Skip to main content

Faith and Reason

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~

Recently, on Pathos.com, I came across an interesting essay by Andrew Kaethler, an Assistant Professor at Catholic Pacific College. The title of the essay is “Faith Undergirds All Reason.” He argues that without faith, reason can’t really get off the ground.

As Kaethler explains, the great French philosopher RenĂ© Descartes wanted to discover what he could know with absolute certainty. He concluded that the only thing he could know for sure was that he was a thinking thing; i.e., “I think therefore I am.” He reasoned that he couldn’t know anything else actually existed for certain because he couldn’t prove he was not simply (as Kaethler put it), “a brain floating in a vat which is manipulated by an evil demon to see images that falsely appear as the external world.” Thus, Descartes concluded that the only way out was a leap of faith. He conjectured therefore, and Kaethler agrees, that god is good and would not deceive him; the external world is real because god is trustworthy.

Now that is a very, very large leap. I agree that we cannot be absolutely certain that what we perceive as reality is the way things really are, but, instead of a leap of faith, I suggest we should weigh probabilities. This is how we actually get through our day-to-day lives successfully, and this is how science has created the modern world. As John Loftus has observed, “Faith is an irrational leap over the probabilities.”

We know that aspirin can cure headaches because it has been tested exhaustively with consistent, convincing results. We know that exercise builds muscle mass because we have witnessed it in ourselves and/or others. We know that water can quench a thirst because we have seen it happen throughout our lives. And we know god exists … how? Ah, here we run into a quagmire of specious, unprovable claims.

According to Christian theory, the first thing to ever exist, god, is the most complex entity to ever exist. And how did it become so complex? Well, apparently, somehow, it just always was that way. Kaethler writes, “For Thomas Aquinas the fundamental 'thing', the first cause, that all thought must be based on is God. For a secular materialist, everything begins with the big bang (cause unknown).” Now why didn’t he add that “cause unknown” after the word “god,” too? Because he took a leap of faith. There is a considerable store of accumulated, measured evidence for the big bang, including the cosmic microwave background radiation, the expansion of the universe, etc. , that goes well beyond faith. And the evidence for god? Nothing but ancient texts by unknown authors.

According to Christians, god is invisible, immaterial, colorless, odorless, and lacking in any quality or quantity which can be detected or measured. What could be more convenient? Thus, a total reliance on faith is required for god belief.

Kaethler’s argument, in trying to discredit reason, is similar to that used by modern theologians to attempt to discredit science. Science doesn’t have all the answers, is sometimes wrong, and will never give us the ultimate why’s, therefore science is no better than faith – or so they say. But science is based on evidence and probabilities, has continuous reality checks, and it works, while faith depends solely on authority, on assumed revelations.

Kaethler’s argument is really nothing more than a red herring, a diversion from the really important questions. Why do Christians believe there is a god? Because the Bible says there’s a god. So the really important question is can we depend on the Bible to accurately reflect reality? The Bible authors knew they couldn’t prove the existence of a god so they didn’t try, they simply assumed he/she/it existed. Given that the Bible also assumes the existence of witches, wizards, ghosts, giants, unicorns, dragons, and 900 year-old men, is it probable that it accurately reflects reality? Given that the Bible contains irrefutable contradictions like two conflicting creation stories in Genesis, and two wildly different genealogies for Jesus in Matthew and Luke, is it probable that it accurately reflects reality? In fact, it is not merely improbable, it is clearly impossible that it reflects reality.

Then there is the other Christian fundamental question of whether the resurrection actually happened. Is it probable? Are there photos, film, or eyewitness testimony from known, unbiased and reliable witnesses? Is there any evidence still existing today that can be examined? There is not. Is it probable then that the resurrection stories were based on misunderstanding, exaggeration, hallucination, illusion, delusion, mistranslation, failed memory, or just plain lies? Well, since all of these are known to commonly occur in human communication, they are all vastly more probable than a man being dead for several days and then standing up and walking away. Of all the choices available, Christians have chosen to believe the absolute least likely. Now that’s faith; unreasonable faith.

Kaethler concludes his essay thus; “Is faith irrational? On the contrary, faith is the first step in all rational discourse. Christian faith extends this by finding a secure footing in God who, as Logos, is the ground of reason.” Only a theologian could find “a secure footing” in something that cannot even be demonstrated to exist!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

Why I left the Canadian Reformed Church

By Chuck Eelhart ~ I was born into a believing family. The denomination is called Canadian Reformed Church . It is a Dutch Calvinistic Christian Church. My parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1951. They had come from two slightly differing factions of the same Reformed faith in the Netherlands . Arriving unmarried in Canada they joined the slightly more conservative of the factions. It was a small group at first. Being far from Holland and strangers in a new country these young families found a strong bonding point in their church. Deutsch: Heidelberger Katechismus, Druck 1563 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I was born in 1955 the third of eventually 9 children. We lived in a small southern Ontario farming community of Fergus. Being young conservative and industrious the community of immigrants prospered. While they did mix and work in the community almost all of the social bonding was within the church group. Being of the first generation born here we had a foot in two