur'an. In this lecture I would like to discuss only one point-- itself rather marginal to the dialogue itself-- which, in the context of the issue of faith and reason, I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.

But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels,” he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:

-- "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.

-- "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...."

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: "For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the logos. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts with logos.

Logos means both reason and word-- a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist.

The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: Come over to Macedonia and help us! (cf. Acts 16:6-10)-- this vision can be interpreted as a distillation of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

In point of fact, this rapprochement had been going on for some time. The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and declares simply that he is, is already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates's attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: I am.

This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature.

Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria-- the Septuagint-- is more than a simple (and in that sense perhaps less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act “with logos” is contrary to God's nature.

In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which ultimately led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions.

As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language (cf. Lateran IV). God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love transcends knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is logos. Consequently, Christian worship is worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).

This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history-– it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.

The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity-– a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the program of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.

Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the fundamental postulates of the Reformation in the 16th century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this program forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.

The liberal theology of the 19th and 20th centuries ushered in a second stage in the process of dehellenization, with Adolf von Harnack as its outstanding representative. When I was a student, and in the early years of my teaching, this program was highly influential in Catholic theology too. It took as its point of departure Pascal’s distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In my inaugural lecture at Bonn in 1959, I tried to address the issue. I will not repeat here what I said on that occasion, but I would like to describe at least briefly what was new about this second stage of dehellenization. Harnack’s central idea was to return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and indeed of hellenization: this simple message was seen as the culmination of the religious development of humanity. Jesus was said to have put an end to worship in favor of morality. In the end he was presented as the father of a humanitarian moral message. The fundamental goal was to bring Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, liberating it, that is to say, from seemingly philosophical and theological elements, such as faith in Christ’s divinity and the triune God.

In this sense, historical-critical exegesis of the New Testament restored to theology its place within the university: theology, for Harnack, is something essentially historical and therefore strictly scientific. What it is able to say critically about Jesus is, so to speak, an expression of practical reason and consequently it can take its rightful place within the university. Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant’s “Critiques”, but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature’s capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty. The weight between the two poles can, depending on the circumstances, shift from one side to the other. As strongly positivistic a thinker as J. Monod has declared himself a convinced Platonist/Cartesian.

This gives rise to two principles which are crucial for the issue we have raised. First, only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be measured against this criterion. Hence the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology, and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity. A second point, which is important for our reflections, is that by its very nature this method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question. Consequently, we are faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs to be questioned.

We shall return to this problem later. In the meantime, it must be observed that from this standpoint any attempt to maintain theology’s claim to be “scientific” would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self. But we must say more: it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by “science” and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective “conscience” becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter.

This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.

Before I draw the conclusions to which all this has been leading, I must briefly refer to the third stage of dehellenization, which is now in progress. In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowadays that the synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was a preliminary inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures. The latter are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieux. This thesis is not only false; it is coarse and lacking in precision. The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed. True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself.

And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvelous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which reflects one of the basic tenets of Christianity. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application.

While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology.

Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought: to philosophy and theology.

For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: “It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss”.

The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur – this is the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. “Not to act reasonably (with logos) is contrary to the nature of God”, said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

I’d like to discuss the problem of replacing religion, with its myths, analogies and mysticism, with science. IMO they are two different things.

Science can describe, but it cannot give any real meaning to our lives and many—probably the majority—of folk will reject this. The problem is--since most need some system--with what such people replace the old faiths. (Worship of God with worship of the Aryan race--National Socialism, or the working class--communism? These would be tried and found wanting--a great understatement, I know.)

No one better expressed this dilemma than Max Weber, whom one might term a wistful agnostic, in his great 1919 lecture on Science and Religion: “What is…the point of science as a calling when all our former illusions, such as ‘the path to true Being,’ ‘the path to true nature,’ ‘the path to the true God,’ have gone? The simplest answer [to the point of science] was given by Tolstoy, when he said: ‘It is pointless, because it gives no answer to the only question important to us—What are we to do? How should we live?’ The only question that remains is in what sense does it gives us ‘no’ answer…”

Am I alone in thinking that Wm J. Byron gave the only possible answer regarding argument between religious of different faiths who believe “they have a monopoly on truth”? Such folk can probably only meet in the realm of ethics and philosophy, and, of the three great Abrahamic religions only the Christian Church made a serious attempt to incorporate Greek philosophy into the corpus of its theology—with, I must say, mixed results. (Indeed, the Reformation was all about shedding these very additions; the reformers considered superfluous what had been added to Christianity once the faith was broadened to include gentiles.)

Yet what is the point of any faith or religion (the latter defined as: a strong belief in a SUPERNATURAL power or powers that control human destiny, emphasis on the supernatural) if its adherents do not think it is true?

Michael M Hull - there is no reality inner or outer. I cannot prove existence other than my own, "I think therefore I am." All else has an element of the unknown including the existence of any other person or the universe for that matter. I look out through my eyes and think I see things. What I see could and probably is just an illusion. What you are talking about is "feelings," how you feel about what your senses detect. Step one, verify that you are not seeing things. Can't be done.

To Mike Russell:

Mike: I tend to agree with you. Here is a comment that I made in another forum.

I believe that we function as humans in two realities: an outer reality and an inner reality.

The outer reality is ‘objective’ while the inner reality is ‘subjective’. In the outer reality I am the agnostic scientist and in the inner reality the agnostic Christian.

Examples of outer reality are physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, astronomy, pain, reason, linear time, gravity, scientific writings etc.

Examples of inner reality are suffering, intuition, eternal time, love, art, poetry, literature (which includes religious writings), music.

From the human symbol making ability we developed language. With language and symbols we began to think about the outer and inner realities. We developed ‘models’ to describe the outer reality and ‘myths’ to describe the inner reality.

An example of a model in the outer reality is the symbol we use for the hydrogen atom. The hydrogen atom is modeled as a point in the center of a circle to symbolize a proton with another point on the circle’s circumference to represent an electron. We use language (in this case mathematical language) to deepen this model’s utility by writing equations to describe things protons and electrons ‘do’. With the use of the model we have an understanding of how a ‘hydrogen atom’ manifests itself but we still do not know what a hydrogen atom ‘is’.

Models are descriptions of the way things might be, but never are.

Myths refer to stories that, while they may or may not be strictly factual, reveal fundamental truths and insights about human nature, often through the use of archetypes. In the inner reality we create myths. An example of a myth is the story of the boy who was asked to guard the sheep against the wolves and to call ‘wolf’ to the villagers if they were threatened. As a joke on the villagers he called ‘wolf’, they came and found no wolf, same thing the second time. The third time the wolf actually came and the boy cried ‘wolf’ but the villagers didn’t come. Why? They no longer had ‘trust’ in what he said. We don’t know the historical ‘truth’ of this story i.e. did it physically happen at some place and at some time? But that is of no consequence because we have an intrinsic truth in the story of how ‘trust’ can be lost by acting dishonestly.

Myths are descriptions of the way things never were, but always are.

Models and myths have both real and imaginary components. In mathematics, real and imaginary numbers are essential for describing outer world reality using models. Imaginary numbers have essential applications in areas such as signal processing, control theory, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics. Without imaginary numbers modern science would be paralyzed. Likewise real and imaginary situations and persons are essential for describing inner world reality using myths. In common usage the word "myth" may indicate a fiction, or half-truth (and nearly all dictionaries include this definition), yet "myth" does not imply that a story is either objectively false or true, it rather refers to a spiritual, psychological or symbolical notion of truth unrelated to materialist or objectivist notions.

In the inner reality we have free will and in the outer reality we do not. In the outer reality the only option is to state “I accept” - what is, ‘is’. In the inner reality, however, we have the option “I choose”.

For example, in the outer world we experience the sun’s heat on our face or hear the wind rustling the trees or suffer the consequences of an earthquake - we have no control over these observations – we can simply experience them through our perception. The physical experience regardless of how painful or how joyous can only be ‘accepted’.

In the inner world we might experience anger at something or someone. In this case we are not trapped with the single option of ‘acceptance’ for we can ‘choose’ to let the anger go. Pain, an outer reality, is not what makes us suffer. It is how we choose to deal with pain in the inner world that causes us to suffer.

What I am opining is that we must be agnostic about our models and our myths. In the case of the model, the 'thing' that is being modeled might 'be' that way but usually we find in the outer reality – in the world of science - that further information will come along and the model will be dropped in favor of a new one i.e. the model might be that way but it usually never is.

Once we arrive in a state of complete knowledge about an outer or inner reality then we no longer have the need for a model or a myth we have arrived at truth i.e. something that is the same for everyone, everywhere, and for eternity.

ED - very thoughtful. Yes indeed most of the world's population does not accept the three great "faiths" in any way shape or form. China for example forbids the teaching of religion and jails missionaries. I think the Chinese are more concerned with the Muslims than Christians but that's just a guess. Musilms made life miserable for the former Soviet Union and are still raising cain in some of the new countries since it's break up. I'm sure China observed that.

Religion and governments of any kind don't seem to mix well, kind of like alcohol and gasoline. Are we in Iraq because of Bush? Would Bush be president without the evangelicals? Just a thought. Why are WMDs in the hands of religious fanatics deemed to be so dangerous while we lived with Godless communists bristling with them?

Several responders are making assumptions that I believe are erroneous. We need to move away from those assumptions before any discussion of faith or religion can take place.

TJ Archer
"Exactly... as most every major theological premise, regardless of whatever FAITH you choose to associate it with, has in some way - major or minor - been drawn from the Old Testament, or even earlier writings,"

Yestme
"Religion demands kings, masters be put in charge to dictate. That dictation begins with a set of absolute truths garnered from the Bible."
and
"All religious arguments are based upon a single presumed historical assumption, Moses spoke to God."

You both seem to equate "Religion" with "People of the book" (Jews, Christians, Muslims). There ARE other religions that do not rely on "the book".

Arthur Baselice
"I don't believe anything a so-called religious leader states as no man has a diret line to "GOD" even though they would have you believe this as we humans are imperfect beings with an innate need for spiruatility."

You seem to equate religion with a belief in God. There are religions that do not claim a belief in God. And of those that do many of the leaders speak from personal experience and do not claim that their words come from God.

There may be others that I missed. Religion does not = Christianity or Judaism or Islam. Religion does not = a belief in a god.

To me religion is not what you believe. Religion is doing what you know to be right.

Catholics have a tradition of reason but they really don't use it. In practice they believe all sorts of nonsense; they don't understand how the bible came to be written and what it really says. The Jesus of history is not the imaginary Jesus of St. Paul and the Gospel romances. In practice Catholics are probably more credulous than Muslims since they have more crazy beliefs than Muslims to accept. Islam was a reaction to the mythological Hellenization of the teaching about Jesus. The heavily Christian middle east accepted Islam with enthusiasm because it was, unlike Christianity, truly monotheistic, relatively rational, relatively simple, relative practical.

Faith is simply mankind's way of dealing with the unknowable, i.e. matters beyond human comprehension. It has nothing to do with reason. If someone believes on faith that the Bible is the word of an omniscient supernatural being, and I say, "Prove it," that pretty much ends the rational discussion.

GABAR - what is the difference between spirit and reason?

spirit - reason = _________?

Spirits are critters that are pure information. That grave error comes with the misconception that information can exist without a body ON which to reside. The oldest record so far of that mistake is Greek with the assumption the air has no body.

Think of spirits this way. There is the ink and there is the paper. Both have bodies. When combined they also have a spirit. That spirit is the information conveyed to the reader. It passes from the paper/ink bodies using the body of light into the body of the eye and on to the body of the brain where it is recorded by writing it ON the brain. At no time does the spirit exist without a body.

Reasoning is combining informations to draw conclusions. You'll find a detailed view of how your brain works at http://www.hoax-buster.org You may have to scout about that rather large site to find it but it's there and well worth the search.

Re: comments from Orin Slagle and Michael Hull.

It is my perception that many fundamentalist and/or evangelical Christians believe that there is little room for any opinion from "authors" of the books of the Bible when there is only one divine author, "the word of God". Those that hold that the literal word of the Bible contains the absolute truth of God in my mind may miss the metaphorical nature of the Bible - the meaning back of the word. Jesus seemed to understand metaphor very well, by accounts of his word in the New Testament. Unfortunately, not all who heard him during the time of his personal ministry understood the meaning behind his parables - just as "believers" and "non-believers" today.

Almost all world religions employ metaphor in the practice of faith to tell their stories. If there is any place in the world for the diverse faiths to stand on some sort of common ground, perhaps it is in the universal metaphors that we all share.

this is the same argument that got Pope Benedict in trouble. Religious beliefs cannot subject themselves to reason - particularly Islam. I am a moslem and there is a difference between "spirit" and "reason".

BILL FOLD - the critical issue is the lack of authenticity in religious arguments. The fact that their foundation is a hoax MUST be paramount in any argument. All religious arguments are based upon a single presumed historical assumption, Moses spoke to God.

The battlements, fortifications, pill-boxes of all faiths is the contention one cannot prove there is no God. The soft underbelly of that dragon is the fact that they can't, as a matter of their defences prove it was God that "Moses made the deal with." However, by their specification of the Devil one can, through a preponderance of the evidence prove "Moses sold his soul to the Devil." That comes complete with their contention there is a hell, it is on fire with a specific type of fire and Moses spoke to a being in that fire. It is also shown and proved that Moses had MOTIVE to sell his soul.

One may not give the other debaters a free ride on the absolute word of God on the grounds we are going to respect each other's faiths. The absolute word of God is a massive weapon used successfully by millions to gain the wealth of earth. The idea is to turn the treasury of the United States over to the ministry on the grounds God wants that. It's the DEVIL that wants that.

Sorry, no quarter on the Bible is a PROVED hoax.

Ribert - where do moral beliefs become more than beliefs? It's when they are used to make the law of the land. Moral beliefs must be without compromise. Comprosing one's morals is a mortal sin that will be punished by the fires of hell.

The source of your, anyone's moral beliefs based upon the BELIEF that the Bible is God's word is at least one level deep in lack of reality. Go back to the source of your faith and give that source a good close look before you decide democracy can be negotiated into church run state by reasonable men of faith.

The Bible is a proved hoax. That proof conforms to the standard for proving literary hoaxes. The original material(s) used to construct it has been found. See for yourself at http://www.hoax-buster.org

Michael - I think the authors point was to say that people should get away from making arguments based on faith and translate them into reasoned arguments.

To take an example, I could say that murder is wrong because it says "Thou shalt not murder" in the Bible, ie. because God says so. Alternatively, I could make a reasoned argument about why that is correct not involving God. Afterall, God must have had His reason for prohibiting murder, wouldn't it be beneficial to attempt to understand it?

Yestme said:

"There is no reality. There is only perceived reality. Religious beliefs are based upon the notion there is absolute reality."

So are all moral beliefs. Should we dispose of them as well?

What? I read this three times, I don't even see a point of what Byron is saying? Did I miss something? I know I'm not stupid... but what did he say?

"Religious persons who really believe that they hold a monopoly on truth might try to state that belief in the form of reasoned argument."

- This is the problem: many religious people think (falsely) that they have all the answers; that they alone know the truth; that they alone have the moral answers to life's issues; that they alone 'know' the answers to life visa vie god; that they alone are the chosen people. It can be christian, muslim, jewish; doesn't matter THEY KNOW the truth as they see it from their perspective, and show that they believe everyone else is wrong.

Many religous people (not all of course, but certainly those who make it their life: monks, priests, reverends, etc), can't possibly realy think and reason - because their basis for thinking is that god controls all; that god is the answer to everything; that god exists, and that god is 'mine', and that 'my' god is the only god, and that 'my' god is RIGHT, where everyone else's god is dead wrong. How can anyone possibly work through any arguement when their basis of reality is so horribly skewed?

"Yestme", May I suggest that you are preaching to the choir?

I did not intend to pin down a specific date as to when we began to retreat from our non-denominational republic's origins.

But I also would never try to debate anyone by demanding that whatever they believe (in spiritual terms), is based upon Hoax.

Bill Fold - We are now 50 years into the first step to making US a Christian nation. It was 1956 when Ike decreed "under God" be added to the pledge. At the same time there was and still is substantial financial support from tax dollars for religions. Ike was defending against Godless communism. What he did was the equal of bringing rattle snakes into one's home and turing them loose to defend against mice.

Democracy is government on auto pilot. The constitution is the government. All those people in DC are servants. Religion demands kings, masters be put in charge to dictate. That dictation begins with a set of absolute truths garnered from the Bible. The foundation of all is the Bible. All faith, level one is faith the Bible is the word of God. Then faith migrates to the minister, Billy Graham, the pope, etc. God comes last and is usually left out of faith. It's faith in the minister that is one step removed from faith in the Bible.

The Bible is a proved hoax. There are at least 42 million Americans and multitudes more world wide with faith in that, the Bible is bogus.

We are what we are taught as children. It's rare for one to overcome lies learned. American children are taught the Bible is the word of God and if they don't believe it then they are going to hell. It takes a real hero to have that pounded into his/her head and be able to shake it off. One thing that can help the poor souls is on the web at http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul The children are being forced to sell their souls before they are mature enough to think for themselves.

"Faith" is not by neccessity a "reality", it is simply "Faith".

I have a very personal and fulfilling belief in a Deity, founded in Judeo Christian beliefs, but I also have a profound desire not to debate anyone's personal beliefs.

On the other hand, I wish very much to discuss and even help solve some of the very real and crucially important "mortal" issues we all face, equally and as a free people, without rancor and as it was intended from the beginnings of our Republic.

There is no reality. There is only perceived reality. Religious beliefs are based upon the notion there is absolute reality. Therefore there is no room for compromise without compromising reality.

The saving grace of Christianity is no one believes the nonsense.

May I propose that in a nation (USA) of many different and exclusive religious belief systems, it is not only a bad idea to debate religious differences and traditional beliefs, it is also, most importantly, a fools errand.

The purposeful division of Church and State was a terrific idea that worked well for 2 centuries, and unless we go back to that approach to living together peacefully, (as a people who respect all religious beliefs equally), we can no longer claim to be a nation of independent minded mortals. This nation exists mainly because OF the freedom to believe whatever we wish, without the need to debate or defend those beliefs, with anyone.

And for those who wish to deliberate on Biblical passages to guide them in any debate they wish to hold on such topics, may I suggest they also read 2-Timothy, and avoid such useless debates altogether...?

Pehaps then we can devote ourselves to the very real, solveable issues of our free and "All Men Are Created Equal", non-sectarian society... perhaps.

Having read the previous posts, I'd say that most of the brouhaha took root from a misunderstanding of the term "reasoned argument" which I think in itself is self descriptive enough. Think, clashing opinions folks, cuz thats just what it is.

"Religious persons who really believe that they hold a monopoly on truth might try to state that belief in the form of reasoned argument. The effort will move them in the direction of new ground"

This is the whole point of any discussion of any philosophy, which is what religion boils down to. All those college bull sessions that many of us engaged in are examples of trying to broaden, strengthen and expand our personal philosophies that guide our lives. Thus discussions in which at least one side listens to what the other is saying and then analyzes that position, possibly accepting in part or rejecting totally but knowing why it is rejected, are what help us to grow as individuals and improve the way we live our lives. Listening to and analyzing other viewpoints whether we accept them or not helps us grow.

The other side, however, need not gain any benefit, but may continue in its own unexamined lifestyle (See Canyon in the posts of Salman's position.) For this reason it may not be possible to engage in a dialogue with those who hold dogmatic positions, but at least one can strengthen one's own philosophy by listening to what other people have to say.

"those who are "often in error but never in doubt""

There are many of these dogmatic people and they seem to be concentrated in the most fundamental divisions of all religions. My own experience with Irish Catholicism is that Catholicism is replete with these individuals from the Pope's position that ecumenicalism means that all other forms of Christianity must acknowledge the primacy of the Pope down to Opus Dei and the Yunques. For this reason I am pleased to see someone in the Catholic heirarchy advocating a reasoned debate. I also wondered if the reason for Rev. Bryon's demotion from Loyola University to a high school may have something to do with Vatican disapproval of his intellectual position.

Exactly... as most every major theological premise, regardless of whatever FAITH you choose to associate it with, has in some way - major or minor - been drawn from the Old Testament, or even earlier writings, which common people simply don't have access to. So an informed decision, on an individual basis is out of the question. As many are guarded secretly from mankind in the Vatican... prior to even medieval times. Even the facts surrounding JFK's death are more readily available to the public. So what's the real game?"

Hi, Mr. Archer:

It seems to me your assumption that truth it hidden from us by other human beings is also subject to revision, is it not?

On what basis should assumptions be revised? Evidence. Always the key word is evidence. And where hisory is concerned we are subject to the mistakes of others as well as the truths they mean to convey. The latter being the case -- that, contrary to the po mos -- it is at least possible to learn facts from others.

What do you have to say about this? :-)

Ann O.

Well, as I see it each human does have a direct line to "GOD" (however we conceive of that higher power). But there's no such thing as a "dial-up" vs "broadband" dichotomy in this network.

So the statement above could perhaps be reframed more accurately, to say that no individual has _preferential_ access for either petitions or revelations ;-)

In any case, for each of us, statements put forth by religious leaders can only be validated (or not) by one's own experience. Faith/beliefs may be proclaimed and celebrated collectively, but the spiritual quest is ultimately a personal one.

Where was the "Reasoned Argument" when the pedofile priest's and bishops were using their positon and alleged knowledege of what "God" wants the laity to do while they were transferring pedofilie priests from one parrish to another and not reporting this to the proper authorities thereby avoiding prosecution due to the statute of limitations.

I don't believe anything a so-called religious leader states as no man has a diret line to "GOD" even though they would have you believe this as we humans are imperfect beings with an innate need for spiruatility.

If this discussion makes anything clear it is that we won't agree on any one self-evidently valid approach for debating our value-based differences, whether they are religious or secular. We debate issues, but at the same time we also debate the criteria (e.g., "is this a reasoned argument") by which we should assess our varied views on these issues. I don't have any one strategy, key, or "silver bullet" to offer. Instead I offer five humble suggestions for all of you earnest people of deep conviction to consider when you carry your beliefs into the public square:

(1) Sure, boldly proclaim your faith, point of view, revelation, or whatever you call it. Tell your story--Baptist, Unitarian, Muslim, or secular humanist--because that's who you are. We do want to know. We'll even listen!

(2) Don't expect for one minute that your views will be, or should be, privileged in our common discussions. When you leave your citadel of like-mindedness and enter the public square privilege is sacrificed. There all views begin on equal footing.

(3) So you continue to differ, so what? That's called "normal." But you do hold some values in commmon with your adversaries, even if you hold them for different reasons. Find the common values, and together live them out in some practical action.

(4) Whenever you can do so, even if it takes great effort, compromise. More often than you'll admit, it is the moral thing to do. Compromising is simply acknowledging that while your "god" may be perfect, you know you aren't. Your views are fallible, so you don't try to inscribe your views in the hard rock of legislation.

(5) Continually test your own convictions in a smaller community where serious differences exist, are permitted, and are respected. If you return frequently to a small, caring ommunity of respectful differences, then you won't be so dangerous when you speak out boldly about your views, and why you hold them, in the public debates--which, by the way, we will be having from now until eternity.

There is no such thing as "reasoned argument" when discussing mutually exclusive faith-based religion. What a myth you are perpetuating, Reverend! Each person on the side of this so-called reasoned argument has already decided beforehand that they are right and the other is terribly mistaken, and will suffer horrible consequences.

I quote Sam Harris from his brilliant book "The End of Faith":

"Every sphere of genuine discourse must, at a minimum, admit of *discourse*...Nothing that a Christian and a Muslim can say to each other will render their beliefs mutually vulnerable to discourse, because the very tenets of their faith have immunized them against the power of conversation."

"The point of departure for the conversation will be neither revelation nor authority, just a reasoned conviction related to a specific truth. . . Only those who are "often in error but never in doubt" have anything to fear on that front."

That's very interesting. Would you please prove the existence of the God you specifically think is an absolute truth? And in the interest of my short attention span, could you please do in just a few sentences?

Thank you,

Bob

Orin:

I was not proposing that the statement from 1 Timothy was reasonable or it was one that I accepted. I was simply responding to your inquiry as to how it might be rephrased to make it less of a threatening axiom if two parties wish to discuss the matter of the statement. If one views the bible as the literal words of God then there is no discussion to be had. On the other hand, if one views the bible as the literal words of human authors, most of whom are anonymous to us (as is the case with most of the writers of the New Testament excepting Paul), then one can have a discussion as to what reasonable people think about that author's writings.

In response to Ann:
"About proving all of one's own axioms, so far as I know ever since Aristotle on no philosopher of science has ever thought that everything can be proven -- that would require an infinite regress of premises."
===

Exactly... as most every major theological premise, regardless of whatever FAITH you choose to associate it with, has in some way - major or minor - been drawn from the Old Testament, or even earlier writings, which common people simply don't have access to. So an informed decision, on an individual basis is out of the question. As many are guarded secretly from mankind in the Vatican... prior to even medieval times. Even the facts surrounding JFK's death are more readily available to the public. So what's the real game?

There is more information for which to form an intelligent hypothesis, but not unlike the governments of this planet, we are protected from the TRUTH - our individual ignorance - for our own well being... because someone in a position of Power has decided, that's the best scenario.

I don't buy into that answer... ;)

There's no such thing as a "reasoned" superstition.
Either something is true or it isn't.
Stop making emotional appeals. All religionists are terrorists in principle: Believe in Our God or suffer eternal torment.
What could be more terrorizing than the promiss of unrelenting suffering?

USTM that before discussing a "reasoned" approach, we need to look at some of the meanings of "reason". "Reason" can mean logic, and a reasoned approach is one that uses logic to go from premises (evidence) to conclusions. Since the Enlightenment "reason" has emphasized the *critical* use of logic. In critical thinking the thinker criticizes his or her own premises and own use of the methods of logic. "Reason" can also mean simply the capacity to use logic.

We also talk about "reasonable" opinions, by which we mean, ISTM, views that are consistent with other generally admitted opinions. The problem with this is that the other opinions might or might not be true, so reasonable opinions are almost by definition subject to revision. (Sigh.)

Sadly, I don't find much of the critical method in contemporary theology (not that I've read a great deal of it). Contrast this with the middle ages when theological argument was a dialectical one in which the writer was required to present his opponent's views, then present his own opinions, and then finally answer his opponents' points one by one, all in hopes of understanding revelation better. And *his* views were subject to the critical thinking of others in the same forum. Yes, logic was a preferred method then

About proving all of one's own axioms, so far as I know ever since Aristotle on no philosopher of science has ever thought that everything can be proven -- that would require an infinite regress of premises. Unproven principles (axioms) are therefore required. Having proposed out axioms we can then go on to argue about whether or not these special premises are true.

Thanks, Washington Post. This forum is greatly needed.

Ann

In response to Michael Hull:

Thanks for your response to my post. I assume that the purpose of a reasoned argument is something other than entertainment or polemics. So, my question remains, what purpose does a reasonable argument have, if one side begins with a proposition that is axiomatic (not demonstrable). Either the purpose is to prosteletyze or to fail.

I salute Mechum and Quinn for creating this site.

It is not so important faith must be reasonable. In fact it often appears to those not experiencing it as unreasonable. What is important and you point out is when discussing it, civil discourse with reasoned opinion will often open doors of enlightenment for both sides. Selfish and unreasoned engagement with closed minds will never add anything to either side.

Orin:

You ask: “How would you state the following as a ‘reasoned argument’ rather than a threatening axiom, which is the way that it is stated in the Bible? “There is only one God, and Christ Jesus is the only one who can bring us to God” (1Timothy 2:5)

I would state it as follows: “The "opinion" of the writer of 1 Timothy is that there is only one God, and Christ Jesus is the only one who can bring us to God. Can we have a "reasoned argument" as to whether we share that opinion?”

(Incidentally, 1 Timothy is ascribed to the apostle Paul but is believed by most scholars to be a forgery in his name).

Dear Reverend Byron,

How would you state the following as a "reasoned argument" rather than a threatening axiom, which is the way that it is stated in the Bible?

"There is only one God, and Christ Jesus is the only one who can bring us to God" (1 Timothy 2:5).

In my humble opinion, faith and reason may not be in eternal enmity, but they sure appear to be.

Many such "arguments" end before they begin...
in CHOICE - of words. Religious people who believe they hold a monopoly on the ultimate doctrine of faith ARGUE, some responsibly - others not. Those of us not bound by such barriers, discuss the possiblities. As you make use of philosophical argument in your final statement, I'd like to point out that intellect, is often a matter of perspective. One can have as much or as little education (intellect), available to them in their lives.

It does not lessen, nor tame their compassions.
The essence of any discussion, is in one's ablity to communicate on a level common to the audience.

Leader's speak in tongues which REAL people find to be out of touch with reality. Hence, the fence!

Amazing a feel-good sermon, convoluted at that, adding nothing substantive on the subject, proving "those who can do; those who can't teach".

if the Truth U "know" shall set U free...
which 1Word, for U, best describes Truth?

(opinionlessness?)

If you are dealing with the reasonable, moderate Christian, it is possible to have a fruitful conversation, but not if you are confronted by a fool (yes, FOOL) who insists that the earth is 6,000 years old. How do you reason with a person to whom reason means nothing? You might be able to convince a moderate Christian that accepting supernatural events on practically no reliable evidence is wrong, and even dangerous in the era of weapons of mass destuction, but not a fanatic, who is likely to cause the End Times that he or she so lovingly predicts.

Personalize the arguments: How would you feel if you were in a minority and the majority voted to force their beliefs on you? If you walked a mile, or a half-mile in my shoes perhaps you would see things differently. Some people seem to have never thought of their faith-values differences that way.

Reverend Byron,

Your suggested paradigm shift to reasoned argument from moral argument is inspired.

An application of such intellectual honesty in debate perhaps could also be beneficially applied to political discussion.

Riley Hughes

Animals don't have religion so they're all going to h*ll, according to all the people that are for religion. Why should people keep the company of pets when they will become soldiers of Satan in the after life?

I taught Argumentation with this "simplistic" formula.E+R=P Evidence plus Reasoning equals Proof.Evidence-facts, opinions,material things.Reasoning-a structure of argument based on Causal Links, Generalizations, Analogy, and Sign. Proof-Conclusion or statement accepted as true by a reasonable-objective person. Some students thought it meant Ego+Rage=Pombier!
The point? "Truth" and "Belief", concerning G-d often differ. Some "tests" of evidence and reasoning have been presented...
What fun, [faith?], we can gain from an honest attempt at religious debate!
Cy

This guy has one sentence worth of idea to convey.
I have never read such inflated trivia in my life.
This "On Faith" is an embarrasment.

Dear John,

If I may ask, what role does emotion or spirit have insearching for the truth?

Mr. Byron, I understand and respect what you're trying to say here, but you're not realizing that REASON holds no monopoly on truth either. Reason may indeed be a good common ground to start from for some, but like Sam Harris, you're neglecting the legitimate role that emotions and even, I dare say, the spirit have in searching for truth with the intellect.

I think a lot more understanding could be had if we learn that faith and reason are often in tension, and while they shouldn't necessarily contradict each other, neither should they be expected to line up nicely every time as well. The intellect is a wonderful but limited means to the truth. Here is a true statement that I cannot provide a sound reasonable argument to back up: My sister and I fight nearly every time we are together, and I love her very much.