Age of Reason?

Question

If you have read it, is it possible to still belive in religion as you did before? I mean, people are so afraid to question their beliefs, because it will mean that they've lost their faith ( like having the though "Maybe Earth wasn't created the way Genesis states" means that they don't believe it) and they'll end up in eternal damnation. Isn't it said blessed is he that believes even though he does not see? And he who looks for the truth shall find it? Isn't that contradictory?

Um...Age of Reason written by Thomas Paine. Just his own thoughts and opinions on God and religion. I do believe that there is a God. I'm not sure if I belive in the Bible. It's something some one wrote soooo many years ago- why should I believe what that person wrote? If that's the case then if I was born in another place in the world I probably would believe what somebody else wrote or told me about. I just think , and I've always thought that belief in God does not lay in someone elses hands but my own understanding and observation. Isn't it a little ignorant ( and I don't mean to be rude) to say only you're right, because someone told you that what they think or belive is right. And therefore you will be right if you think the same and everyine else is wrong?

Answer 1

I totally understand what you're talking about. I think that the search for God is an individual thing. You should not rely on other people for the knowledge of God. Just like the other person that answered- you shouldn't believe just bc someone told you- I think that includes the Bible...it's just things that other people tell you to believe. Plus how do you know if that person was even relyable in the first place? That takes faith not in God, but faith in that person... and that is religion of man. Find God on your own and through your own experiences. By the way, sience can never contradict with God...it's God's creation that science tries to figure out, so in turn it's getting us closer to understanding Him.

Answer 2

I can see you're beginning to question, and that's great. I believe you should question everything, and not ever believe something because someone else told you to do it.

God Himself wants ppl to ask Him question, and to "seek" Him. The ability to question is what makes us human.

I agree that many ppl are afraid to ask questions, because they're afraid of the answers they might get back in return, and that will lead to a vicious cycle of asking even more questions. Ppl don't like to think, it's as simple as that. Ppl like to be told what to think, and if they're asked why they believe what they believe, a vast majority have no clue. That's terribly sad. I made up in my mind a long time ago that I'd have a reason for what I believed in. And the Bible also says that you should be able to answer everyone concerning what you believe in.

I don't believe the Bible is contradictory at all. There's a difference between faith and seeking for the truth. You can know something deep inside (faith), but have no proof for it tangibly. That's where you must decide whether you will believe it or not. If you believe something, even though you have no outward proof, that's incredible. It shows strong conviction. Sometimes you can see the truth when no one else can, and it's in those times when you need to stand firm on that truth. That's how I interpret those scriptures.

I've got to tell you that I don't just believe blindly. I don't worship blindly. I believe there's sense to evolution (not all facets of it, but the main scope). I don't believe it contradicts the Bible. I think science only helps to prove God's existence, whether it tries to or not.

Reason and faith are not always on the same team.. but man has great capacity for both, and we should understand and honor them both.

Answer 3

I have faith in Jesus Christ, i would like to know what exactly you are talking about. I am not afraid to question any of my beliefs and scripture in no way contradicts fact based science, only theories which are inherently predisposed to a different sort of faith. Did you know the bible told us 3000 years ago that a time would come when men travelled to and fro over the earth and that in the last days there would be a great increase in knowledge? What do you think, do you think maybe there's more to faith and God than your admitting, do you think maybe your not as reasonable as you think you are.

Answer 4

Truth is an intangible entity that has no visual value..other than gleaning from the Word of God evident wisdoms by using our eyes to read the words..but that is where it stops. Beyond that truth is truth and it doesn't alter or bend or become removed just because we close our eyes to it...its still there. Christians are in fact encouraged to question...search the scriptures...see if it all adds up, especially against someone elses claims of interpretation. I question my belief all the time and I'm confident after all my experience in study that it will be increased and not decreased. People back in Biblical times got a bonus in seeing the miracles of Christ, not to mention Christ Himself as He walked and taught on this earth..how much more valuable to Him is our faith being that we can't see Him with our physical eyes but still hold fast that He is ours and we are His? You mistake seeking and searching for an attempt to try and discern signs and evidence...one is inward utilizing the mind and heart...the other is outward. We have at our disposal to use both..but what would a blind man "see"...No one can find what God has not put before Him..but still we either trip over it in an effort to ignore, twist or "reason" it away..or we reach out, grapple for a firm grasp and then hold to it tightly. That is the Word of God and our dealings with it...no matter who comes into contact with the truth..that is how it is dealt with. Love in Christ, ~J~ <><

P.S. Question your own term "eternal damnation"...Most christians fear hell...yet very few really understand it..why? Because rather than read for themselves...they have it from man's doctrine the belief that Hell is a place of eternal torment..yet that is no where stated in the Bible. If it were...then it would contradict every other passage that calls for the sinful to repent or "parish". This earth is doomed to distruction and all those with it that go against God. That is a reoccuring theme in the Bible...so many evidences in the Bible recurring over and over..yet so many see but they do not percieve it, so many hear but they don't understand...If one is truely in scripture everyday, delighting in it and holding fast to it..then it wouldn't matter what other material they would read...their faith would not be shaken.

Answer 5

Many of us Christians have to justify our beliefs all the time and have people putting forward the arguements in "Age of Reason" all the time.

Yes, it is possible. Writings and ideas ikle these strengthen our faith, they don't destroy it.

Contradictions? All through the Bible :- he who looses his kife shal find it; give and it shall be given to you. However the contradiction you mention is not a contradiction at all. Thomas did not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead untill he SAW - I have not seen a risen Jesus so I am blessed. "he who seeks the truth shall find it" stilll requires faith as when you find the truth of Jesus' life, death and reserection it is a matter of faith still done without seeing.

Answer 6

No. A child believes superman can fly. If a person has questions about the specific beliefs that he/she learned as a child....though they may believe there is a superior entity or maybe not even exposed to such a thing. Each individual has his/her own creative concepts of themselves and as they age, they may or may not stop their busy life to wonder of things seemingly impossible or intangible. It's not in any way a contradiction to seek one's own truth.

Answer 7

There is no such thing as the New Age. That is just typical of
man taking credit for something he didn't do. Jesus said that
there is nothing secret that we will not find out about before
He returns. We need to GET WITH THE PROGRAM!

Answer 8

The truth is there! Start in John and read tot he end, ask seek knock and the door will be opened! It takes faith to seek him out, but to the one who does he reveals himself and the workings of the kingdom! I can tell you, don't doubt, I have tested it for 14 years now and it is flawless!

Answer 9

People who profess to believe,when they are insincere,get nowhere and like bull dogs they hold on to insincere faith. If one has a strong sincere desire to know GOD,and faith enough to Pray directly to GOD,Please forgive my sins,please send me a christed teacher to show me the way to union with you. He will do so and he will fulfill faith with Spiritual experience,in heart and mind. When the student is ready the teacher will appear,doesn't your heart know this is your message??

Answer 10

17th-century philosophy in the West is generally regarded as seeing the start of modern philosophy, and the shaking off of the mediæval approach, especially scholasticism. It is often called the "Age of Reason" and is considered to succeed the Renaissance and precede the Age of Enlightenment. Alternatively, it may be seen as the earlier part of the Enlightenment.
Contents
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* 1 Europe
* 2 List of seventeenth century philosophers
o 2.1 Outside Europe
o 2.2 External links

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Europe

In Western Philosophy, the modern period is usually taken to start with the seventeenth century — more specifically, with the work of René Descartes, who set much of the agenda as well as much of the methodology for those who came after him. The period is typified in Europe by the great system-builders — philosophers who present unified systems of epistemology, metaphysics, logic, and ethics, and often politics and the physical sciences too.

Immanuel Kant classified his predecessors into two schools: the Rationalists and the Empiricists, and Early Modern Philosophy (as seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy is known) is often characterised in terms of a supposed conflict between these schools. This division is a considerable oversimplification, and it is important to be aware that the philosophers involved did not think of themselves as belonging to these schools, but as being involved in a single philosophical enterprise.

Although misleading in many ways, this classification has continued to be used to this day, especially when writing about the 17th and 18th centuries. The three main Rationalists are normally taken to have been Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz. Building upon their English predecessors Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, the three main Empiricists were John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. The former were distinguished by the belief that, in principle (though not in practice), all knowledge can be gained by the power of our reason alone; the latter rejected this, believing that all knowledge has to come through the senses, from experience. Thus the Rationalists took mathematics as their model for knowledge, and the Empiricists took the physical sciences.

This emphasis on epistemology is at the root of Kant's distinction; looking at the various philosophers in terms of their metaphysical, moral, or linguistic theories, they divide up very differently. Even sticking to epistemology, though, the distinction is shaky: for example, most of the Rationalists accepted that in practice we had to rely on the sciences for knowledge of the external world, and many of them were involved in scientific research; the Empiricists, on the other hand, generally accepted that a priori knowledge was possible in the fields of mathematics and logic, and of the main three, only Locke has any scientific training or expertise.

This period also saw the birth of some of the classics of political thought, especially Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, and Locke's Two Treatises of Government.

The seventeenth century in Europe saw the culmination of the slow process of detachment of philosophy from theology. Thus, while philosophers still talked about – and even offered arguments for the existence of – god, this was done in the service of philosophical argument and thought. (In the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, 18th-century philosophy was to go still further, leaving theology and religion behind altogether.)
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List of seventeenth century philosophers
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

* Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
* Marin Mersenne (1588–1648)
* Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
* Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655)
* René Descartes (1596–1650)
* Thomas Browne (1605–1682)
* Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694)
* Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
* Anne Conway (1631–1679)
* Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677)
* John Locke (1632–1704)
* Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715)
* Isaac Newton (1642–1727)
* Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716)
* Giambattista Vico (1668–1744)

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Outside Europe

* Wang fu-zi (1619–1693)
* Huang Zongxi (1610-1695)
* Mir Damad (d.1631)
* Mulla Sadra (1571–1640)