In article <ITSnetNOTcom#virgil-9D967F.19030522022005@[63.218.45.211]>,
Virgil <ITSnetNOTcom#virgil@COMCAST.com> wrote:

In article
<gmgravesnos-D8AFFE.16151222022005@newssvr21-ext.news.prodigy.com>,
George Graves <gmgravesnos@pacbell.net> wrote:

In article <n3an115evcdi99lnl8ska4elkum4m93t7v@4ax.com>,
George Peatty <pttyg47-1230@copper.net> wrote:

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 01:09:38 GMT, George Graves
<gmgravesnos@pacbell.net>
wrote:

And yet religion is the very absence of reason.

That's a more complex subject than you might think at first glance. I
know
Christians who warn against using reason in matters of faith, and I
have
taken exception to such statements. Galileo, I think, said (something
to
the effect), "God gave me a brain. He expects me to use it." The
disciplines of hermeneutics and apologetics are rational, not
faith-based.
It is true that spiritual truths are spiritually discerned (1 Cor
2:14),
so
faith is a prerequisite to understanding anything about God.

Some Christians like my friend say, "Faith not reason." Some like many
of
the unchurched in these online forums say, "Reason not faith." Both
are
wrong. The only approach that makes sense to me is FAITH_AND_REASON.
In
that order ..

You can't - not in that arena, anyway. Reason would dictate that there
is no god, none is needed for the universe to function, and in fact
logic says that there COULDN'T be a god.

What logic is that? Even as great a logician as Bertrand Russell says
otherwise:



In 'A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas' by Bertrand Russell
(1947), he says:

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience
I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because
I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can
prove that there is not a God.'

He's right, but he's also playing a game with his readers. You see it is
impossible to prove a negative. ANY negative.

prove to you that a continent called Atlantis never existed in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean just because no one has found it, but you
can prove that it DID exist simply by finding it. No one can prove that
there is no god for the same reason, but you can prove that god does
exist by showing Him to us.

But even so, reason would also
dictate that a god wouldn't care about the individual,

Would not or need not?

Either.

or allowing that,
that there couldn't be a heaven or a hell. The minute you start letting
faith tell you that in the face of reason, these things DO exist, and
ARE real, then you've thrown reason and all logic out the window. Now
you may still be able to be logical and reasonable about other aspects
of your life, such as work, but when you get into areas having to do
with religion, reason and faith CANNOT coexist. They are mutually
exclusive concepts by definition.

If they are mutually exclusive, then no one can reason, since everyone
acts mostly on faith.

That's not true.

Or at least not in the way you think of faith. Faith is
the belief in something that cannot be proved. The existence of god
cannot be proved, but the non-existence of gods is certainly more
likely. It's the Occam's Razor answer at any rate.

No one has either the time or the energy to do
everything by reason, so if it is one or the other, it must be faith.

That's not faith, it's a knowledge that what you take for granted has
been proved by someone. For instance, one doesn't have faith in the
airplane one is about to get on, because the principles by which it
operates are based on sound scientific knowledge and mathematics. It's
not necessary for you or I to have proved it, but it is necessary for us
to KNOW that someone qualified to make such a proof has. Also, we've
seen other planes just like it fly, so we have experience to call upon
as well. As for the rest, we're gambling that the flight we take will be
one of the millions each year which reach their destinations safely
rather than the one or two which don't.

That's not true. Or at least not in the way you think of faith. Faith is
the belief in something that cannot be proved. The existence of god
cannot be proved, but the non-existence of gods is certainly more
likely. It's the Occam's Razor answer at any rate.