Rationality in Religious Belief
The obtaining of information is an inseparable part of human life, and
therefore in what ever one may do; one will always collect
information. To be of any value, the information collected has to be
reliable, and one does not seem to doubt the reliability of evidence
because they believe it to be logical, unless they are a sceptic.
Some say that religion is something we cannot prove because we
acknowledge religion through our feelings, mainly our feeling of
trust, or of wonder and awe – sensing that there must be a high being
or creator. Religious belief is to have an immense faith, but
religious faith is dependant on the fact that we must exist but
existence is alone, it does not depend on anything. Religious belief
is based upon the foundation that we exist, it is trying to explain
why we are here.
One may question how and why do religions and faiths explain
existence, and is the evidence that supports them rational and solid;
if ones proof is just based upon a personal experience another has
claimed, feeling or another’s scriptures then surely it is completely
uncertain and unproven. Therefore it seem illogical to base an entire
existence of faith into a religion, when one cannot state why they
believe in it as there are no world wide renowned arguments and facts
to back up an inquisition.
If a particular person believes that they have experienced a miracle,
or been visited or spoken to by God, then they can be definite in
saying why they believe in their religion, and to them this argument
seems completely rational and no matter what another being may say or
do to alter the persons be...
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...morals are merely adaptive or maladaptive, they cannot be either good
or evil, right or wrong -- just better towards preserving the species
of humans. It depends upon the individual who have a revealed
religious faith to determine one’s morals; an atheist or sceptic would
also have individual determination of morals and code of living. So,
it would seem to be that atheists and sceptics have as valid a claim
to morals as does someone with faith. This shows that with or without
religious faith most people would all be in agreement with having for
example morals and a code of living, they have come to the same
conclusions in very different ways.
Therefore in this case surely if it makes the world tilt towards being
a better place then having a religious faith may not need to back
backed up by a proven rational argument.
It is crucial that every belief must be thoroughly explored and justified to avoid any future repercussions. Clifford provides two examples in which, regardless of the outcome, the party that creates a belief without comprehensive justification ends up at fault. It is possible to apply the situations in The Ethics of Belief to any cases of belief and end up with the conclusion that justification is of utmost importance. Justifying beliefs is so important because even the smallest beliefs affect others in the community, add to the global belief system, and alter the believer moral compass in future decisions.
In order to break the cultural norms of psychics, con artists, paranormalist and faith healers, James Randi debunks frauds by criticizing religion. As a debunker, Randi emphasizes that trusting fakers give them superiority to control a spectator’s
Let us not confuse or conflate the spiritual with the physical: they are inseparable, but they are not interchangeable. Do not allow wishful thinking to lead to delusions. To grasp the idea of prosperity and self-worth
If death is really real, based upon the animistic quality of our five physical senses, then how do we know that we are truly alive and breathing, not in a dream? It has been proposed that people aware the existence of surroundings majorly rely on their five senses, which may cause illusions. The ethereal, yet grounded, theory of existentialism provides the landscape for a more positively identified pathway which reaches across the separation exists among humans.
Whether god exists or not has been in discussion for thousands of years, and an important discussion. Whether it is rational to believe in god or not is another story, like believing in god itself, this topic has brought many discussions. It is one thing to discuss whether god is real or not and it is a complete other to discuss whether it is rational to believe in god or not. I believe that while there may not be any convincing evidence or arguments that God does exist, I do still believe that it is still rational to believe that god does exist. I think this because, believing in God is not simply just believing that he exists, but believing that it can bring good to our lives, we otherwise would not have. It teaches us to have a moral responsibility not only to others, but ourselves. It is obvious that many people do believe in god, but many of us choose to do so for reasons other than just believing in God. I do believe that just because there is no evidence, that does not mean God doesn’t exist. Like I said, God brings more to our lives than just a belief, but an ability to achieve a better one. And even if God is just an imaginary figure, he is an imaginary figure that brings hope and goodness to our lives, which we can never discount.
Flannery O’Conner, a winner of the National Book Award for fiction, was a prominent Southern Gothic short story author whose works deal with the protagonist, usually having a deformity or disability, is met with a challenge of faith and a conflict of intelligence. Although both challenge and conflict are found in all of her works, however it is very apparent with in Good Country People and The Lame Shall Enter First. O’Conner uses character relations and minor characters that are broken prophets to generate and create each story.
(*note to reader:I hope this gives all of you struggling with some concepts in Intro to Philosophy a clearer view on how to approach your own paper, please do not plagerise)
experiences and its beliefs developed over time about sin, salvation, grace, faith and so forth.2
Throughout history, conflicts between faith and reason took the forms of religion and free thinking. In the times of the Old Regime, people like Copernicus and Galileo were often punished for having views that contradicted the beliefs of the church. The strict control of the church was severely weakened around the beginning of the nineteenth century when the Old Regime ended. As the church's control decreased, science and intellectual thinking seemed to advance. While the people in the world became more educated, the church worked harder to maintain its influential position in society and keep the Christian faith strong. In the mid-nineteenth century, the church's task to keep people's faith strong became much harder, due to theories published by free thinkers like Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, David Friedrich Strauss, and others. These men published controversial theories that hammered away at the foundation on which the Christian church was built. As the nineteenth century progressed, more doubts began to arise about the basic faiths of the Christian church.
Elwood emphasizes the importance of symbols in order to complete “transcendence experience”; therefore, over evaluating some symbols above other symbols would add more obstacles and confusion for the ones who are living the transcendence
Hamilton, L.W. (2012). Human Spark. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from Soul Beliefs: Causes and Consequences Online Course site: rutgersonline.net.
Spirituality can be defined as ‘‘ways of relating to the sacred’’ (Shults and Sandage 2006, p. 161) that involve the experience of significance (Zinnbauer and Pargament 2005)”. (Jankowski and Vaughn, 2009, p.82).
Merit, in general, can be understood as receiving a reward from someone or something for doing a good service or action. However, in the theological context, merit refers to actions that are considered charitable by God. A supernatural reward can then be gifted by God, with the ultimate reward of eternal life in heaven. When it pertains to the subject of merit, one has to state the nature, the conditions, the types, the purpose, and the ending results on the subject of merit.
In my life, I have come across different religions such as Christianity and Judaism. I grew up in a Christian household and I have come across Judaism with family friends and even my own family. I have attended Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s for my family friends and I got to see a bit of Jewish culture and tradition which I greatly appreciated that I could be a part of. Along with experiencing Judaism, my aunt converted from Christianity to Judaism when she married my uncle. I got to see a conversion of religions which was very cool and fascinating. I have been guided in the right direction in regards to my faith by my parents, my youth leader and my grandmother. I have been open to learning about other religions and I accept other religions.
At first glance, many facets of science and religion seem to be in direct conflict with each other. Because of this, I have generally kept them confined to separate spheres in my life. I have always thought that science is based on reason and cold, hard facts and is, therefore, objective. New ideas have to be proven many times by different people to be accepted by the wider scientific community, data and observations are taken with extreme precision, and through journal publications and papers, scientists are held accountable for the accuracy and integrity of their work. All of these factors contributed to my view of science as objective and completely truthful. Religion, on the other hand, always seems fairly subjective. Each person has their own personal relationship with God, and even though people often worship as a larger community with common core beliefs, it is fine for one person’s understanding of the Bible and God to be different from another’s. Another reason that Christianity seems so subjective is that it is centered around God, but we cannot rationally prove that He actually exists (nor is obtaining this proof of great interest to most Christians). There are also more concrete clashes, such as Genesis versus the big bang theory, evolution versus creationism, and the finality of death versus the Resurrection that led me to separate science and religion in my life. Upon closer examination, though, many of these apparent differences between science and Christianity disappeared or could at least be reconciled. After studying them more in depth, science and Christianity both seem less rigid and inflexible. It is now clear that intertwined with the data, logic, and laws of scien...