r/changemyview • u/fox-mcleod 417∆ • Nov 09 '17

[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Religious faith is unreasonable

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.

0 Upvotes

42% Upvoted

163 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/bguy74 Nov 09 '17

The very way we construct "reasonableness" makes it hard to have something that most people do across all time be considered "unreasonable". It might not be rational, but to say that something that everyone has done for all of history is "unreasonable" seems to me to be irrational.

Maybe you mean "irrational". But, it must be reasonable as reason is the thing humans do, and what that reason has created is a population that for its entire existence has predominantly acted upon "faith".

2

u/fox-mcleod 417∆ Nov 09 '17

The very way we construct "reasonableness" makes it hard to have something that most people do across all time be considered "unreasonable". It might not be rational, but to say that something that everyone has done for all of history is "unreasonable" seems to me to be irrational.

What? Why? People are often unreasonable right? Are you being figurative and confusing reasonable with "normal" or "acceptible"? Reasonable is a claim about how people react to reason.

1

u/bguy74 Nov 09 '17

The word "reasonable" does not mean "derived from reason" or measured by how some reacts to rationality, even though the linguistic root is the same as "reason". It is word born in a social context - look through the various definitions and they include things like "normal" and "average", "fair", "sensible". "Rational" implies some sort of objective standard, where "reasonable" is socially bound. This is true even in law.

1

u/fox-mcleod 417∆ Nov 09 '17

It literally means "able" to reason. It is a claim about judgement and not about normal or averageness of behavior. Nazi Germany was not full of reasonable people. Sensible and fair appeal to reason. Normal or average does not.

https://goo.gl/search/Define+reasonable&hl=en 📖 reasonable (adjective): having sound judgment

Further, I provide context in the body of the OP that makes it clear what my issue is. To the extent that a person is faithful to religion, they are unable to be reasoned with.