Faith and Reason, Closer than you think

We are having this interesting discussion between faith and reason in my religious class and I just thought I'd post what I wrote. You know I am not really that religious but I do have faith, and I believe that there is faith which can be just as strong as reason or facts.

Reason helps us see the world clearer and understand facts. Faith guides our reason to help it on the right track. It helps us search for those facts. Faith and reason contradicts and interacts with each other. For example Atheists and scientists do not understand the reasoning behind religious beliefs because they explain all the mystery away using science. Those who have faith need only one reason to believe in their God and that is usually the fact (to them) that God exists. Their faith is so strong that Atheists just do not understand. To the faithful, Atheists are the ones that are lost and need to find God.

However reason can also be clouded by faith. Too many times too many fights and full blown bloody wars are started through blind faith. No matter how you want to justify it the terrorists that struck down the world trade center on 9/11/2001 did so because of their blind faith, twisted beliefs, and profound hatred of America.

Christians and other religious peoples believe that they have the answers they seek through God. God is their reason for doing both good and bad in the world. Those searching for God or explanations of God will have a hard time finding it through science or even internet keywords. It is an altogether different experience, which as of right now, Science cannot answer or explain away.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica there are only about 2.3% Atheists in the world and only 11.9% nonreligious people. Is the majority of the population wrong? I don’t think so! There must be something out there. However, there are those people who are in the middle and switch between religious beliefs. They are trying to search for answers, but the Church and I tell people to be careful where they search for information. Finding God through Google is about as likely as finding a correct diagnosis on WebMD. You will go crazy trying to find the answers to your questions about God in cyberspace alone.

Why did you ask your scientific question? Well people feel so strongly that their answer is right that they use the scientific method to prove it! You cannot yet, prove, God's existence with the scientific method.

I agree that faith in something can encourage you to find more reasons to believe.
Faith is the assured expectation of something not seen or beheld.
So to start with I don't believe a person 'reasons' to believe in a God.

To me, its more like reasoning a 'need' for a belief in God is what drives such a large population of this world to build faith in something they have no tangible proof of. (or as some would say 'tangible')

The need to look to a higher power for strength and wisdom, to know our creator. The need for answers about the troubles we all share in life.

I personally reason that there has to be an architect to this exquisite world we live in.

Whether he is directly involved and demands a specific type of worship, I know not of.
Saying that, I understand why Atheists can turn away the idea and think of it as illogical.
Due to there being so many different religions that directly contrast each other and as you mentioned, because of the awful things that have been done in the name of God.

One thing that baffles me, is that a creator of this universe would surely be a scientist, and yet the gap between science and God's existence has never been further apart.

no offense meant to you, and i would admit i believe there could quite soon be a bridge between faith and science, however you seem to be coming from quite an ethnocentric perspective. in order to truly make any link between science reason and any higher realms you must remain open minded and not tied into traditional views or you may not understand or comprehend new thoughts when presented and view them as blasphomy instead.

Originally posted by jjf3rd77
. No matter how you want to justify it the terrorists that struck down the world trade center on 9/11/2001 did so because of their blind faith, twisted beliefs, and profound hatred of America.

thats probably exactly what george bush and his comrades would like you to believe, you should look up the good doctor ron paul and see what he says about listening to your enemy. he predicted escalated terrorist attacks well before 9/11 and not for religious reasons

science may not be able to explain religious experiences belief or faith however i dont believe as many people as you perscribe are truly searching for religious truth via the internet, most people recognize what the internet is as just a open source of information

ps. by saying the church and I warn where you get your information from you seem to contradict your original position of not being that religious. people are naturally drawn to search for answers and while the internet provides an easy medium to find them it is only a spark for information they can then take elsewhere and possibly attend a buddhist monestary per say
personally i was raised religious but have in a way turned from organized religion, i believe there must be reason and purpose to life and existence, for being and experience as more than an inanimate object however i dont think anyone has any further insight into the metaphysical world than anyone else, buddha jesus quantum physicists, everyone has their specialties and beliefs into one order or another. that is also why the internet is so great as it is an open source to allow information from anyone to be seen

reply to post by jjf3rd77


I have faith in reasonable things. It is reasonable that the sun will rise tomorrow. Therefore I have faith that it will. Things that can't be proven beyond a resonable doubt or seem unreasonable, I have little or no faith in.

reply to post by jjf3rd77


there is no contradiction between faith and reason when faith concept is the reason and reason concept is the belief

but what you dont see is yourself reasons in truth

actually what you are describing here is the opposition between two different statements,
one is source of all
all is source of one

atheists could seem as being from believing that all is source of one
religious seem believing that one is source of all

but also atheists believe that one is source of all when they mean themselves one as all
as also religious believe that all is source of one when they mean god one as all

so there is no opposition even in what you are using to justify it, bc your unconscious premise is false

one is not the source of all and all is not the source of one

all and one are free and always exist independantly

reply to post by jjf3rd77


Faith and logic I think would be a better comparison for this discussion. Reason suggests a motive, a goal, or a destination of some kind. Faith definitely has a reason behind it: self-empowerment; unification; monetary obsession; superiority; censorship; etc., etc. Logic, on the other hand, does not necessarily have a reason or driving force behind it. The pursuit, and comprehension, or logic can definitely be driven by numerous motivations, many of which mirror the motivations of faith. On its own though, logic is as it stands, regardless of why it is pursued.

To begin with, you misidentify the reasoning behind atheism. It is not that an atheist cannot comprehend the reasons why a believer has their beliefs. What the atheist does not comprehend is why a believer continues to adhere to their beliefs, when logic, science, evidence, and all other manner of studies conducted without a bias arrive at the conclusion that the belief is wrong, faulty, dangerous, or inherently untrue. You state that science "explains away all the mystery," as if this makes scientific rationale into something negative. It does not.

For example, before science studied the shape and the form of the Earth it was believed that our planet was both flat, and the center of the Universe. This produced a mystery of why we were the center, and what mechanism made the flat Earth inhabitable. Scientific studies then arrived at a different conclusion: the Earth was round, and our sun was the center of the solar system, which in turn was on the far tip of our galaxy, which is just one in a numerous cluster of galaxies spanning the whole Universe.

To the faithful this removes the "mystery" of why our planet is flat by concluding: our planet is not flat. This allows new mysteries to be embraced: why is our planet spherical; how did our planet form; does our planet move? On and on the list can grow. Likewise, we also now know that our planet is just one of incalculable planets in the Universe, and that we are not the center of everything. This lays to rest the question of why we're the center of everything: we're not. It also opens up new mysteries for our exploration: if we're not the center, how did we get here; are there other planets like us; are we alone, or is our Universe populated with other life forms?

I feel like you judge belief as being only that there is a God who created and designed everything. Which I feel is incorrect. Belief, to me, evokes awe, wonder, and amazement in our emotional perception of existence. God was a belief when we did not understand how things worked. God was the answer to things which shocked, inspired, and filled us with awe. Now we know how life came to be, how our planet was formed, why our planet can support and sustain life, from where our solar system came, and to where our galaxy is heading. The belief in "God" is outdated now, and no longer a necessity for the continuation of our belief structure.

It is not that belief and reason, logic, or science are at odds. It is that the beliefs people once held are so tenaciously defended that the adherent do not listen to reason, logic, or science. If the definition of God evolved into something more contemporary perhaps God's continued belief could be defensible. Instead, people reject the advancements of medicine, evolution, history, psychology, and geological studies in favor of comforting fairy tales. That is why belief clashes with logic.

Your original stand-point was backward, implying that science tries to remove the mystery, making it a negative. When in reality, the negative is preserving the mystery, and keeping the whole Universe uneducated.

~ Wandering Scribe

reply to post by Wandering Scribe


right, logic is the true word, the exclusive way of meaning smthg so being always objective then
when subjective is by definition meaning smthg freely free so absolutely involving nothing to b right of subject

subject exist from being a plus fact out of positive freedom absolute truth

object exist from being a plus fact out of positive realisation in absolute truth knowledge

reply to post by jjf3rd77


So just because the majority believes in something, that means that it's true? That's foolish thinking... Just saying..

Everyone will come to their own conclusions about God, what ever they want to believe or if they don't want to believe at all.;

reply to post by jjf3rd77


Very well said S&F for ya. I believe a person has to look within for his ultimate truths, search for the answers you seek by whatever tools available to you and use them to find the answers you seek.Your instinct and gut feelings should lead you to the truths you are looking for.

reply to post by jjf3rd77

Is the majority of the population wrong? I don’t think so! There must be something out there.

Lets say you do not know how to read. Lets say I have a Bible. Lets say I read that Bible to you and in turn you have to listen to me because I know how to read.

Fast forward 1700 years.

All those people who could not read 1700 years ago were indoctrinated, and in turn indoctrinated their children. Crusaders and Conquistadors made sure to kill any non-conformers so what are you left with now?

What if the majority of humans did not have an intellectual mind? What if they had the mind of herd animals?

You see, your proposition is worthless because force has been used to make people believe what some believed, and now entire generations are mentally screwed through religion.

Faith faith bla bla bla, sounds like you do not believe in the religion but you are afraid to let go of the fantasy stories out of a sense of insecurity. A lot of "religious" people like that around.

Faith is little more than a side affect of humanity's fascination with the unknown. Once there's a definitive answer or at least an accepted logical framework to describe something's existence then faith in the supernatural tends to become unnecessary and slowly fades away.

You sometimes have faith for a reason. For example, I have faith because I experienced something. That is evidence enough for me and reason enough for faith.

reply to post by 547000

You sometimes have faith for a reason. For example, I have faith because I experienced something. That is evidence enough for me and reason enough for faith.

It's your brain trying to make sense of what you experienced through what you can reference it as. Say you were raised(indoctrinated) with one religion or the other, the chances that you experience something you can't explain other than through faith(because that is your only reference point) grow exponentially. Where you say faith others say coincidence and are completely fine with it. Personally I'm turning around on this faith thing, I'm seeing it as more and more a delusional mindset, and detrimental to the intellectual evolution of mankind.

Just like an insane person experiences something and behaves accordingly, so do those who have faith.

Originally posted by 547000
You sometimes have faith for a reason. For example, I have faith because I experienced something. That is evidence enough for me and reason enough for faith.

my turn now to comment that

if u experienced smthg then u have no excuse of belief, beliefs are only to no experiences at all, that is how they are opposed to objective concept bc they are inherently never related to

to prove it, any subjective experience can b isolated in mind, it is the most easy fact to do when a subjective experience is a constant existing sense end, then u can check it with nothing of it also in mind to conceive the experience as an object u mean to relate to, the fact that an experience can become an object in mind kill the excuse of belief or faith since u can then realize the object objectively, then the answser is right in front of u

the arguments of religious people have the character of absurdity

like who love god is who keep talking about him while saying that he is everything, why dont they deal with things life to communicate their appreciation or justify everything objectively being right

it is like they prove how they mean themselves only, as if they cant mean anything even when they know that anything is everything source they love, they must invent reasons of god and to bc they cant b objective since being objective necessitate a positive relation to object from subject that they are not willing bc they dont like to mean anything else but them

Originally posted by 547000
You sometimes have faith for a reason. For example, I have faith because I experienced something. That is evidence enough for me and reason enough for faith.

Faith is believing something without evidence. Once you have evidence it is more accurate to consider it a belief rather than faith...

I don't have faith, that if I jump I'll fall back down. I have belief based on what I've seen before...

reply to post by arpgme


but this is also the point i proved being a lie, if u truly believed smthg out of evidence then why dont u realize it, at least u will b happy with ur belief reality present, even if it is so little compared to the reference superiority of the belief, but that is how the subject work really, the quantity of powers doesnt count it is the end constant that matters to the free sense that means a positive reality of being existing symbolically

What gives a suicide bomber the certainty required to detonate the vest he's wearing is the exact same type of faith that Christians and other religionists proclaim to be the secret to eternal wisdom. To me, that says all I'll ever need to know about the value of faith in any examination of truth.

The fact that every religion ranks its winners and losers in terms of how much belligerent faith they have in their specific doctrine and creed is all I need to know about the validity of religions.

Faith is a potential death trap for the faithful, and it mocks all efforts at verification as being evidence that the verifier is lacking in relative value as a person. It's the perfect hoodwink, and that's why it's so deeply ingrained within the cultural traditions that define each major human society. It works, and what works is repeated again and again until it becomes axiomatic.