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Does Reason lead to Faith?

tomspug

tomspug

Absorbant
While most will say 'yes', likely. I will say 'no'.

My reasoning is that reason, by definition, requires paramaters, limitations. We take what is already known and draw conclusions based on those parameters.

How then... is it possible to determine something unknown through the ignorance of the unknown?

For example, in science, you cannot come to a conclusion without a premise. The "premise" is already known. Even in the excitement of discovering that a premise was true, you already EXPECTED it to be true. If the premise is false, there is only mild disappointment, and another premise is drawn (derived again from what is already known).

This mindset leaves no room for revelation. The greatest of scientists did not use proven, known methods to reach expected conclusions. They considered an unproven, untested premise, not based on what was known, and set out to prove it true. THAT is faith, and faith is what actually creates, not reason.

Reason, I discovered quickly in Philosophy class, is cyclical and practically pointless. I can honestly say that I have not received one valuable addition to my life from my knowledge of philosophy. It is not that I have failed to put philosophy into practice, but that the philosophy itself is completely unneccessary to life.

Reason itself is reflective. It is not forward thinking. It is utterly limited by the past, like someone walking backwards. And while reason may be able to determine where you are going and how you got to where you are, reason cannot tell you what to do next. It can only tell you how to do what has already been done before, and how to continue on that path.

We know that faith is valuable because we use it all the time. We have faith in ourselves, faith in our families, faith in our philosophies (to our detriment, of course). Of course, we are not using "reason" in ANY of these cases. Faith, by definition, is called such because it is an unknown. Love is an unknown. Trust is an unknown. Devotion is an unknown. Fulfillment is an unknown.

And we can only make those unknowns KNOWN by pursuing them, rather than attempting to reason them into knowns through inaction.
 
Wandered Off

Wandered Off

Sporadic Driveby Member
tomspug said:
Reason itself is reflective. It is not forward thinking. It is utterly limited by the past, like someone walking backwards. And while reason may be able to determine where you are going and how you got to where you are, reason cannot tell you what to do next. It can only tell you how to do what has already been done before, and how to continue on that path.
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That's not how I see it. Reason is used just about anytime history doesn't repeat itself. Someone looked at the past and said, "That action didn't give the result I wanted. I will try something else." Or "this could be done better." Someone has to reason predictively through any significant process change.

How would you ever predict future behavior or results without deductive reasoning?
 
cardero

cardero

Citizen Mod
Does Reason lead to Faith?
I see reason and hope as different concepts. Faith (to me) implies that one is exhausted from reasoning a belief or are impatient about waiting for more evidence to come to light or would just prefer to avoid reasoning altogether or they would rather go with the desire of how they want or favor their belief to be concluded.
 
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tomspug

tomspug

Absorbant
Wandered Off said:
That's not how I see it. Reason is used just about anytime history doesn't repeat itself. Someone looked at the past and said, "That action didn't give the result I wanted. I will try something else." Or "this could be done better." Someone has to reason predictively through any significant process change.

How would you ever predict future behavior or results without deductive reasoning?
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Reason can be used to PREVENT past events from reoccurring, but reason itself doesn't give us new ideas.
 
whereismynotecard

whereismynotecard

Treasure Hunter
tomspug said:
While most will say 'yes', likely. I will say 'no'.
Click to expand...

I thought the opposite... I thought most would say "no."

But I guess more people do have faith than don't, and no one wants to say they are unreasonable, so it would be realistic to assume everyone with faith would say yes, and everyone without it would say no.

Eh... It doesn't matter.
 
LuisDantas

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
There are two kinds of faith.

One that dares to believe in things with no factual support due to passionate drive.

And one that decides to accept uncertain bets and to pay the price for unavoidable mistakes because it knows where it wants to go.

The first is worthless and discarded by rational people. The second is often reached by them with the help of their reason.
 
Jayhawker Soule

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
tomspug said:
While most will say 'yes', likely. I will say 'no'.

My reasoning is that reason, by definition, requires paramaters, limitations. We take what is already known and draw conclusions based on those parameters.

How then... is it possible to determine something unknown through the ignorance of the unknown?
Click to expand...
Does anyone else find this incoherent?
 
doppelganger

doppelganger

Through the Looking Glass
I also say no, but I disagree with your explanation.

Belief generally precedes the reasons for belief. I think people tend to experience a sense of comforting certainty and a sense of community and belonging from professions of belief that make it feel right, and then go about constructing the rational basis for maintaining that belief in to whatever they've attached themselves to as their words of faith after they've already invested their identity in it.
 
cardero

cardero

Citizen Mod
doppelgänger;1340327 said:
I also say no, but I disagree with your explanation.

Belief generally precedes the reasons for belief. I think people tend to experience a sense of comforting certainty and a sense of community and belonging from professions of belief that make it feel right, and then go about constructing the rational basis for maintaining that belief in to whatever they've attached themselves to as their words of faith after they've already invested their identity in it.
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He'll probably get frubals for this.
 
tomspug

tomspug

Absorbant
doppelgänger;1340327 said:
I also say no, but I disagree with your explanation.

Belief generally precedes the reasons for belief. I think people tend to experience a sense of comforting certainty and a sense of community and belonging from professions of belief that make it feel right, and then go about constructing the rational basis for maintaining that belief in to whatever they've attached themselves to as their words of faith after they've already invested their identity in it.
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So what then, to you, is the value of faith?
 
PHOTOTAKER

PHOTOTAKER

Well-Known Member
all faith is putting a theory to a test... in a religion its putting your being what make you who you are and challenge what you beliefs are for lasting happiness in this life and a beginning of knowledge and happiness in the next.
 
logician

logician

Well-Known Member
By definition reason does not lead to faith, because faith is the acceptance of things w/o reason or evidence.
 
Falvlun

Falvlun

Earthbending Lemur
Premium Member
tomspug said:
For example, in science, you cannot come to a conclusion without a premise. The "premise" is already known. Even in the excitement of discovering that a premise was true, you already EXPECTED it to be true. If the premise is false, there is only mild disappointment, and another premise is drawn (derived again from what is already known).

This mindset leaves no room for revelation.
Click to expand...
This explanation of the scientific method is a little bit off.
Your "premise" is more like observations made of a phenomenon, rather than the actual hypothesis about that phenomenon. First, one observes a phenomenon to find out what is known. Then one develops a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon. This hypothesis is then tested, and the results are analyzed. Inherently, one doesn't know whether the hypothesis is correct or not; if you did, then it would be rather pointless to go through all that experimentation just to prove what is already known to be true.

You can not start from nothing and make something. All new knowledge is built upon old knowledge.


tomspug said:
Reason, I discovered quickly in Philosophy class, is cyclical and practically pointless. I can honestly say that I have not received one valuable addition to my life from my knowledge of philosophy. It is not that I have failed to put philosophy into practice, but that the philosophy itself is completely unneccessary to life.
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I completely disagree with this sentiment. But I am interested in why you believe reason to be cyclical and pointless. Cyclical, in the philosophical sense, means you use a belief to prove that that belief is true. I see logic being a lot more linear than that.

tomspug said:
We know that faith is valuable because we use it all the time. We have faith in ourselves, faith in our families, faith in our philosophies (to our detriment, of course). Of course, we are not using "reason" in ANY of these cases. Faith, by definition, is called such because it is an unknown. Love is an unknown. Trust is an unknown. Devotion is an unknown. Fulfillment is an unknown.
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Again, I disagree. My parents always taught me that trust is earned. If my child does x, then I will trust him to do y. That sort of thing. Very logical. Of course, some faith is involved, ie, that a child will continue doing the same sort of behaviors that he has done before. But, it is logic that allows us to infer many of these things that you ascribe to faith.

tomspug said:
And we can only make those unknowns KNOWN by pursuing them, rather than attempting to reason them into knowns through inaction.
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I prefer to use reason to pursue my unkowns. It's a lot more trustworthy. A leap of faith, while sometimes necessary, can be best supported by a sound mind beneath it.
 
Dunemeister

Dunemeister

Well-Known Member
doppelgänger;1340327 said:
I also say no, but I disagree with your explanation.

Belief generally precedes the reasons for belief. I think people tend to experience a sense of comforting certainty and a sense of community and belonging from professions of belief that make it feel right, and then go about constructing the rational basis for maintaining that belief in to whatever they've attached themselves to as their words of faith after they've already invested their identity in it.
Click to expand...

Does this apply to all belief generally or only religious belief? Is it possible (or perhaps generally true) that even atheists arrive at their convictions by experiencing a sense of comforting certainty out of fellowship with certain writers or friends and then go about rationalizing their convictions through philosophy?
 
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