Kelly Blue Composition I Ron Wallace 11/4/11

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BELIEF: AN ASSAULT ON REASON

Faith and belief. Truth or falsehood? Is faith/belief necesarry, or is reason enough? In 2011 I thought that the answer was overwhelming and loud that, in this day and age reason had conquered, that faith was no longer a factor, whatsoever, in the world of adults...and then I came to college in the South. It seems that on every intellectual streetcorner in the world of the southerner, there is a hawker trying to sell one or the other or all three! Even with the seemingly unending assault on reason, I contend that reason is enough, that faith/belief are unecessary and are not valid methods of aquiring information and/or knowledge and that reason alone is sufficient for understanding the world. To be honest, the vast majority of my argument is simply my regurgitation of an argument set forth by George H. Smith in "Atheism: The Case Against God. I would like to think however, that I do have a contributing point or three in the process. First, as in our last discussion, we must define our terms. We are dealing with the idea of faith, belief and reason. Let's first see what these mean in a strict sense. "Faith", as Webster's

defines the term is, Belief, http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/faith. I guess that simplifies our definition of Belief. In my last paper I used the terms "Faith" and "Belief" interchangeably but made the mistake of failing to inform the reader that they indeed mean the same thing. Now let's take a look at what Webster's says of reason: "The capacity for rational thought; to think, ability to think, thought." http://www.websters-onlinedictionary.org/definitions/reason. These definitions are given in the interest of clarity for "clarity is the opposite of confusion", George H. Smith. Now that we have defined our subject, let's consider what the scope of the argument to be. In most general conversations with lay people, I notice that when the word "faith" (belief) is used it is used in the context of some form of information or knowledge the individual is supposed to have, or is the method by which the individual gained awareness or knowledge. For example I have heard conversations similar to this, "I know that Jesus died for my sins", "How do you know that?", "I have faith." The average person encountered in the "Bible Belt" has no concept at all that this is not a valid argument. This and many other fallacious arguments are deemed correct, appropriate or even convincing. Let's consider the question epistemologically; "Has there ever in the history of man been one shred of information or knowledge gained via the process of faith, i.e. "believing" something to be true?" Man used to believe the earth was flat, was this faith reasonable? Did man's faith make this true? Man believed that illness was caused by evil spirits, did faith discover germs and microbes? As a matter of fact, in all of human history, I challenge anyone to demonstrate any fact or discovery that was made utilizing the method of faith alone. I present that there are none and never will be any. Why? Faith is not a valid method of acquiring information. Consider for a moment the true meaning of this statement, by what means does faith gain knowledge for an

individual? What is the method that belief uses to gain knowledge? Reason uses, thought, observation, logic, experimentation, deduction, and so on and on, these are reasons methods, what are the methods of faith? Fantasy? Imagination? Dreams? I honestly have no idea what the methodology of faith would be to gain info and knowledge...do you? Let's see if we can shed a little light on the matter, noted author George H. Smith puts the conflict between reason and faith this way in his hard hitting book, "Atheism: The Case Against God", "The concept of faith itself carries a "built-in" deprecation of reason; and without this antireason element, the concept of faith is rendered meaningless." (Emphasis added). Since faith has no means of it's own to garner one knowledge, it's only recourse is to attempt to belittle reason, or make room for itself in consideration, by trying to show that reason has some sort of deficiency. Try this on for example, Reason as we have seen, is "thought", "to think", the means of thought is the mind. What is the means or the method of faith? Light we know is comprised of paricles and waves, electricity travels on a current, the mind makes thought, what is the methodology of faith? Magic perhaps? The process or function of faith/belief cannot be the same as that of reason. If this were the case we would not need the two seperate words to denote the action, we would simply say "I believe E=mc2", or "I know 2 + 2= 4", the fact that we make a distinction between the two immediately tells us they are somehow different processes. Reason is the process by which we obtain information about the world around us. Reason is how we make sense of external stimuli, how we understand and think. Faith on the other hand is the act of accepting information or an idea as true without any evidence. The ability of faith seems to only have any validity within the realm of the unknown or supernatural. I have never encountered a situation in real life where faith or belief was the methodology by which information was garnered. I suspect that there

never will be such a situation. In "The Virtue of Selfishness" pg. 41-42 Nathaniel Branden, follower of the great Ayn Rand, has this to say concerning faith and reason, "Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. When a man rejects reason as his standard of judgement, only one alternative standard remains to him: his feelings. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge. To practice the "virtue" of faith, one must be willing to suspend one's sight and one's judgement; one must be willing to live with the unintelligible, with that which cannot be conceptualized or integrated into the rest of one's knowledge, and to induce a trancelike illusion of understanding. One must be willing to repress one's critical faculty and hold it as one's guilt; one must be willing to drown any questions that rise in protest--to strangle any trust of reason convulsively seeking to assert its proper function as the protector of one's life and cognitive integrity." There are those who try to defend faith/belief as a valid form of gaining knowledge or aquiring information. Those who attempt this misguided attack on reason usually do so by trying to show that reason is somehow insufficient in an area or that reason just isn't quite enough for a particular situation. In Atheism: The Case Against God, author George Smith puts the conflict this way, "Faith is required only if reason is inadequate; if reason is not deficient in some respect, the concept of faith becomes vacuous. The Christian creates the need for faith by denying the efficacy of reason. Without this element of denial, faith is stripped of its function; there are no gaps of knowledge for it to fill. If reason is comprehensive, if no sphere of reality is exempt from its scrutiny, there are no grounds on which to posit faith as an alternate method of cognition. If reason can tell us anything there is to know, there is no longer a job for faith. The entire notion of faith rests upon and presupposes the indadequacy of reason." An example of

this is the god concept. Because man does not, and I assert cannot, have firsthand knowledge of the god thing, faith is called in as the cavalry to be the method by which knowledge can be gained of this elusive hobgoblin. Reason is allegedly inadequate when it comes to god so faith is given as the necessary tool. I argue that only if reason is deemed unable, would faith have even a glimmer of hope in being successful as a method, but let's see if it succeeds. What exactly does faith tell us of the god thing? How does faith come about getting this information on god? What are the methods faith uses to gain knowledge? How are the evidences of faith demonstrated? How does one know if the methodology of faith is being used correctly or incorrectly? What is the evidence faith offers? The list of faith condemning questions are endless if a comparison between reason and faith are truly made. The believer sometimes takes the approach that reason and faith are simply two different "tools" in the toolbox that is the mind. Just like one would use a hammer for a nail, or a wrench for a bolt, so it is with reason and belief they say. As mentioned above this only works if reason is somehow not enough "tool" for the job, but personally, I do not accept that faith can be demonstrated to be a "tool" at all. In order to qualify as a method of gaining knowledge, faith must meet some criteria. Is faith a true epistemological method? To be found valid, belief must be able to distinguish for us truth and falsity, can it do so? One person believes Hitler was a great leader and exemplary human being, the rest of us believe he was a monster and evil. Can faith distinguish for us which is true? Is faith capable of rational demonstration? By faith can one demonstrate gravity for example? Not by dropping an object, that would be a reasonable demonstration, the act must be demonstrable by faith alone. Is this possible? No. Is faith capable of telling us whether a certain proposition is internally consistent? Can belief examine a claim for evidence? Can faith conclude if a proposition is consistent with previously confirmed

knowledge? No. Faith can do none of these things, and for me that is more than enough reason to deem belief as unnecessary. Ayn Rand, Russian philosopher and author, helps us clarify what is reasonable in "The Virtue of Selfishness", "Remember that all of man's knowledge and all his concepts have a hierarchical structure. The foundation and starting point of man's thinking are his sensory perceptions; on this base, man forms his first concepts, then goes on building the edifice of his knowledge by identifying and integrating new concepts on a wider and wider scale. If man's thinking is to be valid, this process must be guided by logic,..." To not use reason, or logic as our method of gaining knowledge is to simply rely on feelings to dictate to us that which is true and that which is not. If we do not stick to reason as our method for gaining information we ultimately are relying on caprice, whim, and fancy to determine for us that which is real and that which is not. Ultimately, one cannot choose what one believes or does not believe. David Steele author and editor, puts it this way in his book "Atheism Explained", "...we cannot believe whatever we choose to believe. Belief is involuntary. If you doubt this, try making yourself believe--even just for a few seconds--that there are no kangaroos in Australia." Since those of you that believe cannot choose to "un"-believe the best that I can hope is that some part of this paper will cause you to change your belief or look further into the subject on you own and learn a new set of beliefs. For me, things have not and will not change, I do not believe or have faith in anything at all. For as long as I live I will have no beliefs, no faith. I leave you with a quote from John Galt, a character in Ayn Rand's epic novel, "Atlas Shrugged", "the alleged shortcut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind."