-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Aside From Being Self Serving, Can Religious Faith Ever Be Rational?
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
Yes
dfnj
Well-Known Member
Yes, because the rationale could be defined by how much we participate with enthusiasm in our lives. Religious faith may not be the only way to get there. But religious faith is a way for many people to achieve a sense of having a divine purpose or calling in their lives. This divine purpose, hopefully in the service of others or the community, is a very fulfilling and satisfying way to live. It's changing the focus of your attention from a self-centered selfish perspective and reorienting your way of being to be in the service of God. A God who is out-there, perfect, infinitely good and loving, and something worth aspiring to be like.
Last edited:
Skwim
Veteran Member
No more or less than atheistic belligerence.
To me a fairer, less biased question would be, "Can religious faith ever be as rational as most speculative beliefs, religious and otherwise?" For to require religious faith to be perfectly rational would set a standard for it that is unachieved by nearly everything human. We are simply not that rational.
Skwim
Veteran Member
But I don't care if it's comparable to anything else or not. I'm simply asking if it conforms to the concept of rationality---aside from serving personal needs.
"A choosing whose reasonability is in accordance with a reality that is logically sound."
And I'm not requiring religious faith to be rational. I'm asking. And from what I gather, you don't think it can be.
.
The same can be said, by definition, of emotions.
If faith were rational, it would no longer be faith, but knowledge.
Can you put that into a statement, to clarify?
Skwim
Veteran Member
Here's an example of rational faith I've used several times before:
"While driving I stop at a controlled four-way stop intersection. Just after I stop, a car to my left also comes to a stop. Now, from years of driving experience I have come to believe, not know, that the driver of the other car will recognize my right of way and let me go through the intersection before he does. So, operating on my belief, I trust, have faith, that this is what he will do and not T-bone me as I proceed."
.
Last edited:
Skwim
Veteran Member
See post 11 above.
As in emotions are not created or sustained through the process of rational thinking. To think is often if not always described as oppositional to feel. When some atheists try and talk about the high value of rationalism they often come across as...well..Vulcan if you'll pardon the nerdiness.
To me saying:
"I have faith."
"But faith isnt rational."
Is akin to saying:
"I love this."
"But love isn't rational."
I don't have a religious faith, but I also don't pretend we live in a world where we do and should value rationality to the exclusion of everything else.
Is that though? You have years of driving experience but not years of interaction with that particular driver. They are a stranger you know nothing about but you're willing to make a lot of assumptions about their knowledge, background and character.
You do so mostly because this kind of exchange is unavoidable while driving and driving is more beneficial to you than having proper evidence based conclusions about all the drivers you will encounter. You want something so you'll make assumptions to get it.
Ironically the entire TOS premise was that Spock didn't grow as a character until he realized the utility of emotion and thus became more human.
Mostly I commented on the matter jointly because the implication is often if not always in these discussions that 'irrational=bad.'
Skwim
Veteran Member
To clarify (I guess?), is that [an example of rational faith,] though?