Faith Tempered By Reason Is An Antidote To Violence

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I would recommend that Rev. Tully, as well as many of the atheist posters here, review Erich Fromm's "Man For Himself." Dr. Fromm (the very definition of secular humanist) proposed that faith *is* necessary, but he differentiated between what he called irrational faith (based on dogmatic authority) and rational faith (based on experience). An example of the latter would be the scientist pursuing research into the promising but as yet uncertain.

I think once we atheists start throwing religionists a bone every now and then, we might start seeing some more pliability on their part. Dr. Fromm wrote that book in 1947, and it's a shame the conversation has regressed since then.

Faith is a very glorified word for believing things that have no or little basis in reality. Believing things on faith would be fine if we didn't believe our faith was absolute truth and then fight with others about who's right and who's wrong. Faith might give us some reassurance about life after death, or that someone is watching out for us, but for the most part it plays out violently on the world stage and the victims are always the women, children and animals.

It is better for people with different beliefs to take steps to get along and I applaud the Pope and everyone else willing to take steps outside their comfort zones and beyond the boundaries of their imagined self concepts. Yet the results of our belief systems have consistently deteriorated into war and I think that it is time to seriously question the efficacy of the very process of faith, take a quiet and long look at the falseness of belief and the importance of facing physical and elemental reality and lay our belief systems to rest. Perhaps we could have ritual funerals for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. and let Jesus, Mohammed, Moses and the rest of them finally rest in peace. Then we can get on with the real work of being our brothers' and sisters' keepers, take care of our Mother Earth and finally stop pretending to be something we are not.

Let the Pope and the head honcho of the Eastern Church and all the Ayatollahs and all the Rabbis and all the heads of state take their clothes off (their signs of high office), take a sweat together and realize they are humans who do not have any better grasp on the truth than the easter bunny and probably less than their pets.

I am currently doing some writing on these subjects and invite you to visit my website at www.professorpurplepants.com

I think "faith" is the expectation that once the hitherto unknown knowledge is revealed it will actually be so. Obviously, there are many ways to come about this "faith," which is essentially a kind of a guess. However, as anyone who has taken a test in school should know, if you don't know the answer, you guess. Sometimes, it's a "wild guess" and sometimes it is more informed (by eliminating the obviously wrong answers and using your powers of inference, for instance). If you take a wild guess, that is, make an uninformed choice, then that disqualifies you from saying (or shouting) you're right, and most certainly disqualifies you from pushing your guess on others. If your guess is the result of logical thinking, deep thought, etc., then discussion among like-minded others can help us piece together the puzzle (like the blind men feeling different parts of the elephant, trying to guess what it is).

So, there is a place for reason in discussing faith, since logic can get us only so far, and because of incomplete knowledge, we have to make a leap of faith at some point. Acquiring new knowledge is like a step function, meaning that if you were to draw the increase in knowledge on a graph, sudden increases in knowledge are followed by plateaus and then another increase, and so forth. So at each point where we see a jump or a discontinuity, the market for ideas (debates, arguments, clash of ideas) generates a winner and our state of knowledge moves forward. Sometimes the wrong winner is picked (conventional paradigm is proven wrong). But this proces of open-minded debate based on available knowledge and evidence (Popper's idea of "falsification") keeps us going in the right direction for the most part.

I don't think that you can save humanity (but let's try), you can only save yourself. We're animals and are lead by our leaders as such. We must resist the forces that demand that we concretize the words of our religious texts. We must die to our animals selves and be born again as gods.

Friend, I can appreciate your point about Jesus flying as an inspiration. My point is, why does that or anything else about Jesus have to be a dogma? What point is there to a dogma that says that anyone who doesn't accept the divinity of Jesus is doomed to hell? Dogmas like that don't inspire, they only serve to frighten.

What if "fly" means "the be inspired"? I've flown when reading humanities ancient texts. Jesus flew and said things that were beyond his humble background.

I think that there is more to religion than applying science to claims made by ancient people about the natural world or the manipulation of it by the political structure that governs it and the authors who sometimes twisted the words of the prophets.

Looking beyond my religion helped me understand it's meaning and role in the world.

Friend, I'm with you about religions using metaphor and ritual to explain the human condition. (I view the two creation stories in Genesis as metaphors illustrating the development of sentience and civilization.) But I don't understand what that has to do with "faith." Doesn't a believer have faith that the incidents in the metaphors actually happened as written? Doesn't faith rule out a metaphorical reading of any scripture? Maybe when we're talking about the human condition, "faith" and "religion" are the wrong words. How about "philosophy"?

PUZZLED

Reason defeats faith. Faith is a word selected by the religious authorities calculated to defy reason. We know things work a certain way and it's very aggravating. Faith allows one to overcome the aggravation by injecting supernatural intervention to defeat natural law.

For example, we can't fly. That's aggravating. So we imagine and have faith that Jesus, a man once flew. That means man can fly after all but only with supernatural help because Jesus is God, a supernatural being. Now we can't expect to fly on demand. We must wait for Jesus to come back. That's when Jesus "flys" back and beams the good little boys, the ones with faith up. Is this a reasonable scenario? It takes faith and not reason.

Those who do and do not do as Jesus dictates will not fly. Jesus is a dictator that promises to defeat natural law for some but not everyone. Reason says that's a pack of nonsense, a con game. Faith is the key ingredient in the successful con. http://www.hoax-buster.org will fill you in and help you find faith. Without fait all is lost, for the con man.

Do we need to be more specific when using the word "Faith"?

There are multiple definitions. I think distinguishing between belief without proof and belief in the teachings of religion is helpful.

If we are talking about the second definition, then Faith with reason is very practical.

Religions use metaphor and ritual to explain the human condition and our culture. It offers views into our psychology and can guide us in the conduct of our life. It can make us think beyond our ordinary lives to how we are connected to the
Universe and each other. All peoples of the world developed religion because it is practical and helpful to the community.

When reading the great religious literature of the past, we should use reason in it’s interpretation. The language of religion can bring insights into the human condition and the awe of existence. Religion and science together can bring insights into existence that as of yet, neither can do alone.

I think anyone reading the Sermon on the Mount, the Bhagavad-Gita, or any of the great religious writings will be inspired.

There is no faith without reason, and there is no reason without faith. There is only fanatism and barbarity.

Why is reason incompatible with faith?

If we use our logic to step-by-step build a chain of causal statements (if A then B) to examine all that we know, I'd think that we eventually arrive at a point where we must either accept or reject based on some vague sense (intuition?) but cannot completely confirm one way or the other. So, there has to be some starting point, and this point may well be somewhat arbitrary. This is because our knowledge is limited. But even without absolute knowledge (can such a thing be possible?) we have to make assumptions, guesstimates, etc. as starting points.

The reason we often think of faith being incompatible with reason is because most Sunday schools teach us to defy logic and just believe. Inquisitive (and/or annoying) children can always be answered with "because God made it so..." Children are often indoctrinated into faith in this way. Perhaps it is easier to tell children to take the Bible quite literally. And I concede that Bible stories (just like e.g., Aesop's tales) often have a moral point or some lesson, usually good. However, eventually we have to tell them that Santa Claus did not give them that Lego set on X-Mas a few years ago and that Santa does not live in North Pole with elves. If we don't tell them that Rudolf and the gang do not exist, and reindeers cannot fly at any rate, then reason is drowned out by a false "faith" (which actually amounts to a kind of idol, or something like Plato's "cave").

If we can teach children to understand why we tell stories (allegories, parables, etc.) that may not necessarily be factually true (there really might have been a prodigal son, but it doesn't have to be historically 100% accurate to be meaningful) but if they have kernels of normative truths within them, then those children can grow up and have a mature sense of faith ("even though I know that Santa is not going to reward me with a Playstation this X-Mas, I should still love my family and be respectful to friends and colleagues because that is the right thing to do") rather than continuing to hold the hammer over their heads ("if you are not 'good,' Santa will not slide down our fireplace and leave a present under that tree for you,") and thereby stunting their emotional and intellectual growth.

There is no reason why reason should not recognize the limits of reason. For example: where does this unlikely reality come from? Can reason exclude the possbilities of the unseen dimensions that the Catholic creed speaks of? Of course not.
That is where faith begins.
And even if reason closes itself to this insight, humans live in faith of some kind. Some call their faith "faith in science."
Contrary to the suggestion of the avowedly scientific Mr. Dogwood, we will never know with certainty the most important things: like what is right and wrong.
Lenin and Hitler would have called those terms "conventions." Christians, Jews, Muslims and other people of faith do not.

Re: William Tully
==>Faith tempered by reason is an antidote to violence.

If faith were tempered by reason it would be forced into non-existence. In order to retain faith you have to limit the reason with which it is tempered...and who's to say "not enough" or "too much" reason?

Re: Silence Dogood
==>It is time we stopped respecting people absurd faith-based assertions, and for us to require valid reasons from them instead. That will be an antidote to violence

Hear! Hear!

Why does one even give the time of day to these delusions collectively known as "faith". All this unearned respect leads to is competing theocracies.

Reverend Tully is exactly correct: faith tempered by reason is the the great contribution of Western civilization. Thomas Aquinas was perhaps the first to systematically reconcile the reason of Athens with the Christian faith.

Faith addresses what cannot be known by reason alone. Reason adds to faith a dimension that enhances that faith and leads one to live in harmony with the rest of mankind and with nature. Faith without reason easily leads to views of the non-faithful as infidels worthy of damnation. Faith with reason can see others as God's creatures worthy of love.

Faith without reason led to the Inquistion, the abuses of the European wars of religion, and the current suppression of Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism in many Muslim countries. Faith with reason leads to freedom of religion.

Faith is irrational, its lazy thinking, you can have faith in any unprovable destructive thing you want and it doesn't need one ounce of proof. And you can't question someone on it, because it's 'faith' after all.

Faith is simply childish belief. "I'm right and you're wrong and nothing you say or do will convince me different." Interfaith discourse is ultimately doomed because it will inevitably run into the different basic inviolable premises.

The antidote to extremism is rationality, full stop. This means getting rid of the petty childishness which is religious faith...

I wouldn't want a doctor operating on me if he had been trained solely with a 2 thousand year old medical text and I'd question the 'reason' of anyone who did.

Faith and reason are mutually exclusive terms.

Non-contingent certainty and beliefs (faith) are intellectually bankrupt cognitive paradigms. If you know something to be true, or have evidence for it, you do not need to use the term faith.

There is a significant difference between saying one has faith, and saying one has reasonable certainty or contingent belief based on evidence and constitutable knowledge.

If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.

It would be in our common interest for people to see faith for the divisive and destructive vehicle that it is. It is time we stopped respecting people absurd faith-based assertions, and for us to require valid reasons from them instead. That will be an antidote to violence.