Does faith imply an abandonment of reason or is this an admission of intellectual laziness?

Question

I hear too many Christians refer to their belief in God as if it is something that required a jettison of reason. Others, mostly non-believers, have said that faith and logic are not compatible implying that choices based on logic are the only valid ones. But if I look rationally at the evidence for a creator and determine that it is sufficient for a logical decision to believe and put my trust in the claims of Christ, how can this be said to be "blind-faith?" Knowing what I do about the nature of man and the personal witness to my heart concerning the guilt of sin and a God that gave me a brain, isn't it logical that He would expect me to use it? It would seem to me that "blind-faith" fits the category of those who refuse to believe rather than vice-versa. What do you think?

ZATCSU faith is defined by YOU as belief without evidence. Defined by me as Trust. Faith is the place that evidence leads me.

ZATCSU faith is defined by YOU as belief without evidence. Defined by me as Trust. Faith is the place that evidence leads me.

Answer 1

Faith SHOULDNT bring about intellectuall laziness but sometimes its sadly does.

for example... The Bible said God created the earth in a week.. the theory of evolution says millions of years... Who';s to say that the two arent the same thing? Maybe one day to god is millions of years.

There are "expert christians" who have never read the whole bible for themselves... People that are quick to accept what they are told by their parents, pastors, and others...

Being christian means to have a PERSONAL relationship with God; not one soley based on what the rev. told you on Sunday.

BUT, Faith requires you to dismiss some amount of reason... Not all things are possible through normal reasoning

Answer 2

I think blind faith refers to acceptance of those things which you cannot prove. No matter how reasonable you are, you will never scientifically find proof of everything God does in order to establish it as logic. This would imply that we are as advanced as God and capable of understanding and proving the theory behind everything he does.

Wrap your mind around this: The Bible states that God has always been. That has been a major point of contention since the Pentatuech came into existence. People used it to "disprove" God because it was impossible not to have a beginning or an end. Only in the last century did we find evidence of quantum mechanics and come to understand that time does not exist elsewhere. So once again, as so often in history, science finally caught up to scriptural principles, not the other way around. We as humans were not intelligent enough to prove or understand the possibility that anything could not have a beginning and end because time exists for us in a linear set of events throughout our lives.

The more that time passes, the more archaeology proves Biblical events to be true, and the more science proves statements about God to be possible or true.

To accept everything that is important to know about God, there are times when we walk in blind faith. Each scientific discovery adds human proof (or proves our past folley!) to claims about God.

Answer 3

faith is almost independent of logic, but knowing things such as- that u can trust someone by knowing them and and trusting them without any proof is faith. If u go to work in ur car its becoz u have some faith that it wont breakdown . Faith is backed up by logic but its a rare thing for logic to do so

Answer 4

that is true, yet ther are those that have faith as a result of embracing reason.
he religion I CHOSE, does not require anyone to believe in an 'inscrutable mystery' nor worship a god 'beyond our human understanding'. The simple ligic and accessability of truth is such that even young children understand. Yet for most religions, the indoctrination starting at a young age is such that when thoe people reach the age of personal responsibility, they do not test their religion to see if it really makes sense. So in line with your observation, yes they do abandon reason and blindly accept the propaganda of their youth.

Answer 5

Faith is defined as a belief without evidence. So, if you have evidence you can't have faith, and if you have faith you can't have evidence. If you think believing in something without evidence is illogical then yes, faith is illogical.

Answer 6

Faith does not imply an abandonment of reason or intellectual laziness. If you want to find about GOD and finally to find HIM you must search HIM with all your heart, try to know more about His Love, read and pray as a true follower of Jesus Christ.

Answer 7

This is a nicely worded write up to justify your position. I think someone on the other side can take your words make a few changes and have it say just the opposit.

So I think I don't have a clue, but I don't think your logic holds water.

Answer 8

It's illogical. When you look at the state of the earth and humans and try to reconcile that with an omnipotent, omniscient, "omni-benevolent" god, they are simply incompatible. If you pray for god to help you with something while millions upon millions of people are dying in floods, murder, war, disease, etc... it's illogical. When you look at how man lives to his mid-70's after living until his 40's for the past 10,000 years, the idea of praying for a sick person is illogical. Obviously only medicine can help us.

When someone falls and is injured and prays for god to heal them, where was god when they fell? Then they ask strangers to pray for them. So god can help this guy at any moment but sits there waiting until enough strangers pray?

Assume I'm a doctor sitting in a rocking chair next to an exposed wire. I watch a 6 yr old kid run up to the wire and stick it in his mouth. He passes out, half his face melted. The parents run up, cradle his head and ask me to help him. I continue rocking in my chair. 10 people from the neighborhood come in, see the scene, and ask me to help. I rock. 50 more people come in an implore me to help. I get up, take the kid to my operating room and save him. Am I an all-loving being? Or a sadist?

God made Adam, gave him one task and Adam failed. Why does god not take some blame for this? If I make a robot, tell it the ONLY rule is not to eat apples and it turns around, walks over to the apple table and starts eating, do I then turn this robot loose to make copies of itself and marvel at their inability to avoid apples? Or do I start over?

Answer 9

Faith (wishful, magical thinking) is a substitute for evidence... and serves as the basis for 'belief'... the internalized certainty that one's own ideations map to reality.

'Belief' is a substitute for knowledge... i.e., false knowledge, sustained by wishful, magical thinking.

faith + belief = willful ignorance and self-delusion

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"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance... it is the illusion of knowledge." ~ Daniel Boorstin
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It is not so much 'intellectual laziness'... although that is certainly sometimes the case. More often, it is the case that the religiose are simply incapable of reason... logic... critical thinking... and they don't even know it. It seems that the brains of the religiose are wired differently than the brains of rational people. Whether this is a product of evolution, or a result of the brainwashing that children incur when they grow up in a religious household, I cannot say... but there are subtleties at work, concerning the nature of 'belief, which seem to escape the notice of most people.

A rational person might say "I believe in the Big Bang." A religious person might say "I believe in creation, as described in Genesis." But these statements are not even remotely similar, with respect to what is meant by the word 'believe'.

For the rational person, the statement of 'belief' in the Big Bang means that they understand that the concept provides a scientifically and mathematically consistent explanation, congruent with the evidence, which accounts for the evolution of the universe from a fraction of a second after the initiating event, up until the present. When the 'inflationary model' came to the fore, rational people said "Well, good... that clears up a few questions and makes things even more coherent." NOBODY threw up their arms and wailed "Oh, no... oh, no... ain't so... ain't so... the Big Bang is the inerrant truth... not this ridiculous, atheistic 'inflationary' model."

See... when we say "I believe in the Big Bang", we don't really mean the same thing as the religious person means when he says "I believe in creation, as described in Genesis," or "I believe in God." Our 'belief' in the Big Bang (or anything else) isn't really a 'belief'... it is more properly a 'paradigm'... a useful way of looking at something, or thinking about something. If additional information is uncovered that adds to the conceptual model, that is a good thing... not a disaster. If part of the conceptual model is discovered to be incorrect, and must be tossed in the trash and replaced with something completely different... that is also a good thing... not the end of the world as we know it. And often, no matter how highly confident we may be of the accuracy or completeness of a particular paradigm, we may have reason to apply a DIFFERENT paradigm to the same thing, in an effort to tease out new insights; for example, we might want to contemplate the potential implications of a change to a theory from the perspective of the Tao Te Ching, the Gaia hypothesis, or ecological homeostasis. We KNOW that all theories are approximations... and that is OK. We KNOW that we don't have all the answers... and that is OK, too. There is nothing wrong with saying "We don't know... yet; but we're working on it."

But these modes of thinking, perceiving, contemplating and understanding are utterly alien to the 'religious' mind. For the religious mind, a 'belief' is not a paradigm... not a useful way of thinking about something... it is an internalized conviction that one knows the absolute 'truth' pertaining to some aspect of existence and/or fundamental reality. 'Beliefs' are one of the key interpretive component filters of the religious person's 'self-description'... a part of what DEFINES them as a person... the very thing that creates their world-view... an underpinning of their 'subjective reality'. Any challenge to one of these internalized 'beliefs' is perceived and interpreted as a vital threat... an attack upon the 'self-description'... and an assault upon their subjective reality.

And here is the key difference: When there is a change in one of the paradigms dealing with a scientific concept, or a new insight into the workings of the universe, to the 'rational' person it merely constitutes an interesting new piece of knowledge and understanding... a new insight, to be appropriately incorporated into one's world-view However, if that same new insight, or piece of information (a feature of the universe, for example) seems to threaten a tenet of Christianity, everybody goes to battle stations, goes into 'damage control' mode, for fear that the whole edifice will come crashing down... and ultimately, it will.

So, when a fundie disparages evolution, for example, it really has nothing to do with a genuine, intellectual dispute regarding scientific details... they are generally scientifically illiterate, anyway. Any 'scientific' arguments that they present are inevitably not even understood... they are just lifted from the pre-packaged lies, misrepresentations and pseudo-science that are found on dozens of 'Liars for Jesus' (LFJ) web sites, and parroted. They are in a battle. They are trying to sink science before science sinks them. They are desperate... and science is (mostly, and unfortunately) oblivious to the fact that they are even in a fight, and that somebody is trying to sink them. They just keep blithely bopping along, doing what science does... trying to figure out how nature works.

No... none of this has anything to do with a mere disagreement pertaining to evidence and understanding. It has to do with minds that deal with fundamental issues in an entirely different way. It has to do with a flexible, open-minded (willing to honestly consider alternative possibilities), intellectually honest (willing to question and doubt one's own presumptions) curiosity about the universe, contending with a rigid, unyielding world-view that depends from a conviction that certain delusional faith-based (willful ignorance and magical, wishful thinking) 'beliefs' represent the absolute 'truth' of reality.

We might as well be talking to an alien species, from a distant planet.

When the religious enter a venue like this one, they are (generally) NOT seeking answers, or new information... these might cause them to QUESTION their beliefs, or might put their beliefs at risk. No... they are closed-minded, seeking only VALIDATION of their beliefs... and hence, of their self-description.

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"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion." ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Answer 10

Faith is simply a form of submission.