What is more important for the future well-being of humankind: Faith or Reason?

[Midnight Pete]

What good is reason without compassion?

I don't think anyone is really giving this due consideration. Society cannot exist if everyone is sociopathic. Any dearth or wealth of reason would be utterly irrelevant. It would be a hell on Earth and I am not using that phrase lightly.

 

[Magic Man]

The way you've defined it, we would be using "reason," not "faith." They are not the same thing.

Huh? The way I've defined it is the normal definition meaning "belief without evidence". You're right that reason and faith aren't the same thing. They are opposite things, which is what makes this discussion interesting.

 

[Willamena]

Yes, but the way you've all defined it (as Eliot explained it), if there's faith with evidence, then faith becomes reason.

That's one of the reasons equivocation could be a bad thing.

Yes that's exactly why equivocation is a bad thing.

When the hypothetical person considers faith to be a good thing because after all, we have faith in our friends and our future etc. -- they're actually, even if they don't know about it, thinking about reason because it's reasonable to have confidence in those things.

However since they're equivocating the different contexts of faith, it leads them to believe that faith that something exists is on the same level as faith/trust/confidence, but it's not. So it might become hard to understand to such a person why faith that something exists is not reasonable whereas faith (as in trust/confidence) is reasonable.

When the hypothetical person considers faith to be reason, that's when both words lose meaning.

Faith is not reason.

 

[Meow Mix]

What good is reason without compassion?

I don't think anyone is really giving this due consideration. Society cannot exist if everyone is sociopathic. Any dearth or wealth of reason would be utterly irrelevant. It would be a hell on Earth and I am not using that phrase lightly.

This is a good point I think. Reason does need to be tempered with compassion; there are a lot of logically sound ideas that are definitely horrible. For instance it's logically sound to weed out old and handicapped people if someone is trying to make society more efficient, but that certainly doesn't make it the right thing to do.

 

[Eliot Wild]

I don't think I'm immature for knowing what I want, and knowing which forum is conducive to it.

It may not mean a whole helluva lot, but personally, I don't find you immature at all, certainly not as much as some others who fall back on misguided and pointedly personal attacks against others because they have woefully failed to justify or validate their beliefs in the face of honest, sincere questioning on a religious debate forum.

I mean, are we both crazy? This IS a religious debate forum, right? This place is specifically designed for that purpose, right? We are supposed to be questioning each other and asking for validation and justification of other's beliefs, right?

Or have I gotten drunk and stumbled into the, "Let's-not-ever-ask-each-other-questions-about-our-personal-beliefs website" again? Because, I really didn't get along well with anyone there.

 

[Willamena]

Huh? The way I've defined it is the normal definition meaning "belief without evidence".

Right.

Thus eliminating "faith" from the picture.

 

[Meow Mix]

When the hypothetical person considers faith to be reason, that's when both words lose meaning.

Faith is not reason.

All we're saying is this.

You have faith 1, which is belief without evidence.

You have faith 2, which is trust/confidence.

Faith 2 is reasonable (not reason itself, but falls under the umbrella of reason) whereas faith 1 is not reasonable.

 

[Magic Man]

What good is reason without compassion?

I don't think anyone is really giving this due consideration. Society cannot exist if everyone is sociopathic. Any dearth or wealth of reason would be utterly irrelevant. It would be a hell on Earth and I am not using that phrase lightly.

Reason is plenty good without compassion. I can use reason to realize that helping others is good for me.

I don't understand this new twist that people are just assuming a lack of compassion means psychopathy or sociopathy. Plus, that's just using incorrect standards. We're talking about humans being fundamentally different than they are now, so using current psychological standards doesn't work.

 

[Willamena]

Infinitely justified knowledge; knowledge that's impossible to be false. Incorrigible knowledge.

Example: if something exists, then it exists as what it is.

Example: I know absolutely that I, myself, exist (by cogito ergo sum), though I can't prove to you absolutely that I exist. In any case you can know in the same way that you, yourself, exist.

You're talking about an axiom, but axioms aren't knowledge. They're axiomatic.

 

[Magic Man]

When the hypothetical person considers faith to be reason, that's when both words lose meaning.

Faith is not reason.

You're right, and now I see the point of your earlier comment. The point he was making is that faith does not mean believing through reasonable evidence. If that's what you mean, you're actually talking about reason. His whole point was that "faith" in the senses of "trust and confidence" would fall on the side of reason, not faith as in "belief without evidence". Hence the problem with equivocating.

 

[Meow Mix]

You're talking about an axiom, but axioms aren't knowledge. They're axiomatic.

True for SOME axioms, such as Euclid's which aren't knowledges.

My examples though are examples of knowledges -- absolute ones.

 

[Riverwolf]

You mean you prefer to use "superstition" for "belief without evidence"? That's fine, but you should also remember that "faith" means "belief without evidence", which is why sometimes it's used as justification for believing in God.

Very well.

Here is the definition of compassion from dictionary.com:

"a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering."

I know.

You can care for others without compassion.

HOW?! Compassion IS caring for others.

I don't see how it's even possible to care for others without even a little compassion. It sounds like you're saying that it's possible to laugh at something even without a sense of humor.

Except that it's only you who claims a lack of compassion means you're a psychopath. That's not a fact. A world of reasonable people without compassion or faith would not be a world of psychopaths.

Show me. Show me how you can care for someone without compassion.

Yup, but that doesn't mean it's necessary for people not to suffer. In purely logical terms, you can make a case for making sure everyone is taken care of and suffering is reduced as much as possible. You don't need compassion to try to eliminate suffering.

But you need compassion to even recognize suffering. Without it, what is it that allows us to care for others?

 

[Midnight Pete]

This is a good point I think. Reason does need to be tempered with compassion; there are a lot of logically sound ideas that are definitely horrible. For instance it's logically sound to weed out old and handicapped people if someone is trying to make society more efficient, but that certainly doesn't make it the right thing to do.

A world full of reason but void of compassion is probably the best definition of Hell there is. Nothing otherworldly or supernatural. Nothing eternal, nothing to do with religion.

Jean Paul Sartre indicated that hell is other people.

 

[Meow Mix]

A world full of reason but void of compassion is probably the best definition of Hell there is. Nothing otherworldly or supernatural. Nothing eternal, nothing to do with religion.

Jean Paul Sartre indicated that hell is other people.

I tend to agree. Have you ever seen uh... ugh, the movie name is evading me right now. It has Christian Bale, it's set in the future when society takes meds that remove their ability to feel emotions. It has an invented martial arts using guns called "gun kata."

EQUILIBRIUM.

That movie is great. Sort of deals with what you're talking about here. I dunno, if a compassionless world led to something as awesome as gun kata fights I might say let it happen (Just kidding)

[youtube]TlqpfV9marA[/youtube]

 

[Riverwolf]

It's why I like Vulcans so much. They are a race that puts logic before most other things, but they still recognize the importance of compassion.

 

[Magic Man]

Right.

Thus eliminating "faith" from the picture.

OK, now you're not making sense. "Belief without evidence" is faith. I haven't eliminated anything other than irrelevant definitions from this conversation.

 

[Meow Mix]

It's why I like Vulcans so much. They are a race that puts logic before most other things, but they still recognize the importance of compassion.

Beam me up Scotty, I'd like to live on Vulcan.

Oh, unless it gets all blown up (imploded?) and stuff by red matter.

 

[Magic Man]

But you need compassion to even recognize suffering. Without it, what is it that allows us to care for others?

I'm going to end my part in the compassion tangent because it's not really relevant to the topic of faith vs. reason. It seems people want to qualify their support of reason for some reason. Reason is a good thing. Compassion is a good thing. Both are good for humans to use. Faith is at best unnecessary, at worst dangerous. Whether or not compassion exists, I'm still choosing reason over faith every time.

 

[Midnight Pete]

It's why I like Vulcans so much. They are a race that puts logic before most other things, but they still recognize the importance of compassion.

They are a very prideful race. Prideful, petty, and cold-hearted. They're also a bunch of hypocrites. If you follow the ST: Enterprise series, this becomes abundantly clear.

Why oh why must Star Trek twist the knife of our collective fanboy sexual frustration with characters like T'Pol and Seven of Nine? :sad4:

 

[Willamena]

All we're saying is this.

You have faith 1, which is belief without evidence.

You have faith 2, which is trust/confidence.

Faith 2 is reasonable (not reason itself, but falls under the umbrella of reason) whereas faith 1 is not reasonable.

When we have trust or confidence (belief) in a thing for which we don't have proof, we have faith. (Wikipedia)

It's impossible to believe in a thing without some evidence, because the thing we're believing in will at very least have evidenced itself, if only in its appearance as a concept/idea. Signs from "god," feelings from intuition, inference or deduction, all are types of evidence. Not all are forms of proof.

Reason arrives at a conclusion through a process. It may or may not be a proof. Faith arrives at a conclusion with a leap. Because it has no process, it always lacks for proof. One is rational, the other irrational --both are utilized in being human, neither are inherently better or worse than the other.