Faith: The Obnoxious Word Part 1: The Common Tirade
‘Faith’ is that annoying thing that most in the skeptical, atheist and secular humanist communities seem to despise. Most of them say, and I believe they’re right, that faith isn’t backed by evidence, and has a history of making people do stupid things like start wars and commit genocide and since we as human beings have based our lives and actions on something as irrational as faith we have to live in a culture where creationists spit on science, where churches go untaxed but no one else does, where some of these people of ‘faith’ want to acquire nuclear weapons in order to use them, all in the name of the ancient stories they believe. All based on crazy, irrational, life-threatening faith.
I agree.
Well at least that’s where I lean. Science is much more rational. All truth is measured against the scientific method, theories and hypotheses all must eventually be tested in peer reviewed experiments, or at least like in the case of the ‘theory of gravity’ be more or less unprovable, but have complex data sets that support their existence, like using said data for atmospheric shuttle craft reentry or as a pretty damn good explanation for why the Earth circles around the sun. Science is rational because it admits when it’s wrong, most scientists would love to be the one to prove some generally accepted theory wrong. Religion on the other hand is filled with people who believe something, then start to try to justify that belief in the natural world. John Lennox in his debate with Christopher Hitchens, tried to justify the fact that miracles do not break the laws of nature because God “feeds in an event”. Mr Lennox decides not to respond when Hitchens playing with Hume’s words says (paraphrased): “2000 years ago, what is more likely to have happened, the whole natural order for a couple of minutes is suspended to impregnate a virgin, or a young Jewish girl told a fib?” Apparently to a mind like Mr. Lennox’s God feeding in an event is more rational and is what happened.
There’s one side that is very rational, but admittedly does require an amount of faith, especially if you advocate one viewpoint over another for example loop quantum gravity versus string theory. Don’t ask me by the way which I advocate, looking into things like that is why I started this blog. The other side of the coin requires massive amounts of faith, then requires you to work backward in order to find evidence for its claims, and when there is no evidence it falls back on faith and says you’ll burn in hell forever if you don’t believe.
Rationality VERSUS Irrational Faith
The search for truth for the sake of truth VERSUS Trying to justify ancient traditions as truth
A love for Earth, humanity, life and knowledge VERSUS A stronger love for an unprovable afterlife
Part 2 coming soon: Is there too much faith in secular circles though?
Humanist Exploration 