Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project, has gone public with a belief controversial among scientists. The one-time atheist Collins recalls an epiphany: "I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as 'What is the meaning of life?' 'Why am I here?' 'Why does mathematics work, anyway?' 'If the universe had a beginning, who created it?' 'Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?' 'Why do humans have a moral sense?' 'What happens after we die?'" This Easter weekend, 2000 or so years in the future from the first Easter weekend, it's important to reflect on the limits, and uses and misuses of reason. Some make a faith of reason. Others use reason to justify matters of faith. It's perhaps best to leave these two concepts the masters of their own spheres lest either corrupt the other.

If Faith and Reason can contradict each other, it must be the case that one or both is flawed.

I understand what it is that you are getting at, but I don't think that it is possible for faith and reason to contradict. Neither does the Church.

"Some make a faith of reason."

Eh, huh? Perhaps this is just a matter of context.

"Others use reason to justify matters of faith."

No, they use UNreason.

"If Faith and Reason can contradict each other, it must be the case that one or both is flawed.

I understand what it is that you are getting at, but I don't think that it is possible for faith and reason to contradict. Neither does the Church."

WHAT???

To use FAITH is to come to a belief that is NOT based on proof.

To use REASON is to come to a belief - or, more accurately, a conviction - based on facts, reality, etc.

Wow. Just wow.

I'm sure you have based that off of a careful study and review of the tradition of scholastic theology. Thomas Aquinas, I am certain, was an amateur compared to one of your own genius.

HAHAHAHA.

That is what I do when one makes a joke.

Thomas Aquinas.

HAHA.

Rich. Just rich.

Ben, I am familiar with your posts. I am shocked at your initial post and your response.

"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth — in a word, to know himself — so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves."

Hehe, Rethuglican Prince, Herman... whatever you're calling yourself these days,

Here's a conundrum for you: Is it rational to trust the judgments of reason? That is, is your (my, anyone's) trust in reason based on "facts"? If so, which facts?

Is the faith we adopt subject to anyone's authority?

Is the reason we adopt about subject to anyone's authority?

Guido

"Ben, I am familiar with your posts. I am shocked at your initial post and your response." -Herman

You haven't offered an argument. You have just asserted that faith and reason are contradictory with no support.

I do not have much time for this in the morning. In necessary, I will contribute more later in the day.

One may have faith in ANYTHING. He can believe ANYTHING, even if that anything defies facts of reality. One may faithfully BELIEVE that a certain thought of his was an inspiration from God - or the Easter bunny, or a goblin with special mind reading powers.

In reason, man cannot "believe" ANYTHING - only certain things. He may only have notions that adhere to reality. Faith is bound by no such requirement; in faith, man's beliefs may adhere to reality or defy it. He may faithfully believe that if he jumps off of a tower, God will save him or grant him with wings. The man of reason has no reason to believe this. Faith allows one to believe in what he does not know to be real or exist.

Ralph, I have never posted under the names “Hehe” or “Rethuglican.”

Hardly a conundrum. If what one employs is, indeed, reason, then his “trust” in the facts of reality is perfectly rational. Which facts? The facts that ARE facts; the facts of reality.

"One may have faith in ANYTHING. He can believe ANYTHING, even if that anything defies facts of reality. One may faithfully BELIEVE that a certain thought of his was an inspiration from God - or the Easter bunny, or a goblin with special mind reading powers." -Herman

I would deny your premise. Only an insane person can truly "believe" in what is contradicted by the facts of reality. For the rest of us, belief does not extend so far.

"Faith allows one to believe in what he does not know to be real or exist." -Herman

Yes, and there is a HUGE difference between (a) the insane person who believes what is contradicted by the facts, and (b) the person who believes what is compatible with the facts and yet not necessarily established by the facts. (You sound like one who has a special chip on your shoulder when it comes to belief in God. Maybe I'm reading too much into what you write, but anyway.) A person who believes in God can be understood as an example of (b). What facts in the world can you point to that explicitly contradict and thereby prohibit belief in God? (I'd hazard a guess that anything you could offer has already been considered by someone, and some plausible explanation exists under which the "evidence" is still compatible with a universe in which God exists.)

So, belief is not all that bad, when we undestand that practically speaking it is much more restricted than your characterization. Now, on the supposed exclusive authority of reason which you imply:

When the reasoned conclusion was that the sun revolved around the earth, or that leeches were appropriate treatment for certain diseases, or that microbes spontaneously generated in decaying flesh, or that animal spirits coursing through our bodies were responsible for the movements of our limbs...

In all of these cases reason was employed to produce convictions on the basis of the "facts of reality." Empirical science at work. Fine. But on the basis of these examples, which are also facts of reality, we know that reason's conclusions are revisable. Throughout history, we observe that reason grasps at grasping the truth.

Why, then, would anyone ever believe that his reason is privileged? Why does the conviction persist that one's reason alone now authoritatively grasps truth? It would seem that one who puts all of his eggs in the reason basket is in trouble.

Reason is not bad; reason is good. Reason might well get a hold of parts of the truth, but the whole truth? Reason is not perfect and therefore does not hold exclusive rights to the truth. It is irrational, i.e. contrary to its own nature, for reason to claim that faith has no access to the truth--a claim that reason has no evidence to support. This is the most reasoned conclusion a rational being can make!

Herman,

Let me put this in the simplest way I can so you don't miss it: Can you use reason to justify reason without getting caught in a vicious circle? If you're able to grasp the difficulty here, take a look at the following paper by Alvin Plantinga:

http://www.homestead.com/philofreligion/files/alspaper.htm

"I do not have much time for this in the morning. In necessary, I will contribute more later in the day.

One may have faith in ANYTHING. He can believe ANYTHING, even if that anything defies facts of reality. One may faithfully BELIEVE that a certain thought of his was an inspiration from God - or the Easter bunny, or a goblin with special mind reading powers.

In reason, man cannot "believe" ANYTHING - only certain things. He may only have notions that adhere to reality. Faith is bound by no such requirement; in faith, man's beliefs may adhere to reality or defy it. He may faithfully believe that if he jumps off of a tower, God will save him or grant him with wings. The man of reason has no reason to believe this. Faith allows one to believe in what he does not know to be real or exist." -Hermann

It is clear here that "Faith" did not refer to faith generally, but referred to a specific faith.

"It is clear here that "Faith" did not refer to faith generally, but referred to a specific faith."

Uh, no. I stated that when guided by reason, man only believes in the real. When guided by faith, man may believe in the unreal.

I thought this was basic stuff. Ben, care to elaborate on your position?

"What facts in the world can you point to that explicitly contradict and thereby prohibit belief in God? (I'd hazard a guess that anything you could offer has already been considered by someone, and some plausible explanation exists under which the "evidence" is still compatible with a universe in which God exists.)"

Buzz,

I will not attempt to prove a negative; I do not get sucked into discussions about gods, demons, angels, goblins, or fairies - discussions with mystics that result in “prove that these things do NOT exist.” The same with your claim: "What facts in the world can you point to that explicitly contradict and thereby prohibit belief in God?” (Here, one may easily substitute “Allah,” or “an army of homosexual fairies who live in the middle of Mars” with “God.” Regardless, the game is the same).

Prove that God does not exist? How? By pointing to the facts of existence that follow from his nonexistence? No such facts exist. Zero begets zero.

If someone tells me that there is an entity in existence, it is his responsibility to prove such existence. Mystic claims are arbitrary.

So, my simple response to you is:

The only time I indulge in fantasies is when I visit Disney Land.

My point there was really tangential.

The more important point was to get at the distinction between (a) insane, delusional belief in what is contradicted by the facts of reality (e.g. your man jumping off a building...), and (b) belief that is compatible with/not explicitly prohibited by the facts. Not to make this distinction is dishonest and unfair--and if your argument relies on conflating the two, then your argument is a bad one.

"One may have faith in ANYTHING." That's just not true. Faith/belief is not unconstrained. Plausibility, credibility, evidence are still important criteria when it comes to faith.

You also say, "I stated that when guided by reason, man only believes in the real." That's just not true, either. Reason is fallible, and its conclusions revisable. Quite often reason mistakenly leads one to believe in the unreal and false. I pointed to some examples.

Ralph makes a good point, which you ignore--how is reason justified? Is it just that reason says one ought to accept the conclusions of reason? Is this not a vicious circle? Does the situation just boil down to having faith in reason?

Herman: I think the scientist's point was that the existence of the universe (and order and meaning in it) is not ultimately explainable by science. Faith in a super-scientific truth that does give explanations for these things -- i.e., belief in a perfect God -- therefore has a rational basis, even if it is not "provable" by reason (as though quarks are "provable" by reason). The homosexual fairies in the centre of Mars you mention do not have a similar rational basis, so your argument is weak in addition to being mean-spirited.

Perhaps you don't want an explanation for the things the scientist mentions, but I don't think you should say it is unreasonable for others to believe in the only possible explanation.

"Uh, no. I stated that when guided by reason, man only believes in the real. When guided by faith, man may believe in the unreal.

I thought this was basic stuff. Ben, care to elaborate on your position?" - Hermann

Was my use of the term "the church" and the context of the post not enough? I mean that there is no conflict between reason and the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.

Hey Dan, I thought your readers might want to ponder the following:

http://www.physics911.net/missingwings

Buzz and Ben, thanks for the replies. I plan to reply over the weekend.

Yes, it is true. With FAITH, one may believe anything. Evidence and reason do NOT play into one’s belief in, say, a disembodied soul. Nor a belief in homosexual fairies in the middle of Mars. There is no EVIDENCE for belief in either.

You also say, "I stated that when guided by reason, man only believes in the real."

Nope. UNreason is fallible. If it is INDEED reason one employs, then his conclusions are real and true - not unreal and false. Reason is justified because it is man’s computation of reality, as perceived by his senses. His senses are infallible. And reality is absolute. To say “reason is fallible” is to say “reality is fallible.” It does, indeed, boil down to having "faith" in reason - which means "faith" in reality. But, of course, that is not "faith" at all. It is conviction, knowledge, etc. Faith frolics in the unreal.

"Was my use of the term "the church" and the context of the post not enough? I mean that there is no conflict between reason and the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church."

There is no conflict between REASON and FAITH? Assuming the RCC believes in a disembodies soul, or god impregnating Mary... are you saying THIS does not conflict with REASON??? What evidence is there for these beliefs (even if these beliefs are not beliefs held by the RCC - I don't really care - do you contend that these beliefs do not conflict with reason)?

For clarification:

It is my position that faith and reason contradict - BY DEFINITION.

Reason is the faculty of evidence, facts and perception.

Faith is blind, arbitrary and not bound by facts, evidence and perception.

Observe that one may have faith and believe in a disembodied soul. In reason, one cannot.

That's your conflict. Think - er, pray about it. Ha.

Herman: I'm glad you commented on this, because it is obviously important to you and the ensuing discussion has been interesting, and I don't want to intimidate you, but you are mixing incredibly naive epistemological prejudices with an over-the-top epistemological arrogance. Not everyone needs to take epistemology seriously. So I won't hold that against you. But if you are going to be so judgmental about "reason" you have an obligation to think about epistemology more than you have.

First, it doesn't make sense to say that reason is the faculty of evidence, facts, and perception. (Do slugs have reason?) But, second, if reason just is the faculty to distinguish the true from the false using "reasons", then clearly people can still be reasonable and disagree with you about what is real (a prospect you currently disallow).

Just FYI: one can believe in God and in disembodied souls using naturally available reasons rather than revelation. Some historical knowledge would help you here: Aristotle and Descartes (to name two very different philosophers) both do.

Just FYI: The RCC doesn't really believe in disembodied souls, except perhaps in purgatory (after death, before the transfiguration of heaven). You are as theologically uneducated as you are philosopically naive and historically ignorant.

Not everyone needs to study, philosophy, history, and theology. But if you are going to pontificate about it all, do a little homework first. Unfortunately, your illness seems typical of the anti-God Left nowaday.

"Yes, it is true. With FAITH, one may believe anything. Evidence and reason do NOT play into one’s belief in, say, a disembodied soul. Nor a belief in homosexual fairies in the middle of Mars. There is no EVIDENCE for belief in either." -Hermann

Actually, Descartes made a very interesting a priori argument for the seperation between mind and body in his Meditations. Unfortunately I do not remember which one.

"Nope. UNreason is fallible. If it is INDEED reason one employs, then his conclusions are real and true - not unreal and false. Reason is justified because it is man’s computation of reality, as perceived by his senses. His senses are infallible. And reality is absolute. To say “reason is fallible” is to say “reality is fallible.” It does, indeed, boil down to having "faith" in reason - which means "faith" in reality. But, of course, that is not "faith" at all. It is conviction, knowledge, etc. Faith frolics in the unreal." -Hermann

Could you define faith, please? If we are defining as simply any belief for which there is no evidence, I think most religious people would refuse to acknowledge that they follow a faith.

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM6avr07.pdf

I have little to add to uberfrau's remarks (she's correct, as usual). I will stick to the point of detail I raised: the justification of reason.

Herman writes: "Reason is justified because it is man’s computation of reality, as perceived by his senses." The senses are infallible, reality is absolute, and therefore, reason is infallible.

Even if we ignore the distinction between reason and the senses, it is manifestly false that the senses are infallible. I'm no fan of Descartes', but his Meditations makes this point in a way that will impress you. It's a quick read (a few pages), so I encourage you to take a look:

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/descartes/meditations/Meditation1.html

The truth is that there are things that we must accept without any evidence. "Explanations come to an end somewhere."

Uber,

"First, it doesn't make sense to say that reason is the faculty of evidence, facts, and perception. (Do slugs have reason?) But, second, if reason just is the faculty to distinguish the true from the false using "reasons", then clearly people can still be reasonable and disagree with you about what is real (a prospect you currently disallow)."

I said reason is the faculty that COMPUTES evidence and fact - and evidence, the facts and reality are perceived by man’s senses. I did not assert that to perceive is to reason.

"Just FYI: one can believe in God and in disembodied souls using naturally available reasons rather than revelation. Some historical knowledge would help you here: Aristotle and Descartes (to name two very different philosophers) both do."

Without revelation, sure. There is no reason to believe revelation exists. But some DO have faith and believe that a disembodied soul exists. There is absolutely nothing in existence that leads to a valid conceptualization of a disembodied soul. One may have “reasons” to spit on reason.

“Even if we ignore the distinction between reason and the senses, it is manifestly false that the senses are infallible. I'm no fan of Descartes', but his Meditations makes this point in a way that will impress you. It's a quick read (a few pages), so I encourage you to take a look:”

The idea that the senses are not valid is ludicrous. A man’s sensory organs are existents that have no power to distort reality. They merely exist and perceive that which exists. If you must, attempt to prove that the senses are not valid. If you can do so, I will respond to you, but I am not responding to dead Descartes’.

“The truth is that there are things that we must accept without any evidence. Explanations come to an end somewhere.”

There is no “we.” There is you. And there is me. I do not “have to accept” things without evidence.

"Could you define faith, please? If we are defining as simply any belief for which there is no evidence, I think most religious people would refuse to acknowledge that they follow a faith."

Ben, "most religious people" believe in a god, and there is no evidence for the existence of one.

FAITH IS FOR THE WEAK.

There's no evidence for anything in the Bible.

ITs a bunch of silly old fairy tales.

Actually, Herman, I was just quoting you. "Reason is the faculty of evidence, facts and perception."

Secondly, I don't think have begun to understand the depth of the problems here, as is shown by the following quotation: "The idea that the senses are not valid is ludicrous. A man’s sensory organs are existents that have no power to distort reality. They merely exist and perceive that which exists."

Two arguments:

(a) How do you know? What kind of evidence could you use to show that the senses are valid? Either (1) more evidence based on your senses, or (2) some evidence not based on your senses. You have defined evidence as given to us by our senses, so you cannot say (2), unless you change your position (which I suggest you do). You seem forced to answer (1), which clearly begs the question. SO either you must accept them with no evidence or explanation (as Ralph has indicated we all must do at some point), or your must change your definition of evidence so that something other than the senses can provide it.

(b) Our senses sometimes give us false information about, e.g., very distant things and small things, and tastes and temperatures when we are sick, etc.; also, mirages, afterimages (close your eyes, do you see color?), dreams and other types of hallucination should all call into question your naive trust in your senses and their infallibity.

Now, if you can follow these arguments, you are well on your way to realizing that you are not the most reasonable person in history and that perhaps you should tone down your mocking of those many smart people who have concluded that God exists. I doubt, however, that your political ideology will allow you to respect any competing religions.

Also, I suggest you read a little more. Since you want to pose as the most reasonable person in history, it is unseemly that you refuse to read things written by dead people.

"Ben, "most religious people" believe in a god, and there is no evidence for the existence of one." -Hermann

I'm afraid thats wildly false.

Herman,

A smart dead man wrote: "Quarry the granite with a razor, moor the vessel with a thread of silk, then you may hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human
reason to contend against those giants, the passions and the pride
of men."

In other words, reason is a fine tool but a dessicated and impotent one when unhinged from faith/belief, will and passion. Something more is needed to live a truly humane life [to achieve our nature], a marriage of reason and passion in character, strength of will and belief/conviction.

By the way, where does the Will fit into your epistemology? Or does it not exist?

http://www.ifilm.com/video/2658805

What came first?;the chicken or the egg?
If you have an answer to this question,
you have faith.

Uber,

It's coming.

If I walked up to a random person and declared that there are purple people on Pluto, would any of you accept what I said without demanding hard evidence? The claim I made was not factual nor was it false - in fact, it had no relation to reality whatsoever. It was arbitrary. This is what the idea of god is. Arbitrary. Somebody wrote a story and people believed it without evidence, in the same way they would believe my story of purple people on Pluto without evidence.

The point is this: faith and reason are two opposite ways of approaching reality. On the one hand is acceptance of the arbitrary without question. When you accept the faith point of view, you cannot question any assertion, no matter what it is without at the same time disproving your very argument FOR god. You can't say "Purple people on Pluto is ridiculous because there's no evidence for it" without at the same time being a hypocrite about your own belief in god. If your standard for knowledge is no evidence in ANYTHING, then ALL knowledge loses value by the fact that you have such a low standard.

On the other hand, we have reason. You demand that any assertion be backed up by hard facts, and to be noncontradictory with the rest of known reality. It is rigorous, it is uncompromising, and it demands reality as the only standard. If something is contradicted by reality, it is wrong (hence the rules of logic). If something is based on imagination and not fact, it is discarded out of hand.

To accept both is to invalidate reason. To accept something on faith even once is to become irrational, as such, no matter how rational you were before that. Not rational with some faith - irrational. For the same reason that to commit murder only once makes you a murderer, no matter how often you didn't murder before that. The commonality between them is the fact that both are based on principle: when you murder, you reject the principle of the right to life. When you accept something on faith, you reject the principle of evidence as the basis for knowledge.

Many thanks to the Counterterrorist, whose explanation is below...

The concept of senses is itself based on sense-perception. We perceive ourselves perceiving (introspection). So, to deny the validity of the senses is to the deny the CONCEPT of senses, which would mean that you are denying nothing; not nothing substantial - but nothingness. As in, the concept wouldn’t exist.

How do you build a concept? You take a set of perceptions, discern the commonalities and differences, and make relevant categories and subcategories in your mind - i.e. concepts. One such concept is “senses,” which you perceive directly (as you are the one doing it). So, to deny the senses (to say “the senses are wrong”) is to deny the concepts, because the concepts are based on sense-perception. To deny the senses is to make the concept “senses” senseless.

Herman,

It is not possible for us to have a genuine disagreement because your position (as well as CT's) is simply confused. What you need is an introductory text in epistemology, but before that you should read the entry for "epistemology" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online):

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

Confused, eh? Heh. Elaborate.

Read the encyclopedia article.

Articles of faith come from authority.
Some time ago, Pope Pius XII told us it will be an article of faith that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven. Ergo, we now have a new article of faith and a new church holy day. That was easy.

Guido

If you eat some food that you percieve to be ok
and it turns out that the food is tainted with
poison, your senses have lied to you.

The food looked ok. It tasted ok. It smelled ok.

You had faith in your senses. You have been deceived. You now assume room temperature because you believed (had faith) in your senses.

Things are not always as they seem.

If you trust your senses, you are exercising faith.

If you trust in what scientists say
to be the absolute truth, you have absolute faith in the veracity of the opinions of scientists.
Have scientists ever been wrong? Of course.

If you say you have no faith, you're deceiving yourself.

Ehhhnnnnttt. CounterTerrorist flunks Logic.

"When you accept something on faith, you reject the principle of evidence as the basis for knowledge."

No, I reject "reason" (ala CT and HL) as the sole basis for knowledge. But then your "reason" and my "reason" don't really collate.

Thus saying that the intersection of things without sufficient evidence and acceptable ideas is not empty, really says nothing about cases with sufficient evidence.

What it doesn't say, is what you want to say which is that acceptable ideas belong only to those areas with sufficient established evidence.

But, in the end, that's a problem for you, because first of all, I haven't heard of a professor of Rational Sciences, and I've never heard them prove that the tissue of rationalism is strained and perhaps even broken by a single non-rational thought. So, if you accept the definition you've given, you have another idea of sufficient evidence or believe something lacking sufficient established facts.

However, I think that once you've made a mistake with logic, your forever a non-logical. It's kind of like murder, you only need to murder once, isn't it?

Actually, see that's kind of funny. Because then to "prove" your point, you don't use clinical studies you're using naming behavior of people. Thus, I can imagine that a clinical study on murderers can find "special-case murderers", who murdered one person one time for a specific circumstance and never murdered again. That's the only study that could show us whether having murdered is enough an indicator of your personality to forever after call you a murderer.

What about manslaughter? I can imagine that probably any number of people convicted of manslaughter -- especially accidental manslaughter -- can commit an act that is in no way indicative of their personality 20 years after the incident.

That would be a case where we could tell or not once you've murdered, your a murderer. Not that people will want to remind themselves that you murdered and therefore slap a warning tag on you of "murderer". Can we be certain that none of those people believe in God or UFOs or ETI?

If your idea were consistent, they would be made irrational based on other beliefs they have? Does that affect their judgments of who is a murderer--knowing that these people are beyond the rational pale? And if that is the case, what could a popular designation have to do with rationality-irrationality?

Where does this concept "right to life" come from? How can that be when evolution tells us that it is better for the lesser adapted to die off? Where do they get that? How can you cite a "right to life" as a key demonstration on who we call a "murderer" as if that had some effect on atomic loss of "rationality" as if that were something more than "what people think" without data points on which to do this?

Again, if you were correct about your silly little ad-hoc stipulation, we should require a rigorous construction of the facts on "right to life" in order for us not to accept that this one little concession to society made you irrational, because it's kind of the same thing as if we all forever decided to call you a murder because you murdered somebody.

"If you eat some food that you percieve to be ok
and it turns out that the food is tainted with
poison, your senses have lied to you.

The food looked ok. It tasted ok. It smelled ok.

You had faith in your senses. You have been deceived. You now assume room temperature because you believed (had faith) in your senses.

Things are not always as they seem.

If you trust your senses, you are exercising faith.

If you trust in what scientists say
to be the absolute truth, you have absolute faith in the veracity of the opinions of scientists.
Have scientists ever been wrong? Of course.

If you say you have no faith, you're deceiving yourself."

These arguments, although not unjustifiably supercilious like Uber, are just plain silly. The errors of "sense" you refer to here are merely errors of cognition.

"Ben, "most religious people" believe in a god, and there is no evidence for the existence of one." -Hermann

I'm afraid thats wildly false.

It's wildly false that most religious people believe in a god? or...

It's wildly false that there is no evidence for the existence of a god?

If the latter, what proof? hahaha. Really now. Oh, wait. Lemme guess... Thomas Aquinas' "proofs," right?

Reason's 'defenders' come off as awfully unreasonable here. All of us make judgements about what is true based not only upon facts, but upon probabilities. Can any of the faith-haters here prove more than a handful of 'facts' about which they claim there is no dissent? The appeal to evolution is especially apropos: I personally believe in the general descent of human beings from other forms of life, but how many of us have actually looked at enough fossils and honed the necessary expertise to assert that Darwin was right? If we have not, then we are trusting someone else's judgement. Hate to put it this way, but we are acting on faith; reason plays a part in this judgement--it is reasonable to trust most scientists...but not all!

Even then, evolution cannot be proved. No one has ever witnessed the evolution of a mouse into a horse. We weren't around. So it is not a fact, but a judgement. Judgements, by their nature, are open to reassessment and change.

By the way, I am not a scientist, but I am a theologian. I'm sure this discredits me from the outset, but in any case, I would like to correct Guido's assertion regarding the Assumption of Mary. Pius XII did not invent the doctrine. It has been consistently taught by Christians of East and West since at least the sixth century. August 15 has been a holy day in the West at least that long as well. What the pope did was to define the content of the teaching infallibly. It is only binding on Catholics to believe it.

I leave you all with an interesting question: what if the Resurrection is a fact? In the sense that after Jesus was dead, people saw him alive again? As Hume pointed out, just because everyone you've known who has died has stayed dead doesn't prove that the next person who dies will stay dead. Hume's excellent argument against the logic of empiricism should be read by all those here who believe that reason is self-justifying and that 'facts' are obvious.

Herman,

I am running in a marathon on Saturday. I've never run a marathon before, and I've never even run more than 20 consecutive miles. I'm in good health and have been running for years. But I can't know for sure that I won't turn my ankle or have some other problem along the way.

Now, is it IRRATIONAL of me to BELIEVE that I can and will finish the marathon?

Don't I have to have FAITH that I can finish the race, in order eventually to KNOW that I can finish the race? (For if I actually believed that I could not finish the race I wouldn't enter in the first place, and so I would never know...)

Are faith and reason really so exclusive?

"If the latter, what proof? hahaha. Really now. Oh, wait. Lemme guess... Thomas Aquinas' "proofs," right?" -Hermann

Yes. However the fact that you lack even an epistemology makes having this debate with you essentially impossible. You need to establish a methodology before you arrive at your conclusions.

"Yes. However the fact that you lack even an epistemology makes having this debate with you essentially impossible. You need to establish a methodology before you arrive at your conclusions."

How can he? Most net atheists cannot keep themselves from running afoul of studies done on human behavior. Namely, that there is no significant difference between gullibility of the believer and non-believer. Yet, how many times have you seen one dig up the canard about gullible believers? They must know something that studies don't show...or something without evidence.

Thus a majority of net atheists believe in a marked difference between their gullibility and those of theist, despite whether there is sufficient proof of this difference.

I have summed up the difference like this, myself. Between an open-worlder and the typical net atheist, a net atheist believes that an elephant is more likely to fly than a winged horse--because they've seen an elephant.

Herman: I don't think you have, or have even tried, to follow the arguments -- which are really quite introductory.

You argument about "denying the validity of the senses" in nonsensical -- Rev. Farakan (sp?) style.

Herman,
Without "faith", how can you "know" anything? Assuming that "knowledge" comes from our five senses,don't you have to have "faith" that your cognitive senses are reliable in order to "know" something?
Do you "know" that everything you see is exactly
as it appears to be? (seeing is believing,right?)
Do you "know' that everything your favorite experts are telling you is true?; or do you merely "believe" in their conclusions?
Is it not possible that "faith" and "knowledge"
are two sides of the same coin?