Brett

Thank you for your thoughtful article - a much needed antidote to the carping sermonising of Peter Sellick.

Whether planet earth has 5 million or 5 billion years left :-) what matters is how we treat each other now - with acceptance and respect irrespective of our various creeds.

I have been thinking a lot about death as I watch my mother shrink physically, while her mind remains (amazingly) as bright and sharp as ever. I know she is accepting that her life will soon close and also that she has not turned to religion out of fear of death. In fact she made a point of telling me that on her details form with the St John of God hospital, she wrote emphatically "no religion". She is courageous, true to herself and has always tried to treat others with the same courtesy she would like for herself.

I feel nothing but contempt for those religious who would judge my mother as less than they simply because she doesn't subscribe to their dogma.

By all means believe in a deity, a religion or follow a dogma if it is of help, but please refrain from judging others, you are no greater than they and you might just be far less.

Faith Versus Reason
Part 1
There are suposedly two camps--The rational and the faithful. Those who won't believe without proof and those who don't require proof. Those who reject the existance of the supernatural because of lack of proof, and those who accept it on faith. Reason versus faith.

This division shouldn't exist.

In possibly the greatest misnomer in philosophical history, faith and reason have been misunderstood by both theists and atheists. I'll explain the confusion from both sides independently, though both misconceptions include many of the same mistakes and fallacies.

Faith

Faith is seen as the enemy of reason. It is the incarnation of the irrational, at least it is seen as such. Rational Christianity stakes its existence on the opposite truth--that faith is the most rational thing an individual can possibly have. But why on earth would this be true? This flies in the face of popular Christian and non-Christian thought. The answer is incredibly simple.

What is faith? Let's start our answer to this seemingly simple question, by first discussing what faith isn't. Faith isn,t believing in things without evidence or reason. Faith is not definitionally irrational, ignoring reason "just because".

Biblical Christianity doesn't argue that belief in God is reasonless. Paul defended the faith with the Greeks--he debated with the philosophically strongest culture in the history of mankind. He presented reasoning. No, even Biblical Christianity doesn't explain faith as belief without evidence.

Faith Versus Reason

Part 2

Granted, many Christians believe that this is faith. They will practice "blind faith", saying that they don't think physical evidence exists supporting the existence of God or the validity of the Christian religion. When faced with the plausibility of a Christian espousing reason above all else, many Christians retort that the Rational Christian doesn't have enough "faith". If that's faith, I don't want any part of it. But it isn't. They're wrong.

One of the founders of the Christian belief, Paul, defined faith as
"believing in things unseen". That's it.
We can't see God. We can't see Jesus. But we believe. Faith is the belief in something without seeing--not in something unknowable. God doesn't call us to believe what we don't know, he calls us to believe what we can't see. Any other understanding of "faith" is not biblical faith, but the end product of an organised religion that has abandoned its roots.

The foundation of reason is a collection of axioms. Some rationalists adhere to more axioms than others, but all adhere to axioms. An axiom is something that cannot be proven without presupposing itself to be true. It must be accepted on faith--not an irrational faith, but a foundational faith.
Faith isn't the enemy of reason--it's the foundation of reason. Without it, reason falls. Reason without faith is impossible.

Interesting and thoughtful post Richie10.

One can have faith in something because experience has shown the probability is high for something to occur. If a person has shown themselves over and over to be reliable his boss may have faith he will do the right thing which could be translated as confidence and trust.

This faith is based on experiential evidence. It is not faith based on accepting something that is told to you that you have never personally witnessed or experienced. There is no chain of events that lead you to faith.

A scientist may have faith his experiment will work based on previous tests and ideas but it will be the outcome that will test the faith and provide the evidence.

Faith would appear to have different meanings depending in which context it is used and perhaps in definition.

Like Rhian and Peter Sellick, I am one of those Christians who do not believe in a life after death. But perhaps I should qualify that: the ego, that individualistic self that humans tend to identify with, will die with the body. But as many people throughout history have found, it is possible to grow in such a way that you live in and for ever-widening circles of other people, other creatures, the natural environment… To leave your love, wisdom and joy living in the world, to nourish it in whatever way after your passing, seems to me to be a sort of afterlife.

This is what Jesus meant when he said he sought to give us life in abundance. And it starts well before one’s bodily death. To live more and more beyond your ego, being in the world but not of it: that is “eternal life”.

There is none as blind as ? How does it go ?

Religion is but a tool, a guide, the first education of civilisation - the good book - the bible was written a long time ago and no doubt like every other book had an editor. Which way was the editors bias?

Supposedly before the bible - there was soddom and gomorra - have you read the story - seems to me that now we know better and don't need religion that we may well be headed back the same way.

There are many groups of people that hijack religion in order to justify their own twisted beliefs - this does not make religion wrong only people.

As for after death and what happens - it would seem to me that there would be no point to life at all if there were no life (of a sort) after death.

People do not want to believe in religion - that way they can do whatever they like and not feel guilty in the process. They can think first of themselves and what they want and to hell with the consequences. That makes for a very dangerous world!

The war against terrorism - people who believe totally and utterly in their religion are at the mercy of the editors - blind faith is not good.

Search for the Truth

Seek and ye shall find

SAVE OUR WORLD

Live for Today
Forget about Tomorrow
But when the Day After Tomorrow Comes
Yes - there will be Sorrow

Floods, Fire & Pestilence
And Still you do not SEE
When you Punish your Environment
Yes - You Punish Me

But I Have Powers Beyond your Means
My Hand reaches Far and Wide
And with All the Future Challenges
I’ll Still walk BY YOUR SIDE

Poet 2007