Faith is Greater than Reason

[Sweetdeath]

He seems very content if he keeps coming back to try to convert us. :<
Christians remind me of fox news or any media. They love to cherry pick..  And alter info in their favor.

[Guardian85]

I actually think he might be a little dangerous.  Not in a "Oh noes, I'm scared he's going to convert me to Christianity!" kind of way, but in a "Delusions of Grandeur + an unnatural fixation on a group that he considers 'the enemy' = if he had a gun he might shoot one of us and crow about being a warrior for God" kind of way.

Naah... He's like one of those annoying little dogs that bark a lot, but are really wussies (I wanted to use a word that rhymes with wussies, but I try to keep it classy).

[Buddy]

I actually think he might be a little dangerous.  Not in a "Oh noes, I'm scared he's going to convert me to Christianity!" kind of way, but in a "Delusions of Grandeur + an unnatural fixation on a group that he considers 'the enemy' = if he had a gun he might shoot one of us and crow about being a warrior for God" kind of way.

Naah... He's like one of those annoying little dogs that bark a lot, but are really wussies (I wanted to use a word that rhymes with wussies, but I try to keep it classy).

Cat? 

[Egor]

How's life treating you?
Is your book progressing well?

Life is going good, Stevil, and yes, my book is progressing quite well, thanks for asking. I'm about to finish chapter three, probably tonight or tomorrow.

By the way everyone. I'm sorry I didn't come back in and reply sooner. I kind of made a mistake in that I posted it in all the forums I am in, and it got more of a response than I thought it would.

[Tank]

Watch out.
Watch out.
There's an Egor about!  

[Egor]

Are you seriously suggesting that we should choose to believe anything that's presented to us? Anything? Without any filters? Please say it isn't so. Even if you narrow that down to only your religious leaders, that's pretty darn gullible. Or am I misunderstanding you?

I'm saying that once we make a stand to believe something with faith, we should believe it no matter what we see to the contrary. But even though that's what I meant to say, I've come to believe that is wrong. When it comes to miracle working faith which is what I am talking about, once we pray or command something, we should begin to see results that supersede the normal course of nature. If we pray for a healing in faith, we should see the person improve faster than they would if we hadn't prayed.

[Egor]

I like that ring you have on your cross; is that barbed wire?

Crown of thorns, actually. But thank you.

[Asmodean]

I like that ring you have on your cross; is that barbed wire?

Crown of thorns, actually. But thank you.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's brabed wire.

[Tristan Jay]

Watch out.
Watch out.
There's an Egor about! 

Is this a variation on the hokey pokey?  I like that game, it's simple and non-competitive!  Except when Egor tries to turn us around...   

[Egor]

Truth is Recusant, I don't think I can debate a lot of your points, because I'm not sure I'm qualified to do so. I had an opinion that faith is a greater mental activity than reason or rationality, but I may not have supported it too well in the OP.

I have come to realize I have a lot of learning to do when it comes to faith, and until then, I probably need to keep my mouth shut. I actually found the Bible verses you mentioned to be a big help. But I don't think that's the kind of faith I'm talking about. I'm not really talking about faith in God or Jesus Christ. I'm talking about miracle-working faith, and I think the two might be different things.

I did read your response, but I'm just not up to a good defense at this time.

[Egor]

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.

Let me let you in on a little secret about my blog: I post in it what I want to post, and if anyone reads it great. If no one reads it, great. It really doesn't make any difference to me. In fact, at this time I have a reason not to publicize it too much. And keep in mind, more people read me in the forums than read me on my blog. My blog is simply a way for people to learn more about me and my opinions.

So, no, I don't post in forums to increase traffic to my blog.

[Egor]

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

Limp.

Yeah, right. I am a member of seven different forums. I wanted opinions from all of them on this article I wrote about faith. So far, CFI has been the greatest benefit to me in that regard.

Believe it or not, I actually post in other forums besides Happy Atheist. 

[Egor]

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

I'd like to make you aware of something, and I'm kind of using your response to tell everyone the same thing. I probably have around 200 replies to this OP over the forums that I have placed it in. When I go back to respond, I couldn't possible read them all. So what I do is look for an insult or some kind of blasphemy and as soon as I read it, I stop and go to the next post. I can get through a lot of dreck pretty fast that way. So while I'm sure you thought I read your post to get to the end of it, I didn't.  I saw this bit at the end before ever reading it and decided not to read it but rather use it as a cautionary tale.

Bye, whoever you were. I never even read your nic.

[Egor]

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.

But what do you do when you end up in the Dark Ages? An incurable disease, for instance. If faith is the creative force that brings things into existence, and if Jesus was right in trying to teach us to have faith and to use it, might it not be that we have not tapped the full human potential?

[Egor]

I don't think you can really compare faith and reason. That's apples and oranges. Faith may explore paths that reason rejects, but those paths can lead to blind alleys or box canyons with no way out.  Like Kierkegaard, I envision a "leap of faith," where the path of reason and experience leads to a chasm, and one is faced with a challenge, a crisis. The sum total of one's personal experiences informs the choice to leap or not to leap. If the choice is "leap," then the result is either faith-building or hope-dashing. Pure reason may say "don't jump."  But something in the individual's constitution may counsel differently. 

I think you're right. It was incorrect of me to talk about faith and reason together--unless that is, faith really works. If it does, then rationality and logic become secondary to developing the skill (or art?) of faith.