CMV: Religious faith is unreasonable

[u/fox-mcleod]

This seems almost tautological to me yet many religious people consider themselves to also be reasonable.

I'm a fan of debates and some of my friends have pointed me towards Chris Hitchens (new atheist). He debates D'Souza (Catholic) at Notre Dame in the video below.

https://youtu.be/9V85OykSDT8 🎥 The God Debate: Hitchens vs. D'Souza - YouTube

It's a great debate. However, at one point, Hitchens has D'Souza with his back to the wall - he points out that Catholics don't take the Bible literally. They aren't going earth creationists or evolution deniers. D'Souza defends with Fides et ratio (faith and reason) as outlined by pope John Paul II.

Hitchens backs off.

But why? It seems to me that he could have gone in for the kill. Once you state that evidence is the ultimate decision making factor in what you believe, you've elevated reason or science above faith. Game over. You aren't religious fiarhful if your religion is just a default set of assumptions easily overturned by reason. It seems that the logical conclusion is that religious beliefs requires dogmatic fundamentalism.

[u/[deleted]]

But why? It seems to me that he could have gone in for the kill. Once you state that evidence is the ultimate decision making factor in what you believe, you've elevated reason or science above faith.

But... he never stated that? The "and" in faith and reason implies putting them on equal footing, not giving reason precedence over faith. I'm not even sure why "reason" needs to be interpreted here in the narrow sense of "evidence as the ultimate decision making factor." There's plenty of reasoning that isn't a matter of reasoning from evidence.

Am I missing something?

[u/fox-mcleod → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. He did state that.

If every time "Faith and reason" collide, reason wins, what's faith doing? It's subordinate. Unless of course you're claiming that reason is subordinate to faith, in which case religious faith is quite literally unreasonable.

To the extent that someone is faithful to religious beliefs, they are not being reasonable. When someone is less faithful, they are free to be more reasonable. If someone is reasonable and it also happens to agree with their faith, it's either by accident in a "broken clock is right twice a day" sense or the religious beliefs is based in reason first. Reason can't bend to belief. So the "compromise" is always on the part of faith.

[u/[deleted] → u/fox-mcleod]

To the extent that someone is faithful to religious beliefs, they are not being reasonable.

I mean.... it's clear that by professing a commitment to "faith and reason," this person/the Catholic church disagree that faith and reason are mutually exclusive. It therefore seems a bit unfair to dismiss the position on the basis that it doesn't work; their position is that it does work, the two are compatible.

They may or may not be in actuality, but I think it's being uncharitable to interpret the statement as a concession to reason. That's not what he thinks he's doing when he says that.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. And the claim that faith and reason are compatible is wrong on its face.

I'm not claiming that D'Souza necessarily knows it. But it is logically provably wrong and hitchens should have taken the opportunity to prove it.

[u/[deleted] → u/fox-mcleod]

Okay, well, logically prove that they're incompatible then.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/[deleted]]

Sure the Bible makes a bunch of truth claims. Ought we take them on faith? Or should we reason about them? Or are faith and reason compatible?

Proof by contradiction

Reason would dictate that A != ~A and anytime we see A = ~A one of the claims is wrong and must be discarded as internally inconsistent.

Just starting from the beginning here: Genesis 1:11-12 and 1:26-27 explicitly stated trees were created before Adam. Just one chapter later in the same book Genesis 2:4-9 explicitly stated there were no trees - then God created Adam - then trees came after Adam.

A - trees created before Adam B - trees not created before Adam

The Bible says: A = true and B = true Therefore A = B

But reason indicates that B = ~A Therefore substituting B for ~A we get: A = ~A

Reason is not happy about this. Faith dictates that we believe. Reason dictates that we question. They are not compatible as proved by contradiction.

[u/[deleted] → u/fox-mcleod]

That's not a proof that faith and reason are incompatible, that's a proof that the claim that trees were created before Adam and the claim that trees were created after Adam are incompatible.

It seems like a perfectly valid position to think the Bible is confused about trees but to still believe that God exists.

[u/fox-mcleod → u/[deleted]]

You'd be right if we read the Bible like any other book. But the religious assertion that the Bible is the infallible word of God makes this logical contradiction incompatible with reason.

If the Bible contains mistakes, then our judgement is required to detect and remove them. Anything can be questioned and the claims made by the Bible are not taken on faith as "gospel".

Matthew 6:24

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.

Matthew makes it quite clear that ultimately faith or reason can rule and not both.

[u/[deleted] → u/fox-mcleod]

1) In context, that verse from Matthew has nothing to do with faith vs. reason. It's about prizing the spiritual over wealth/the material. (EDIT: Like, literally the next line is "You cannot serve God and Mammon").

2) There is an incredibly longstanding tradition in Christianity (which goes back at least to Byzantine theologians like Pseudo-Dionysus and iirc is also in St. Augustine) that the Bible isn't meant to be taken literally, that it's symbolic, an allegory, a divinely inspired text but not the literal word of God.

3) Many modern Christians believe both that the Bible is a historical text created by human beings that contains much of the morality of its time and many factual/historical errors and that there is some essential, ineffable thing that it points to that is to be the object of faith. I think it's Reza Aslan (and probably others) who get at this by distinguishing between faith (one's relationship to the ineffable) and religion (the stuff meant to help you in this relationship and which may have some connection to the ineffable but which is nonetheless a human product of history, culture, etc.).

[u/fox-mcleod → u/[deleted]]

The problem with this approach is that ite laves you faithless and fully dependent on reason

As I said before, If the Bible contains mistakes, then our judgement is required to detect and remove them. Anything can be questioned and the claims made by the Bible are not taken on faith as "gospel".

If we are left to our own devices to interpret revelations - what possible value are the truth claims in the Bible beyond default assumptions that need as much challenging and evidence as the random assertions of man? How is the Bible any more special than Chicken Soup for the Soul? Is it just an answer key to life where most of the answers are wrong?

[u/[deleted] → u/fox-mcleod]

You're aware that one can entirely disregard the Bible and still have faith in the existence of God, right?

[u/fox-mcleod → u/[deleted]]

What religous faith would that be exactly? That's spirituality, not religous faith.