[chotadipo]

Recently we had a discussion on which of the two should be held at a higher level when it comes to human intellect. Should faith preclude reason or vice versa? Theists argue that faith should form a higher human mind disposition as it readily explains the inexplicable. They go on to justify the many calamities that befall us as GOD's plan for a better us in the near future. I as an athiest is hell bent on reasoning on anything to its empirical state. If somethig does not make sense, or is beyound my mental grasp, I save it for another day and time knowing and reassuring myself that there is an explanation to it. I do not resign myself in belief and faith that there is a plan for it and the irrational is beyound me. To me that is abandoning my ability to reason out why something is so.

I personally hold that faith should only be defaulted to when a rational answer is not forthcoming, but once it comes, we should make a conscious effort to move away from faith and accept facts. Faith or as some would say gut feeling should be used as a means of exploring new frontiers and not an end to itself. The latter would severly limit our ability to first reason, and second to develop on our understanding of what is around us. Thesits ask me, how do you reconcile yourself to that fact that everything has to have hard evidence yet do not bat an eyelid when trying to justify things that are intangible and immeasurable like telling someone, I love you"? My answer has always benn that if you concentrate on the said and not on the deeds you will miss the essence of an act. This explains why it is easy to breed fundamentalists using religion.

Theists, what is your take?

[peter_maumau]

You ask whether we should esteem faith higher than fact,or fact higher than faith...
Well if you are a christian, faith is above fact and everything and is only inferior to love and maybe hope..

faith (Hebrews 11 :23) is the substance of things hoped for,the evidence of things not seen)

Faith is necessarily blind, and full of hope ..
Let me take an example you may relate with, say you have a job and earn say 30,000 Us A year, there is no way you will ever see a million dollars ,going by your job ..
But say you have faith, and you believe ,and doubt not that you actually do receive and will get it, then faith works above the fact that you cannot..
And that is the beauty of faith, By our own works there was no way we could ever achieve God's requirements for righteousness, just being brn a non israelite was reason enough not to be righteous according to the law..But at the time appointed God sent his son Jesus so that by his death on the cross for our sins, and subsequent resurrection, those who believe, ( an only believe) are counted just, and worthy of eternal life
the fact is that we are sinners worthy of death, the faith gives us a way over the fact and we are made just and righteous by faith, what Love this great God has for all of us

Indeed dont let facts limit your ability, jesus said, and it is his word,which never returns void ,that (Mark 11 :23) whosoever shall say to this mountain be thou removed ,and be cast into the sea,and shall not doubt ,but shall believe those things he saith,shall have that which he saith..

How limitless are our possiblities with faith
If you insist on fact,and you cannot explain how the world came to being, then you are just limiting the sum total of all that you will ever achieve

[ernestombayo7]

Originally Posted by chotadipo

Recently we had a discussion on which of the two should be held at a higher level when it comes to human intellect. Should faith preclude reason or vice versa? Theists argue that faith should form a higher human mind disposition as it readily explains the inexplicable. They go on to justify the many calamities that befall us as GOD's plan for a better us in the near future. I as an athiest is hell bent on reasoning on anything to its empirical state. If somethig does not make sense, or is beyound my mental grasp, I save it for another day and time knowing and reassuring myself that there is an explanation to it. I do not resign myself in belief and faith that there is a plan for it and the irrational is beyound me. To me that is abandoning my ability to reason out why something is so.

I personally hold that faith should only be defaulted to when a rational answer is not forthcoming, but once it comes, we should make a conscious effort to move away from faith and accept facts. Faith or as some would say gut feeling should be used as a means of exploring new frontiers and not an end to itself. The latter would severly limit our ability to first reason, and second to develop on our understanding of what is around us. Thesits ask me, how do you reconcile yourself to that fact that everything has to have hard evidence yet do not bat an eyelid when trying to justify things that are intangible and immeasurable like telling someone, I love you"? My answer has always benn that if you concentrate on the said and not on the deeds you will miss the essence of an act. This explains why it is easy to breed fundamentalists using religion.

Theists, what is your take?

Faith is not equal to blind faith.For sure blind faith is dangerous and should not be encouraged.

Believe it chotadipo that you are a man of faith!so are the billions of humans on earth.Let me elaborate:

a)As you typed your post today,you and posted it,you were fairly confident that you will get a response.But really you did not have any evidence that you will get a reply from any of the forum members.You relied on your past knowledge to make a future prediction.Humans make predictions on future events based on past experiences,although there is no reason why we should do that.
If i asked you what evidence you had that people would reply to your post before we did,you would have none.But you would say,"i have faith that someone wil reply.This is based on my knowledge of how people respond to threads or posts in mashada."
You can use the word,"fairly confident" to replace faith.but the meaning is the same in this context.

b) why do you plan for tomorrow as if you have evidence that you will be alive tomorrow?all you have going fior you is,"since i was alive today and i have been alive for the past 20 plus years,then i have "faith" that i will be alive tomorrow."

c)Which evidence do you have to prove that eg your wife loves you?,you might say,she has stayed with me for 20 years,she says she loves me and she attends to my needs.But this is really not evidence is it?its a certain behavior she has towards you.But why attribute it to love.Why not obsession,why not gold digging,why not conniving.The only way to know whether she really loves you would be a lie detector.(assuming that lie detectors work).But as long as you can never enter her brain and look for the evidence,you will be having a fairly strong faith that your wife loves you.


We live,walk eat by faith,and in few cases,by evidence.The human experiences are all abut faith.Some faith is no doubt blind.But its impossible to live by evidence alone.

[grip_daddy]

Ernest that was well put!

When a scientist ventures into a new field experimentally, what drives him? Not evidence whatsoever.

[ATLian]

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

Faith is not equal to blind faith.For sure blind faith is dangerous and should not be encouraged.

Ernest,

you do give some good examples of faith. I think we can all agree that we all rely on faith for almost everything in our lives. You have faith that the elevator won't crash, which is why you enter into it. You have faith that if your light is green, the others on the crossroad at red won't drive through, which is why you can drive across the crossroad bila giving it too much thought. When I press "ON" on the remote, I have faith that the TV will go on if the remote has a working battery and the TV is working and the power is on. That is because I have done it a million times before and I expect it to work again. etc.

This faith however is completely different from the faith that religion requires us to have. Religion demands 100% BLIND faith. There is no argument on that. You have absolutely no freaking evidence that god exists. None. Only the word of the Bible to believe in. You have no evidence that Adam was the first man created. You only believe because Genesis says it. You believe Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt only because the Bible says that. If the Bible says she was turned into a Guiness keg, you'd believe that bila any questions and bila any evidence. etc.

Plus don't forget that even Jesus encouraged Blind Faith, and Thomas (who demanded empirical proof) is usually derided by Christians for that.

That said, I do agree with you that Blind Faith, especially with religion, is very dangerous and should not be encouraged.

[ATLian]

Originally Posted by grip_daddy

When a scientist ventures into a new field experimentally, what drives him? Not evidence whatsoever.

It definitely isn't blind faith, as you seem to insinuate, that drives scientific research into new fields. It is usually questions (Newton - Why did that apple fall), need (Fridge - How do we make food stay fresh longer), coincidence (Dr. Percy Spencer had some chocolate in his pocket melt while he was standing next to a machine on which he was researching something else and next thing you know he had invented the microwave oven), etc. I can't see how blind faith checks in.

[grip_daddy]

ATLian,

So far, comparing reason with faith seems to suggest that faith has prominence over reason.

When do we talk of blind faith? Like Thomas refusing to believe testimony of 10 mature people?

How many people have primary evidences? Not you ATLian. I believe that Newton "discovered" the law of gravity on blind faith. How sure are you that it was him? Because many people bought into his lie that he was seated under a tree and a fruit fell towards the ground? That it was not a fellow human being who might have asked him why fruits never fall up? We just believe bila any questions, don't we?

[ernestombayo7]

Originally Posted by ATLian

Ernest,

you do give some good examples of faith. I think we can all agree that we all rely on faith for almost everything in our lives. You have faith that the elevator won't crash, which is why you enter into it. You have faith that if your light is green, the others on the crossroad at red won't drive through, which is why you can drive across the crossroad bila giving it too much thought. When I press "ON" on the remote, I have faith that the TV will go on if the remote has a working battery and the TV is working and the power is on. That is because I have done it a million times before and I expect it to work again. etc.

This faith however is completely different from the faith that religion requires us to have. Religion demands 100% BLIND faith. There is no argument on that. You have absolutely no freaking evidence that god exists. None. Only the word of the Bible to believe in. You have no evidence that Adam was the first man created. You only believe because Genesis says it. You believe Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt only because the Bible says that. If the Bible says she was turned into a Guiness keg, you'd believe that bila any questions and bila any evidence. etc.

Plus don't forget that even Jesus encouraged Blind Faith, and Thomas (who demanded empirical proof) is usually derided by Christians for that.

That said, I do agree with you that Blind Faith, especially with religion, is very dangerous and should not be encouraged.

Definitaely some religions are based on blind faith.But i do not believe Christianity is based on blind faith.If you are an atheist you will say that here is no evidence of God,but as a theist i beleive that there is evidence of God.What you require as evidence of God may be different from what i think is evidence of God.

IT all boils down to what evidence is sufficient for belief in God.Christians think there is sufficient reasons to belive in God.infact the very fact that we are here and can reason about God is evidence that a creator exists according to Christianity.

In short if someone can support his case,and give reasons for his belief,then it shows that atleast the peson has reasoned to his belief.Whether his reasons are wrong or right,its for you and him to argue it out.

[ATLian]

So far, comparing reason with faith seems to suggest that faith has prominence over reason.

Only when dealing with religion. That's the only aspect of life where blind faith is absolutely required, and the only aspect where adherents don't mind having blind faith. Nobody ever buys a car or house on the blind faith that it will be what it's advertised to be.



When do we talk of blind faith? Like Thomas refusing to believe testimony of 10 mature people?

Thomas didn't have blind faith, which is why Jesus blasted him. And those 10 mature people did not have blind faith, for they had actually seen Jesus.



How many people have primary evidences? Not you ATLian.

Depends on what area of life you are talking about. I have primary evidences on a ton of things. I refuse to use blind faith in my life. Can you name any example where I use blind faith?



I believe that Newton "discovered" the law of gravity on blind faith.

Then you have a distorted definition of the term "blind faith". "Blind faith" means (to put it simply) believing in something bila any tangible ama empirical evidence whatsoever. Which essentially means that the story has to have first been sold to you. Nobody ever "sold" Newton the story of gravity. Therefore he didn't blindly believe in it. What Newton did is question a natural phenom. Why do things fall down? Why don't stones that are thrown up leave the earth forever? etc. Those questions had undoubtedly had been asked before by thousands of men. The difference is that Newton had a one-in-a-billion brain, and he managed to answer them.



How sure are you that it was him? Because many people bought into his lie that he was seated under a tree and a fruit fell towards the ground? That it was not a fellow human being who might have asked him why fruits never fall up? We just believe bila any questions, don't we?

I know that the story of the apple falling is most likely a myth. What is unquestionable is that it was Newton who formulated and wrote the equations concerning gravity, motion, force, etc. That is undeniable. What caused him to write them is speculation, but that's besides the main point.

[ATLian]

Definitaely some religions are based on blind faith.But i do not believe Christianity is based on blind faith.

You're dead wrong on that one. Even Jesus himself said to Thomas:

John 20: 29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Blind faith is not only a requirement of religion, it is highly praised!



What you require as evidence of God may be different from what i think is evidence of God.

True, but that doesn't change the definition of "evidence". I have heard Christians who claim that "the sky is blue and the sun is shining" is evidence of god existing. What hogwash.



IT all boils down to what evidence is sufficient for belief in God.Christians think there is sufficient reasons to belive in God.infact the very fact that we are here and can reason about God is evidence that a creator exists according to Christianity.

That's the hogwash I refer to. That's the same "evidence" Muslins use, same evidence believers of the other 33,000 gods have used over the years.



In short if someone can support his case,and give reasons for his belief,then it shows that atleast the peson has reasoned to his belief.Whether his reasons are wrong or right,its for you and him to argue it out.

True. But just because somebody has reasoned his beliefs doesn't mean they are correct. Assume somebody who believes in Osiris says "Osiris, if you exist, prove it to me by making it rain in the next two days", then it happens to rain in the next two days. According to him, that is absolute evidence that Osiris exists. Acording to you, it isn't, it was just meant to rain, and you can even bring about weather charts to back you up. You see the folly of blind faith?