Dear Alan B,

And those with a one dollar brain are full of crap too.

Most comments here are irrelevant to what the article is about. Its intention was neither to confirm somebody’s Christian beliefs (there is no mention of Jesus, etc.) nor to argue against them. Nevertheless, let me repeat, there is no “evidence for God’s existence” (and His communication with humans) that is convincing for everybody. There are only arguments for and against such conviction, together with circumstantial evidence (personal experience). What is convincing for a believer (whether at the First or at the Second Naiveté level) is unconvincing for somebody who lost his/her faith (or never had it). Indeed, the first two impediments to crossing the “desert of criticism”, mentioned in the article would apply to many commentators: “For some, there is no further stage, for having perished in the desert of criticism, faith has come to an end. For others, the response is to beat a hasty retreat out of the desert (into the First Naiveté)...”

Dear Yuyutsu,

>>The author, being a mathematician, believes religion to be a process of addition, whereas in fact it is a process of subtraction.<<

The similarity of the two approaches, one Oriental, one Western, made me write this article. Neither the author(s) of the Zen saying, nor Paul Ricoeur mention anything that could be interpreted as addition or subtraction. Where I admit, my mathematical background played a role, is in the last paragraph where I compare the insufficiency of personal only faith with the insufficiency of mathematical only models of physical reality. I could have chosen another analogy, but as I said, the article was not about the social function of religion.

I agree with your last sentence. It does not contradict anything I wrote about the rational background of a scientist’s view of his/her Christian faith.

To Not_Now.Soon,

You do not seem to contradict what I wrote. I agree with everything you said with one clarification.

>>I would challenge your stance that before you study, and after you study your beliefs remain more or less the same.<<

This stance would apply to the original Zen saying. In my “Christian” rephrasing I said “they regain their validity at a higher, more sophisticated level” and explicitly emphasised this later in the text, where I tried to explain what this could mean using the analogy of two $100 notes . For instance, you still say “the sun is rising” as did your forefathers, although now you know that it is in fact the Earth not the Sun that does the “rising”.

I also added that some beliefs (e.g. the Resurrection) should be taken at their face value, i.e. their meaning preserved as it was at the uncritical stage of First Naiveté. Unless I missed something, this addition is missing in Paul Ricoeur’s description of the passage from First to Second Naiveté.

Dear Banjo Paterson,

Nobody is taking away your “god hypothesis” that needs “evidence”. Except that it is not about God of Christian faith as understood, and experienced, by educated 21st century Christians.

Yep, that's religion !

To George.

Your right that my views don't contradict much on what you've said about the three dimensions of Christian Faith. As for the aspect of accepting something in naivety and then after challenging it accepting it more strongly and more deeply, I think that is true a lot of the times, but not all of the time. There are several aspects that with study changes a person from accepting the things in their cultural background to instead challenge them on those things. The more a person studies, I think the greater the chances that this'll happen for them on one topic or another within Christianity.

Over all though, sorry if I sounded harsh. It's a good article and a good topic. I think talking about Christian rational is a good subject. Because from what I've seen there are several foundations to build off of in Christian reasoning. Some of them can be broken down more with study, or at least refined more, while others are built up more with more to study that confirms them.

To Alan B.

To clarify. Here's some of your positions on Christianity.

•mocked the ability of Christians to reason.
•thinking that Christians are flat earthers, and that they think the age of the earth is a young age. (Some Christians believe it is younger, others don't. None that I know of believe it is flat).
•that Christianity is a fear based cult, and christians are violent sword welding maniacs. (Concerning the fear based it's a very narrow view of Christianity, and either an exaggeration or just wrong; concerning the violence, just laughable. If that's what you think sums up Christianity then calling it crap is justified.)
•that Christians are pedophiles. (Seriously dude? That alone warrants crap if you think pedophilia is accepted in Christianity).

These things all warrant the response that they are crap and not representative of Christianity. Regarding historical reliablity of these things, are they representative of Christianity or cherry picked things you've focused on when it comes to Christianity? For more history on Christianity what about that most hospitals in the west were started by Christians. Is the good will of Christians missing in hostory, or was it cherry picked out of history?

Moving on to Jesus though, I'd like to see some of the historical sources you have to say Jesus went to India at 12. Looked them up on google for anything; all I got are conspiracy theories and rumors. Is there anything you've found that should place Jesus or his family as a traveler? Either rich enough, or merchants as an occupation? Best I can tell the only reliable record of Jesus is in the four gospels. From those we get that Jesus was a carpenter, and that the town of Nazareth knew Jesus from growing up with him and his family.

I'd like to see the sources of history you've found for Jesus. For your first comment, I stand by what I said. Don't take it personally though. You're probably just misinformed and assume the exaggerated view of Christianity is an accurate representation of it. Sorry but it's not.