Why 'Rational faith' Is An Oxymoron

[Edwardo Piet]

Here is why I think the idea of rational faith is an oxymoron:

You can't have valid, rational reasons to believe AND have faith because those reasons would IOW equate to evidence and you cannot have evidence with faith.

Any thoughts? Atheists/Theists/whoever?

EvF

[Kyuuketsuki]

I absolutely agree and consider that any step towards belief in something without evidence is one step closer to insanity.

Kyu

[Edwardo Piet]

Yep. Because it's delusion.

EvF

[Dotard]

Nice. Was that an original thought?

[Giff]

I can't say anything more then I asbolutely agree. It's simlpy great!

[Edwardo Piet]

Nice. Was that an original thought?

Entirely ( at least as far as I know). Built up entirely by myself over my discussions with fr0d0 and then shortened down and simplified (many times) cutting out unnecessary garbage until I'd got it as short and pithy as possible - I then created this thread and posted it here.

EvF

[Darwinian]

I'm going to be picky here and say that it isn't an oxymoron.

The question is therefore, can faith be rational. This depends upon what you mean by faith which I interpret as the belief in something without direct evidence.

If this is the case then I have faith in things all the time. And each time I have a rational reason to have that faith. If my daughter tells me that she has done her homework then, based on previous experience, I have no reason to doubt her and accept her statement as fact. Therefore I would argue that it is quite rational for me to have faith in that statement.



If the faith you are talking about is the belief in something that flies in the face of logic and for which there is no evidence, nor can there ever be then I would agree.

Perhaps the statement should read..

Rational acceptance of all religious scripture and dogma despite and in some case in spite of contrary evidence is an oxymoron.

[Edwardo Piet]

If my daughter tells me that she has done her homework then, based on previous experience, I have no reason to doubt her and accept her statement as fact. Therefore I would argue that it is quite rational for me to have faith in that statement.

I disagree. Because if you have NO reason to doubt her then you IOW have at least SOME reason to trust her. Or in other words evidence that she is trustworthy.

If you trusted in her when there was no reason whatsoever to trust her... - THEN you'd need faith and that would be irrational.

ALSO - you may have noticed though that I wasn't just defining faith as 'belief without evidence' but I am ALSO talking specifically about evidence in the EXISTENCE of something and having faith (belief without evidence) in the EXISTENCE of something. I know I didn't actually specify that here. But when I am talking about 'belief IN something' I mean the existence of something...

ALTHOUGH - I still think that you can explain it pretty much the same way here. If you have no reason to doubt your daughter then you must trust her for SOME reason(s) - and that/those reason(/s) IF at all VALID would be evidence in some way of her trustworthiness. If the reasons are INvalid then you're being irrational cos you're trusting her without reason so there's no evidence of her trustworthiness and therefore your trust in her must also be faith. Hence irrational faith. So once again - not rational.

What you are talking about with your daughter I think of as trust, not faith. If it was faith then your reasons couldn't be valid and WOULD be irrational because if they WERE valid then you WOULD have evidence IOW because your VALID reasons for trusting her would IOW be evidence of her trustworthiness (i.e. reason to trust her) - hence canceling out the faith because you cannot have faith with evidence.

EvF

[Darwinian]

I disagree. Because if you have NO reason to doubt her then you IOW have at least SOME reason to trust her. Or in other words evidence that she is trustworthy.

I have no reason to doubt her but also, I have no direct evidence that she has told the truth. Therefore I must accpet what she says as true without evidence which is faith.

If you trusted in her when there was no reason whatsoever to trust her... - THEN you'd need faith and that would be irrational.

I agree, but that's not what faith is. Faith is simply the belief of something without evidence.

[Edwardo Piet]

I have no reason to doubt her but also, I have no direct evidence that she has told the truth. Therefore I must accpet what she says as true without evidence which is faith.

Well, what? Like a risk/reward thing?

I mean it's irrational to believe in something without good reason. Do you believe her or not? If you believe her, do you believe her for any reasons or is it just guess-work? If it's just guess-work then that's not rational because it could go either way and you have no idea.

If you DO have reasons to trust her then IF those reasons really ARE at all valid then surely that is evidence of her trustworthiness at least at the current time?

If you trusted in her when there was no reason whatsoever to trust her... - THEN you'd need faith and that would be irrational.

I agree, but that's not what faith is. Faith is simply the belief of something without evidence.

As I tried to show in the OP - if you actually DO have VALID rational reasons TO believe something then that IOW WOULD count as evidence of the truth of it.

So if you have NO reason to trust her whatsoever then you have IOW NO evidence that she is trustworthy (at least at the current time). So if you trust her anyway then you are trusting her irrationally and also with faith because there's: 1.No reason(s) to believe her (hence irrational). and 2. There's no evidence that she is trustworthy (hence you must be believing her on faith).

EvF