|  mhdk | Jan 16, 9:16am | I would like to hear your reactions to the claim that it is impossible to be rational and believe in a God.
I have tried making this argument with just words in the past many times but, from what I can tell, my opponents seem to lose sight of the argument I am presenting to them. For this reason, I have laid it out in a flow chart and have put it on a website:
mhdk.ukfsn.org [mhdk.ukfsn.org]
I have also done a FAQ, which is more like a "Frequently Made Objections" but don't feel like you must read that before taking part in a discussion here. If you make a point that I think I've made in the FAQ then I will silently and politely copy & paste my answer from there. You wont even know it came from the FAQ!
I'm interested in hearing all comments, good or bad.
Thanks. |
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Sponsor |  AlternaDad | Jan 16, 9:41am | | Faith defies reason. I think rational people can still have spiritual beliefs, but they are just that... beliefs. Far too many theists confuse faith with facts. |
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| | mhdk | Jan 16, 11:27am | Well... yes... but... The trouble is that regardless of how a person arrives at an answer, be it via faith, belief or facts, they still decide somehow. And a person with faith must recognise that the manner with which they decide the answers to a particular type of question such as "does X exist?" can be assessed separately to the actual answers. The problem for them is that their approach to answering such questions varies, and this means that they are inconsistent.
In short, you can't have a situation where you decide the existence of something according to whether they possess a given characteristic or not, and then ignore this and decide according to another criterion. |
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Sponsor | | Ewtn2000 | Jan 16, 5:32pm | | Faith that the sun will rise tomorrow is not reasonable.... Now if you were omnipotent and know that no where in the universe Unicorns don't exist, then I would follow your argument. But then if you where omnipotent and all knowing, I would consider you as a candidate of one who may be equal to God. |
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| | mhdk | Jan 17, 3:02am | Faith that the sun will rise tomorrow is unreasonable? You know, I agree but only because faith is unreasonable full stop.
Basically, what you are saying is: Nothing is certain.
That's right - nothing is certain. So the question is, what is the best way of deciding whether something is true or not? Whatever answer you provide, you can only be sure of being fair by always deciding a particular type of question in the same way. This means the best way of deciding is by having a consistent approach. Regardless of how certain you can be, and how limited human judgement is, the best way of deciding is via a consistent principle.
And not deciding by a consistent principle will lead to the circularity of the flowchart! |
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|  kingcaid | Jan 17, 3:51am | | well if there is a gos then we all should perceive him the same ... which we do not as we see the number of faiths .. i.e there may be many gods or none :)... |
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| | mhdk | Jan 17, 4:08am | | None of those faiths have been decided on the basis of a single principle. It is a case of the person knowing there are competing claims, ignoring the controversy and deciding by fiat that a particular answer is correct. Sometimes this decision is done for a reason, sometimes merely on faith but in both cases the manner in which the decision is taken is not consistent with how they approach the same type of question in other areas of life. |
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| | kingcaid | Jan 17, 4:13am | | the definition of god needs to be discussed ... beyond the father etc .. is it conscious ? biological ? physical ... dimensional ? |
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Sponsor | | lesoldham | Jan 17, 6:07am | | I consistently follow my heart. This is not reasonable but is consistent. I use this one principle for all things. My heart tells me there is a God. Do you want logically consistent or just consistent? One can be consistent without reason. One can be consistent without logic. You cannot demonstrate that being rational is "better" than being emotional. |
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| | kingcaid | Jan 17, 6:34am | (lesoldham) There is God then .. but then the argument follows that i feel nothing in my heart .. so there is no God then !! .. so he is not a universal phenomenon if he exists only in emotional states of a few ..
(God forgive me .. i am a believer and this is only for argument sake)..
Again the question is .. Who is this God fellow anyways? ... |
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Philosophy of Religion → Discussion