Is faith irrational?

Question

And if it is irrational, why is it so admired and encouraged?

Answer 1

Unfortunately "irrational" is an emotively charged word and so you'll get some emotionally based responses (and probably some defensive responses). However since you asked this question under social science, I will give you a science based answer: faith is belief without proof. By nature that isn't rational.

It is admired and encouraged because people are not solely rational. People are complex beings, often ruled by emotions and certainly not always contrained by rationality and/or logic. As a long term scientist and science educator I prize rationality very highly, as a human being I must admit that rationality is not everything. Belief seems to be part of the human condition.


Hope this helps!
The Chicken

Answer 2

If you were to ask perhaps, a scientist, than yes,many scientist don't seem to understand why people need faith and why anyone believes in something that is hard to understand or explain.They don't seem to discern that as a designed family we have a yearning to know what is up in this world? where we came from? whats going to happen to us after death? can we live forever with our loved ones? and such.To them it is irrational to believe into something that is not tangible they instead try to explain everything and make themselves out to be god.Many of their theory's are irrational and faith is also required if you are to believe their explanation on the theory of life and what happens after death. So your question is relative to whom you believe. those of faith or those without.

Answer 3

I suppose it would seem irrational if you have to see to believe. Do me a favor and read Hebrews11:1. Trust at times can seem irrational also.

Answer 4

Faith is not irrational; everyone believes in things they cannot see nor understand. Whether it is God or Evolution, Creation or the Big Bang, I cannot see any of them. So I believe in one or the other, based upon my intuition and study. It is unrealistic to say that one must see and understand everything before one can accept its reality.

Answer 5

Yes often it is irrational. Cause it infuses HOPE in human beings for a better tomorrow

Answer 6

Let us begin by defining terms. What is faith? Faith is an acceptance of something to be true (or false) when it is outside of your ability to know it to be true (or false). It is simply stated as something to be accepted.

What is irrational? That depends a little on who you talk to, but I would usually consider it to be a belief or action that is either self-contradictory or which contradicts some ulterior motivation.

Picture a schizophrenic for whom every sense indicates that there are blue ants talking to them, whose illness is so complete that there is absolutely no test they can perform that contradicts or conflicts with the theory that those blue ants do indeed exist. If they throw water at where they think the blue ants are, they "see" the ants wash away, for example.

Are they rational or irrational if they believe in those ants? I would say they are insane, but perfectly rational, and that they would be irrational to deny that which they are incapable (in this extreme scenario) of disproving, no matter how hard they try. Sane, yes, but entirely irrational.

The distinction between sanity and rationality can be an important one. Most of the time, the two will coincide, but sometimes they will conflict. It is when they conflict that faith becomes important, as faith is a powerful instrument for deciding which is the better path.

Can faith be rational and insane? Yes. This describes most of mathematics. The ancient Greeks were quite mistaken in calling certain numbers "irrational", they would be far better described as "insane" - they conflict with consentual reality, but they are entirely internally consistant.

How is mathematics a faith? I'll quote Goedel's incompleteness theorums:

1) For any consistent formal theory that proves basic arithmetical truths, it is possible to construct an arithmetical statement that is true but not provable in the theory. That is, any consistent theory of a certain expressive strength is incomplete.

2) For any formal theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent.

In other words, mathematics cannot both be certain and correct at the same time. Mathematicians assume that mathematics is correct, but that is an article of faith (no matter how sure they are of it) because they can never be certain.

What about faith in the more usual spiritual interpretation?

There are several answers there. Many people are vaguely familiar with the "twelve step" programs out there. They are spiritually faith-based (you place a faith that the combination of the steps and that something abstract and undefined exists that is more powerful than you as an individual), but they have no religious element. There is no dogma, there is no power structure, there is only what you are willing to have faith in.

Organized religion is generally not faith-based, but is centered around specific dogmas, rituals, power structures and philosophies. That doesn't make organized religion wrong, it just means it's not faith.

If someone has faith, they know that certain things just follow. They do not need to instruct a deity to make it that way. In consequence, however, if someone with faith is wrong, it destroys their world-view, as there is nothing in a faith-based approach that can resolve such paradoxes. Faith does not permit them.

In religion, things do not automatically follow. In some cases, this is because the deity or deities are assumed to be following some purpose or plan outside that of an individual. The actions of the individual, in such cases, are largely immaterial except as they coincide with that theorised purpose or plan. In such a system, paradoxes are not only inevitable, they are mandatory and inescapable.

Religion is generally more "sane" than faith, as paradoxes do indeed occur, and religion helps to describe that which science is still incapable of describing. However, I would not consider religion as particularly rational, as it conflicts with the experimental and the observable.

Faith, on the other hand, is completely "insane", in that it has no connection whatsoever with consentual reality but depends only on the individual. Faith is highly rational, as it provides a complete self-consistant world-view that includes those elements that cannot be known - whether at that time or any other.

People with faith often have a higher level of serenity as they can trust that some things are just so. This empowers them to take risks, face challenges, etc, that would paralyze most minds. Circus performers have incredible faith - they have to, as a moment's hesitation or the slightest imprecision would kill them. They have total faith that if they do their actions correctly, everything else will follow. And it usually does.

We admire such people and call them brave, because they can do things that a person who thinks too much cannot. (This is not because thinking is bad, it's because thinking is slower and less precise than a trained reaction, making it inappropriate.)

However, to call them brave, heroic, or whatever, is incorrect. We think of them in those terms because it would take a lot of courage to face these situations at the level of thought. Since they do not do so, we should not place our prejudices on them. It isn't an accurate reflection of their true achievement.

Faith should be encouraged, as it allows individuals to do more than they could do otherwise, and (in the one paradox faith actually does allow) allows those with faith to understand certain aspects of the sciences that purely logical minds cannot. (This is why there are many extremely talented, logical scientists but so few geniuses.)

Religion, on the other hand, is often not admired. Religion is centered on control, not trust, so even adherents talk more of fear than admiration. Religion is often encouraged only in those communities where control is either being sought or opposed.

(Religion can often be a powerful tool for those who have been oppressed to liberate themselves - history is full of examples. However, as religion was usually used to create the oppression in the first place, the net value has generally been very small.)

Exceptions to the above have generally been in the form of individuals, rather than organizations. Mother Theresa of Calcutta was unquestionably someone who had all the benefits of faith and few to none of the deficits of religion, yet was highly religious.

Exceptions tell us little about specific practices, but tell us a lot about the complexity of individuals and the error of pidgeonholing any specific way of life.

Answer 7

Yes - it is irrational. It is only admired by those of the same Faith ................
"Misery Loves Company"

Answer 8

Yes the very definition of faith is the belief in something without evidence. Its admired because people think its cool to have such conviction without evidence to back it up.

Answer 9

No for it makes perfect sense to me. All the way back to early man mankind has believed in something higher with influence over them so if so very many generations had belief in higher being,powerful objects its rational that I would too-its in my genes.

Answer 10

Yes, because there is no proof.

It boils down to ignorance...people who believe in a higher being believe in what they think and read (the bible), instead of what they perceive via their senses.