Harris Vs Sullivan - Atheism vs Catholocism

[L'ennemi.]

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That's right, but not nobody says that the belief in God is rationnal. Faith and reason have nothing to do with each other.

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There are at least two different brands of theists on this board who do thing the belief in God is rational. I'm of the school of thought that rationality is important and consistent with theism. If my faith leads me to a contradiction, there is something wrong with what I believe on Faith. I would abandon a belief in God if it was logically inconsistent. I think faith and reason have something to do with each other because they are both making claims as to "what is true" if they conflict, you need to pick which has priority.

A stronger claim is that theism is the only rational worldview. I know NotReady believes this, I suspect Peter666 and plenty of others do too. It is true that some people say the two are unrelated and that inconsistent, faith held beliefs are not a problem. But there arent many posters here who say "That may be true scientifically, but it's not true from a religious point of view." or other such nonsense.

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I guessed I'm to much into Pascal to think that people would think differently on that subject, some of his thinking on the subject seems evident (after you've read it f course)
When I say that religion is not rationnal, it does not mean that it is irrational either. It is just outside the realm of reason.
My post obviously refers to the general ideas of religion, the concept of God and not to peculiar beliefs that have obviously been shown wrong by science.
I don't think that yuor belief in God is rationnal. It is not based on reason, it is more that is has not been falsfied by reason or science. And I seriously doubt that it can be.
As for the second category of theists, I don't think that they rationnaly deduced he existence of God. It is more that they can integrate god into a rationnal vision of the world, a complete vision where everything makes sense.
In this point of view, it is easily undestandable that religion can be seen as the only rational worldview as it pleases the mind; Atheism on the other cannot offer a complete system since so much is unknown.
It does not mean that your faith stems from your reason.
I don't know if I'm very clear, but I'll recommend to anyone the lecture of Pascal.

[bunny]

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That's right, but not nobody says that the belief in God is rationnal. Faith and reason have nothing to do with each other.

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There are at least two different brands of theists on this board who do thing the belief in God is rational. I'm of the school of thought that rationality is important and consistent with theism. If my faith leads me to a contradiction, there is something wrong with what I believe on Faith. I would abandon a belief in God if it was logically inconsistent. I think faith and reason have something to do with each other because they are both making claims as to "what is true" if they conflict, you need to pick which has priority.

A stronger claim is that theism is the only rational worldview. I know NotReady believes this, I suspect Peter666 and plenty of others do too. It is true that some people say the two are unrelated and that inconsistent, faith held beliefs are not a problem. But there arent many posters here who say "That may be true scientifically, but it's not true from a religious point of view." or other such nonsense.

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I guessed I'm to much into Pascal to think that people would think differently on that subject, some of his thinking on the subject seems evident (after you've read it f course)
When I say that religion is not rationnal, it does not mean that it is irrational either. It is just outside the realm of reason.
My post obviously refers to the general ideas of religion, the concept of God and not to peculiar beliefs that have obviously been shown wrong by science.
I don't think that yuor belief in God is rationnal. It is not based on reason, it is more that is has not been falsfied by reason or science. And I seriously doubt that it can be.
As for the second category of theists, I don't think that they rationnaly deduced he existence of God. It is more that they can integrate god into a rationnal vision of the world, a complete vision where everything makes sense.
In this point of view, it is easily undestandable that religion can be seen as the only rational worldview as it pleases the mind; Atheism on the other cannot offer a complete system since so much is unknown.
It does not mean that your faith stems from your reason.
I don't know if I'm very clear, but I'll recommend to anyone the lecture of Pascal.

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I guess I misunderstood. When you said "nobody say that the belief in God is rational" I thought you meant consistent with rational thinking (which I think it is).

If you meant derived logically from premises to a conclusion, then I dont think it's rational in that sense (except in the weakest of ways).

[Justin A]

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When I say that religion is not rationnal, it does not mean that it is irrational either. It is just outside the realm of reason.

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Why does religion get a pass as the one thing we think about where reason does not apply?

[L'ennemi.]

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When I say that religion is not rationnal, it does not mean that it is irrational either. It is just outside the realm of reason.

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Why does religion get a pass as the one thing we think about where reason does not apply?

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http://www.amazon.com/Critique-Reason-Ab...7488&sr=8-2

Or show me deductive proof of God existence/inexistence and I might reconsider.

[MidGe]

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When I say that religion is not rationnal, it does not mean that it is irrational either. It is just outside the realm of reason.

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Why does religion get a pass as the one thing we think about where reason does not apply?

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http://www.amazon.com/Critique-Reason-Ab...7488&sr=8-2

Or show me deductive proof of God existence/inexistence and I might reconsider.

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Since you posit its existence it is for you to show proof. Atheists have, reasonably, no such concerns! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Religion is the epitome of irrationality!

[L'ennemi.]

seriously, just click on the link.
Since faith is not a product of reason,there is no need for proof. I posit its existence, but states that I can't prove it.
The atheist is free to believe anything, but as soon as he doesn't not just say I don't know, I can't tell, but states there is no god he becomes as irrationnal as the theist.
That is unless there is a proof I'm unaware of, and please show it to me.

[MidGe]

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I posit its existence, but states that I can't prove it.
The atheist is free to believe anything,

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If you can't prove and believe it, hey... believe anything, faeries, unicorns and other products of the imagination, included.

An atheist believes nothing and has nothing to prove until you have given some evidence of your belief.

[L'ennemi.]

Actually the atheist believes that God does not exist and he cannot back up this claim with a rigorous proof.
Actually, only the agnostic(or weak atheist) is truly rationnal, since he acknowledge the possibility of existence and has the modesty to say hey I just don't know, it's probably [censored], but no one can tell, when the atheist says I know.

[KipBond]

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I was going to reply to the parts of your post that aren't correct -- but there were too many of them. Instead, I'll just quote the one part that was correct:

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And the skeptic don't have to disprove their belief either.

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I'm not religious, and I woul like very much to see you try to point what is wrong in my points.

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If you insist:

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That's right, but not nobody says that the belief in God is rationnal.

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Yes they do.

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Faith and reason have nothing to do with each other.

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Yes they do.

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The teapot argument is useless in my opinion ...

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It's not useless -- it demonstrates what it was meant to demonstrate.

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... since it supposes that religious people have to prove the existence of god. They don't.

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They do if they want rational people to believe in its existence.

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And the skeptic don't have to disprove their belief either.

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I think I agree with you there -- if I correctly understand what you are saying.

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There should be no burden of proof on anyone.

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Disagree.

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Well, maybe scientists could disprove everything and answer all of mankind's question,

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Science can't answer the "why" questions.

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...but nobody expects them to do so.

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Perhaps. I bet some people do, though.

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Religion, usually, is different from simply believing in an imaginary teapot.

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Not so different.

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Faith gives people answer to questions that science can't answer.

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If by "answer" you mean "wishful thinking", then yeah. Faith tends to tread where it shouldn't -- and is reluctant to back off when science steps in to provide the right answers.

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Progress in science has made some of the answers irrelevant(see evolution),

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If by "irrelevant" you mean "wrong", then yeah.

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but the truly fondemental metaphysical questions are still out of science reach,

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That might be true. I forgot that the first time I responded.

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and believing that sciences will one day answer is a faith as irrational as any religion.

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It's orders of magnitude less irrational. Do you see why? Hint: induction.

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The teapot is also very bad analogy as in the catholic religion God is a concept that your mind cannot grasp.

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It's a magic teapot. Or an all-powerful, all-knowing, invisible pink unicorn. Can your mind grasp that?

[MidGe]

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Actually the atheist believes that God does not exist and he cannot back up this claim with a rigorous proof.

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You are very wrong here, but attributing false beliefs to those you cannot answer in any other way, suits you, I guess.

As an atheist I have no believe, neither in gods or faeries and would of necessity have one of those to disbelieve in them. Wake up!

Learn ro reason instead of fantasizing!