Is Faith Reasonable?

[S.T.A.G.E.]

Slimebeast said:

S.T.A.G.E. said:

 

Christianity is purely based on faith. There is no rational evidence of what it claims. There is a reason why faith is called blind, because you have to turn off your rational mind. This is why when you are being courted by a missionary that they plead for you to open up your heart. Why? Because the mind is not what they are appealing to. Its the emotions. Historically speaking science and Christianity have been at odds for the longest (even though some scientists were christians). Involving yourself in science against the word of the church in the old days was considered heresey.

First you have to understand what Christianity and christians claim, what internally is the claim. Does Christianity claim that it is based on faith, as in blind faith? Yes, undeniably it does! Very much so. But it also claims that faith is to some extent based on rational thought.

Faith by definition isnt rational, Faith requires or relies more on emotions. As I stated before, this is why speakers for Christianity appeal to the heart rather than the mind. Testimony counts as something of value to Christians where elsewhere its just testimony.

It's another issue then whether that rational thought, that rational attitude, leads to discovery of truth. But you can't deny that the attitude is there. While "blind faith" is more important, it's not the only basis for Christian belief, some of it is also based on rational thought, logical reasoning and search for evidence.

I can understand the reason in the logic of Christianity (much like many other religions), but again...its not rational when it comes to the questions it causes the skeptical mind to think of provides no foundational answers. 

There's a lot of Christian apologists who use sophisticated philosophical arguments to prove the existence of God. I'm sure you have seen at least some of the debates on YouTube between Christian apologists and atheist philosophers, and they cover a broad area of topics, including philosophical arguments.

Kenneth Hamm vs Bill Nye...and others yes. Christianity is finding it hard to debunk science as science proves itself to be the way to finding out the truth, so they are making Christian science centers so no one will write off Christianity on an academic level.

Christians talk about general revelation and special revelation, where the first means that the creation itself, our world, testifies about God, physically and morally (special revelation is where God revealed himself as Yahweh to the Jewish people and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus). The Apostle Paul claims that nature testifies about God, that you can see traces of God in nature, and he claims that human moral, every human's understanding about good and evil is ingrained by God and thus proof of God.

Yeah, but those morals are not the first humanity has ever seen. In fact humans have been writing rules of morality before the rise of egypt. Why should we take the word as if it was the first of its kind? Philosophies like this were roaming around asia before the bible was even thought of. Even if I were to entertain the ideas of theology, it says that abraham lived outside of mesopotamia which means he probably learned a lot from other beliefs that were there before then (when it was known as the cradle of civilization).

Also, many Christian apologists argue that the Bible is quite pro science and has inspired people to study nature. In fact there's a lot of myths about Christianity's relationship with science, like you say, that it has been at odds with science for the longest, which simply isn't true.

People have always had a need to understand the world around them. This is the very reason why religion was created. We had no concrete answers so we followed the natural world and culturally (and systematically) created our own explainations for everything. Christianity relies on miracles. In science miracles dont exist, because they are based on study. Miracles are unexplainable and are that of religious substance to reason for something great that has occured. To an athiest....this doesnt amount to much because athiests undeniable need proof.

For example, modern science was born in Christian Europe. If you look at the world's cultures where science and innovation historically has been strongest, it's in Christian cultures. All of the famous historical scientists up until the time of Darwin where Christians. Why is that? Is it just coincidence? No. For example it is said that the whole scientific mindset, that the world is governed by laws and allows itself to be studied, is also rooted in Christianity and that this way of thinking got a boost historically thanks to Christianity. It's not fair to say that Christianity is at odds with science.

 

Modern Science was born in Christian Europe and America, but inspired by Asians. Mathematics, the alphabet and many other things inspired the Greeks through cultural transaction and the greeks passed that to others in Europe. Without them there would be no evolution of things. It was always based on cultural transaction which always led back to asia (mostly the middle east).