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richardhutnik on 06 June 2010
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bimmylee said:
Akvod said:

Bah, there's no way to cancel a post.

This is in reply to dtewi

Faith is bad because it is irrational. It is always a good thing to be able to at least explain yourself. Rationalism, is what seperates us from the automatic machine or instinctual animal. Rationalism is what tells us to not immedeiately bite into that cake. Rationalism is what tells us to save up money. Rationalism is what makes us act in a orderly fashion, rather than chaoticly.

 


If faith is irrational, then everyone is irrational to some degree.

For example, if you were to say that "God doesn't exist" and were then asked to provide scientific evidence for that statement, could you do it? Similarly, if someone were to tell you that "God does exist," would you expect that person to be able to provide scientific evidence?

The reality is, science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God; whether or not one believes in God is completely a matter of faith. Therefore, there is not a person on this earth who is without faith-based beliefs.

To some degree, all aspects of life that people trust in requires faith.  Even a belief in rationality is an act of faith.  There is some weird things in reality that defy rational thought. 

If you want to talk about purely rational, then I can bring in Popper and say that you can't even prove anything at all, including causality.  This means you merely disprove things.  But then, you only disprove for a certain set of conditions and not univerally for all conditions in the universe (God would fit this).  So, thus, you can't even prove anything at all.  All you can do is have reasonable inferences from that which is, and hope it is consistent enough you can trust in it.  The reality is we can't prove that the laws of science work everywhere at all times, or the same laws will continue to work.  We can't even prove that the universe wasn't created last Thursday, and just set in motion either.

But, all this talk doesn't lead to any practical dealing with anything.  We go to science, because it works relatively well for the human race as a methodology to get control over the universe and make plans that will come to pass.

As far as "rationalism" doing anything, science has found that human beings tend to have emotions in their decision-making and they have difficulty making any decisions unless emotions are involved.  There is also the case of people intuitively making decisions, and these decisions can be very good ones.  As far as saving money, I am fully aware that myself telling myself that "you need to save money, because it is rational" doesn't cause me to save money.