Is Faith Compatible with Reason?

[the_bob_delusion]

Is faith compatible with science or reality?

Do you think you have to forego rational thinking to have faith?

Do you have faith based on reason?

If science contradicts scripture, which then do you accept?

Can you have faith and also accept science? e.g. Can you accept evolution if it goes against scripture?

When a Muslim tells you that Mohommad flew to heaven on a winged horse, is this based on reason/science?

[acacia_pycnantha]

Science cannot prove the existence of god (yet) but neither can it disprove the existence of god.

Ergo, there might be a god.

Is the belief in such a god reasonable? I don't think so, because there is no proof, therefore any faith is only wishful thinking, a kind of hoping that their belief will prove to be correct.

There might be a god, but there is no proof. There might be hundreds of gods or just one or maybe three, but there is exactly the same probability that there is no god at all. That is scientific and that is reasonable.

[acacia_pycnantha]

In fact, the very multiplicity of the world's religions; the hundreds of them; the thousands? is a factor which leans towards the probability that none of them are true. Can more than one of them be true?

Which one is the true religion? out of the hundreds?

There are people who would burn at the stake or otherwise separate the life force from the bodies of those people who choose to believe in a different  religion than they do.

Religion is supposed to be something which brings people together and yet today religion is most notably in the news in the context of division, war and strife both between peoples of different religions and strangely even between people who profess the same religion but differ on a few details.

Religion is based on a hope and that hope has become a tool for the powerful to use to mold world events. It molds and constrains all of us to some degree or other, and to think . . . all this unneccessary grief and angst and war and suffering and subjugation, because of a myth peddled by people whose eyes are set firmly on goals in this world, and not in the next.

[izabsmiling]

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@**freethinker_bob** wrote:

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@izabsmiling wrote:

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@i-need-a-martini wrote:

I disagree LL.

Whilst both (theologian and scientist) may start with a theory for why something exists, a scientist searches for the proof. A theologist ignores the proof when it is presented.

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scientist seek to either prove or disprove their theory .

Possibilianism

by BIG THINK EDITORS

THE BIG IDEA FOR SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2013

"I do not believe that science can disprove the existence of God; I think that is impossible.  And if it is impossible, is not a belief in science and in a God -- an ordinary God of religion -- a consistent possibility?" Thus spoke Richard Feynman, in agreement with other notable scientific minds, including Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein.

In other words, if we cannot conclude that God exists, but we also cannot conclude that God does not. There are indeed multiple possibilities of what happens to consciousness when we die. That is the idea of possibilianism, an idea recently popularized by David Eagleman. We may go to heaven or we all may just be sims. Neither of these possibilities can be proven or disproven, so we cannot discount them 100 percent. 

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You're right. Scientist also cannot prove Santa or Unicorns do not exist. 

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and if so does that mean that they don't?

Can science find evidence to prove that there isn't such a thing as Heaven ? If not.. would not be unscientific to say that there isn't ?

What about people who have beliefs that science can explain ? ie: different skin pigmentation doesn't indicate inferior/superior human beings ?

Icy, I don't believe that having Faith is a human condition that we are all born with.Not all people have Faith,are born and raised,live their lives having Faith,some are,some aren't and some may come to have Faith and/or go back to their Faith (or another Faith) later in life . I tend to think that we are all born to question.While people who have Faith may   involve that in all their thinking naturally perhaps and would perhaps tend to need proof to the contrary.People without Faith may need proof First in order to have it in the first place.

Whichever the case , a persons Faith (if they have it) is between them and their God .If it doesn't cause harm to others I don't understand other people's judgement of it ...if they can't give evidence for or express what their Faith means to them to others ...do they need to ? 

If you or science can't prove for sure that something isn't so ...then it is possible.

[izabsmiling]

re; Santa Claus 

*NEW YORK (WABC) -- A Long Island man who looks like Santa Claus has officially changed his name to Santa Claus.

*What if your name really were Santa Claus? Well, this guy's is

Marty Sabota | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

FORT WORTH — Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He's a portly gentleman with a white beard and a twinkle in his blue eyes. But he lives in North Texas, not at the North Pole.

"I'm proud of the name," said Santa Michael Claus, who was born to Irene and Charlie Claus on Oct. 20, 1947, in Kilgore. "It's unusual. It's opened a lot of doors for me."

"I embrace my Santa-ness," the Garland resident said.

The longtime phone company technician has had a lot of fun with his moniker, bestowed upon him by his sister. As the family story goes, Irene Claus, pregnant with her fourth and last child, asked her 15-year-old daughter for a little help around the house. In return, the teen got to choose her baby brother's name.

"I had to name him Santa," said Wanda Claus Peschel, 78, of East Texas. "I wanted to have a Santa Claus in the family."

Claus went by his middle name, or the shorter Mike, until he joined the Navy. And that's when things got interesting. Recruits were required to use their first names, and as Claus said, "You don't lie on Navy documents."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/24/105776/what-if-your-name-really-was-santa.html#storylink=cpy

*St Nicholas was a real  man from whom the legend of Santa Claus is loosely based .

[icyfroth]

Iza, I think Bob's question was: If you believed in God but it was proved wihout a doubt that God didn't exist, would you still carry on regardless in your faith that God does exist?

Put it this way: If you had unshakeable faith that Kevin Rudd was going to win in the next election, yet Tony Abbott actually became the next PM, would you still believe that Kevin Rudd was the PM?

[izabsmiling]

Icy,

As the scientist ^^^^ said

"I do not believe that science can disprove the existence of God; I think that is impossible".

Re the Election ,personally I wouldn't have Faith in something happening or not happening

that I know could go either way and can and will be proven one way or the other on this Earth and hopefully within my lifetime.

[rabbitearbandicoot]

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@**freethinker_bob** wrote:

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@rabbitearbandicoot wrote:

Can I just clarify. Are you saying, there's no incidence where the scripture contradicts our understand of estalished natural science?

I'm asking you where scripture contradicts science?

Or are you just saying, people can ignore certain part of the bible or interpret it completely differently to what it reads? As it's interpretation that's the problem? see below.

So those religious that don't accept evolution and think the universe is 6000yrs old because it goes against their interpretation of the scripture, are they idiots or do not have reason or logic?  They are not idiots - but they confuse the word 'day' as it's written in Genesis - 'day' in that context means period - most Bible scholars agree. What does it mean when someone says  "in my day we didn't have all this crime/television/insert your own wording here. Are they talking about one specific 24-hour period during their life? No!

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So you're saying that day means period, which could be billions of years. Is that your assertion?

'Day' in the context of Genesis - Yes. I have said that is my belief probably a dozen times on here in answer to your many questions on the subject.

Which part of the order of creation is remotely correct or is the interpretation incorrect again?

Every part of the order of Creation is correct - it matches exactly with the scientific / fossil record. Tell me where you think it does not.

Can you tell me which of what Genesis said is actually scientifically correct? All of it - as I said above.

Why do you not answer my questions, Bob?  eg where in the scriptures do you say it contradicts science?

[rabbitearbandicoot]

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@**freethinker_bob** wrote:

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@izabsmiling wrote:

there are scientists of various Faiths

as well as people of various faiths who acknowledge science and their faith.I know a Minister or two who acknowledge both .

If you have decided in your infinite wisdom that they aren't reasonable in doing so ...fair enough .I disagree 

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You're still missing my point. I'm saying when science and faith contradicts each other. What do you do then?

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This is another question I asked you Bob - WHERE do science and The Bible contradict each other. 

** Some faith is not BIBLICAL - ie the beliefs held and taught by some churches do not come from the Bible - they come from Church's own traditions.

[the_bob_delusion]

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@icyfroth wrote:

Iza, I think Bob's question was: If you believed in God but it was proved wihout a doubt that God didn't exist, would you still carry on regardless in your faith that God does exist?

Put it this way: If you had unshakeable faith that Kevin Rudd was going to win in the next election, yet Tony Abbott actually became the next PM, would you still believe that Kevin Rudd was the PM?

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That's actually a good question, but not exactly my question. Religion requires faith, and faith entails certain beliefs. I was dealing more with the specifics instead of going right up to the top and saying belief in God is unreasonable. I cannot say that because the concept of God is incoherrent. So unless you can give me an actual definition of God, it's hard to determine if it's a reasonable or unreasonable belief. 

Some people define God as nature and everything around us. Of course that God exist. Some say God is love. Sure that God exist. 

If a theist say God is an all powerful, all loving, eternal non-physical being that is outside time and space. I have no idea what that means. 

If someone was to say he belives in a talking snake and their proof is a book written 2000yrs ago. WOuld you say that's a reasonable belief or is that purely faith. ANd is that faith consistent with reason.. ?

[the_bob_delusion]

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@rabbitearbandicoot wrote:

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@**freethinker_bob** wrote:

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@izabsmiling wrote:

there are scientists of various Faiths

as well as people of various faiths who acknowledge science and their faith.I know a Minister or two who acknowledge both .

If you have decided in your infinite wisdom that they aren't reasonable in doing so ...fair enough .I disagree 

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You're still missing my point. I'm saying when science and faith contradicts each other. What do you do then?

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This is another question I asked you Bob - WHERE do science and The Bible contradict each other. 

** Some faith is not BIBLICAL - ie the beliefs held and taught by some churches do not come from the Bible - they come from Church's own traditions.

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THere're so many, I don't have time to list them all.

e.g. In Genesis, the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. The order of events known from science is just the opposite.

God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day. And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them?

Seriously, are you one of these fundamentalist who reads the bible literally?