Faith is Greater than Reason

[Ali]

I don't feel special any more.  *Pouts*

http://www.christianforums.com/t7623241/

http://www.worthychristianforums.com/index.php?/topic/147806-faith-is-greater-than-reason/

http://thethinkingatheist.com/forum/Thread-Faith-is-Greater-than-Reason

Funny story, I stumbled upon these because I was googling for images to use in a "Faith Grating Raisins" visual pun I was going to post.  But I'm not great at photoshopping, so it's probably for the best that I got sidetracked by Egor's sneaky Christian trickery.

[Stevil]

As far as I can tell, Egor is trying to generate traffic onto his blog site.
He goes to other sites, makes ridiculous claims and hence gets many people wanting to point out how illogical his points are. Once he generates interest in people to respond to him, he then tells everyone he has to go and focus on his book writting but that he will be contactable on his own blog site for further discussion.

It is a very lonely site over there, a bit of abuse from atheists whom he has insulted and then claimed victory over, but no decent conversations or anything worthy of interest IMHO.

[Whitney]

He goes to other sites, makes ridiculous claims and hence gets many people wanting to point out how illogical his points are. Once he generates interest in people to respond to him, he then tells everyone he has to go and focus on his book writting but that he will be contactable on his own blog site for further discussion.

Yup.

So if I use my will to believe that he's not actually there does that make it true?

[Ali]

Ah, poor Egor.  Bad attention is still attention right?

Anyone want to help me make a picture of Faith Grating Raisins that he can post on his blog and talk to?

[McQ]

What a shocker. Edward is spamming various forums with copypasta.

Limp.

[Asmodean]

The Asmo would come out and play, but he is currently playing stoner song game in some stoner's delusional god thread.  

[Gawen]

It is one thing to believe that which is right in front of you. I believe the sky is blue. I believe there are alligators in the lake next to my house. I believe gravity exists. There is no choice but to believe these things, and it is a very natural reaction to make reasonable judgments based on such knowledge that is so obvious to me.

I do not believe in the things you mentioned. I KNOW these things to be true, with the exception of the sky is not blue but I know why it appears that way. I do not know there are alligators in the lake next to your house. But it is not beyond credulity.

If I go swimming in the lake, I might lose a foot.

And you may not.

If I drop a water balloon off the Sears Tower in Chicago, it will make a big splash in the end.

It could break before it hits the ground.

That's normal human reasoning based on direct observations connected with previous experience or the acquired knowledge of what has happened in the past (e.g., others have been bit by alligators in similar lakes).

I have swam in many lakes and I would say that most lakes are all similar. But none of the lakes I have swum in did not have alligators in them.

But this is not the highest level of human mental functioning anymore than the peristalsis that leads to a good poop is a victory of human achievement. We observe and reason by reflex. Faith on the other hand requires will.

Well, first off, equating or analogising a great bowel movement to critical thinking skills is where your faith leads you astray. Now, as far as will and faith goes...

I defy you to grip a baseball bat, summon all your will through faith and ask god to not make it hurt or leave a mark when you hit yourself over the head with it. Do this several times.

When we choose to believe, no matter what is presented to us, we are not only using our rational powers (because we reason that we are not being rational) but we also incorporate our will so that the entire process is more demanding than mere reasoning. It's actually something that is very difficult to do.

What? As demanding as it may be, just do the baseball bat test and let us know how you're doing.

If one is sick, and they choose to believe they have been healed even when they are still in pain or the symptoms persist, or if one simply chooses to have confidence in a situation even though there is only a 50/50 chance they will prevail, this takes more mental capability than simply being rational.

Ahhhh...ok. So when you have a massive bump (along with a massive headache), some blood and finally get up from a prone position on the floor, you will be telling us that there is indeed no headache, blood or lump/s because your mental capacity was such to prevent it, even though we could quite easily see lump/s and blood.

And I'm not talking about delusions here. A deluded person is still on the level of reasoning because they are sure their delusion is true. A deluded person may think they are protected against alligators by space aliens. That's not faith. Such a person is using rational thinking when they go swimming in the lake. They're wrong, of course, but they think they're right; so, that's not faith.

So asking a god to protect you in some alligator infested lake is not faith...but is rational?

You are so full of it, Egor....*chucklin*

[Sandra Craft]

But is kissing your own ass greater than simply walking. It's subjective.

I'd like to nominate this as the profound thought of the day. 

[Tristan Jay]

Well, I looked at it, and gave a go at trying to understand it.  There's some interesting, almost poetic, philosophical ideas here.

I will zero in on the thing about Rationality.  Hypothetically, as a Rationality as a stepping stone toward Faith.  Without that first stepping stone, your not going to get to the next stepping stone, though.  Adjust the metaphor a little, make it the first step on a staircase, or a ladder.  Or the stones at the base of a pillar?  Maybe I'll just go back to the stepping stone.  If the Rationality Stepping Stone is weak or rickety, then you're not going to get anywhere near Faith.  Which still makes Rationality the most important first step.  It needs to be a strong fundamental before you get to the other steps, including Faith.  I'm not sure if I'm seeing Rationality as a stepping stone toward Faith per se.  I think maybe Faith has a different relationship with Rationality.

I hope fellow forum members will bear with me as I indulge and branch out into territory that is discussed on one of the other forums over this same thread.  The poster in The Thinking Atheist forum called The Bearded Dude brought up Faith and Trust, when he says that Faith is not equal to Trust.  I think he quantifies it by saying that Trust is something we can invest a measure in based on past experience; Rational experience as a stepping stone leading us to make conclusions about how much we can trust in a person/event/deity to behave in a consistent manner.  He goes on to say that Faith doesn't use the stepping stone of Rationality; I'll throw out the cliche "Leap of Faith" and the imagery of jumping over the Rationality stepping stone into a dark area that you can't see.  Maybe that's partly what he was suggesting.  I'm not quite sure how it pertains to Egor's OP, it's a bit above my head.

I latched onto trust because it's resonates very personally.  Without meaning to antagonize or throw things off (really), since we are on an atheist forum where Trust, Belief, and Faith in God is not taken as an assumed automatic thing.  I'm sure there are many reasons why people abandon Faith or decided not to invest trust in Faith as asked for by religion in the first place.  Maybe some people jumped over the Rationality Stepping Stone, and felt like they needed to swim back and try and find a more sturdy stone because they missed the Faith stepping stone, or the Faith stepping stone wobbled and threw them in the pond.  An alternative scenario might see a different person who walked on the Rationality Stepping Stone, then a few others; and when they got to the Faith Stepping Stone they found it wasn't there, or they stood on it and it wobbled underneath them and spill them into the water.  Or they didn't spill into the water, yet deemed that the Faith Stepping Stone was a dubious prospect to put their weight (trust) on, and stepped back/looked for a different stone?

Ehhh...I'm going to stop, hopefully I'm not butchering a metaphor too badly.  If it makes sense, maybe other people may have a different take, or maybe a totally different metaphor suggests itself.  There's certainly room for refinement, even from the ground up.  But that baseline, the foundation, that first step, does have to be stronger than what's built on it.     ??? 

[Too Few Lions]

'faith is greater than reason' - this view ruled supreme in the Dark Ages.

And I'm not talking about delusions here. A deluded person is still on the level of reasoning because they are sure their delusion is true. A deluded person may think they are protected against alligators by space aliens. That's not faith. Such a person is using rational thinking when they go swimming in the lake. They're wrong, of course, but they think they're right; so, that's not faith.

Like others have said, a belief in guardian space aliens seems no different to the belief in gods and saviours to me, no more rational, and no less based on faith. To an atheist, you appear no different to that man in the lake, you have plenty of delusions that you believe are real and live your life according to that faith.

Because faith uses rationality as its stepping stone and then goes further through the use of will, it is obviously a greater use of human mental capabilities. And couldn't it be said that the use of will is more godlike than the use of rationality? Thus if there is a God, it may well be the case that we grow closer to Him via the use of faith.

It seems to me that you only have to rely on faith and belief in your god because you have no concrete evidence. I also don't see how faith 'uses rationality as its stepping stone'. Personally I can't put superstition and the faith and belief in supernatural powers above rational logical thinking. Like I said above, that's the sort of thing people did in the Dark Ages.

[Buddy]

Something tells me he isn't going to come back this time. 

[Tank]

Something tells me he isn't going to come back this time. 

Oh I think he will. Like a bad penny he'll keep turning up and doing atheism a power of good each time he opens his mouth 

[Guardian85]

But is kissing your own ass greater than simply walking. It's subjective.

I'd like to nominate this as the profound thought of the day. 

Seconded!

[Guardian85]

I hope fellow forum members will bear with me as I indulge and branch out into territory that is discussed on one of the other forums over this same thread.  The poster in The Thinking Atheist forum called The Bearded Dude brought up Faith and Trust, when he says that Faith is not equal to Trust.  I think he quantifies it by saying that Trust is something we can invest a measure in based on past experience; Rational experience as a stepping stone leading us to make conclusions about how much we can trust in a person/event/deity to behave in a consistent manner.  He goes on to say that Faith doesn't use the stepping stone of Rationality; I'll throw out the cliche "Leap of Faith" and the imagery of jumping over the Rationality stepping stone into a dark area that you can't see.  Maybe that's partly what he was suggesting.  I'm not quite sure how it pertains to Egor's OP, it's a bit above my head.

I latched onto trust because it's resonates very personally.  Without meaning to antagonize or throw things off (really), since we are on an atheist forum where Trust, Belief, and Faith in God is not taken as an assumed automatic thing.  I'm sure there are many reasons why people abandon Faith or decided not to invest trust in Faith as asked for by religion in the first place.  Maybe some people jumped over the Rationality Stepping Stone, and felt like they needed to swim back and try and find a more sturdy stone because they missed the Faith stepping stone, or the Faith stepping stone wobbled and threw them in the pond.  An alternative scenario might see a different person who walked on the Rationality Stepping Stone, then a few others; and when they got to the Faith Stepping Stone they found it wasn't there, or they stood on it and it wobbled underneath them and spill them into the water.  Or they didn't spill into the water, yet deemed that the Faith Stepping Stone was a dubious prospect to put their weight (trust) on, and stepped back/looked for a different stone?

Ehhh...I'm going to stop, hopefully I'm not butchering a metaphor too badly.  If it makes sense, maybe other people may have a different take, or maybe a totally different metaphor suggests itself.  There's certainly room for refinement, even from the ground up.  But that baseline, the foundation, that first step, does have to be stronger than what's built on it.     ??? 

Or maybe from Rationality, the Knowledge stone looked like a more solid place to jump to, on the way to, Wisdom and Enlightenment.

[Too Few Lions]

this kind of reminds me of a guy swimming in an alligator filled lake thinking he's protected against alligators by space aliens