Faith and Reason are Mutually Exclusive Opposites

This is the conclusion I have come to. In my years of Blogging there is nothing I have written that elicits more of an adverse response from Christian believers than when I have denounced faith in favor of scientifically based reasoning. I can write against the resurrection, miracles, or the inspiration of the Bible, but when I write against faith the blog world lights up (well, those who read my blog anyway). Why? George H. Smith tells us in Atheism: The Case Against God: “In order to understand the nature of a philosophical conflict one must grasp the fundamental differences that give rise to the conflict.” True enough. Applied to debates between atheism and Christianity he identifies what it is: “The conflict between Christian theism and atheism is fundamentally a conflict between faith and reason. This, in epistemological terms, is the essence of the controversy. Reason and faith are opposites, two mutually exclusive terms: there is no reconciliation or common ground. Faith is belief without, or in spite of, reason.” (pp. 96-98) As such, “For the atheist, to embrace faith is to abandon reason.” (p. 100)

There was a time when I thought such a statement was foolish, ignorant, and at best philosophically naïve. But not any more. Smith is right. There is a good reason why atheists are described as non-believers. In fact, Smith goes further to say such things as:

“I am not merely arguing, as a matter of historical fact, that all attempts to reconcile reason and faith have failed. My position is stronger than this. I am asserting that all such efforts must fail, that it is logically impossible to reconcile reason and faith. The concept of faith itself carries a ‘built in’ depreciation of reason; and without this anti-reason element, the concept of faith is rendered meaningless.” (p. 101)

“I am arguing that faith as such, faith as an alleged method of acquiring knowledge, is totally invalid—and as a consequence, all propositions of faith, because they lack rational demonstration, must conflict with reason.” (p. 120)

Smith concludes, “With the preceding groundwork, we now arrive at what may be termed the central dilemma of faith: Insofar as faith is possible, it is irrational; insofar as faith is rational, it is impossible.” (p. 121)

Christian philosophers will scoff at these statements like I did at one time. They will say that since the work of Alvin Plantinga such a view is naïve at best. They will say that if I embrace such a view I can no longer be taken seriously. Okay. Let them. I cannot convince them of much anyway. It’s a conclusion I have come to based on all that I know, and I cannot say all that I know. So what I'll do at this time is to share some of the skeptical definitions (or descriptions) of faith that I've found and contrast them with what Christians would say about other faiths, a sort of outsider test for faith definitions. And there are plenty of them to be found. Skeptics all seem to share the same basic view about faith.

Voltaire: “Faith consists in believing, not what appears to be true, but what appears to our understanding to be false. Only by faith can Asiatics believe in the voyage of Mohammed to the seven planets, the incarnation of the god Fo, or Vishnu, of Xaca, of Brahma, of Sammonocodom, etc. etc. etc.” Philosophical Dictionary (“Foi Faith” p. 208)

Mark Twain defined faith as “believing what you know ain’t true.”

Sam Harris: "Faith is the license religious people give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail."

In the documentary Religulous, Bill Maher said “Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking.”

Richard Dawkins: “The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices.”

John W. Loftus:
"Faith is an attitude or feeling whereby someone attributes a higher degree of probability to the evidence than what the evidence calls for."

“Probability is the only thing that matters.”

“Faith is an irrational leap over the probabilities.”

“Reasonable faith is an oxymoron.”

“Show me something has no reasonable probability to it and I won’t believe it.”

“Faith has no method.”
Matt McCormick, from chapter 11, "The 'F' Word," in his book Atheism: and the Case Against Christ:
"To take something on faith or to believe by faith is to believe it despite contrary or inadequate evidence. It is to believe anyway when there's not enough support from evidence and reason to clear the way."

"The overcoming of doubts or counter-evidence is the essential feature of faith."

"If someone's reaction to my arguments against the resurrection and other religious beliefs is that she has faith, then she is conceding the central point. In effect, she is acknowledging that in order to believe those religious doctrines, one must ignore the inefficiencies in the evidence and believe anyway."

"If there is sufficient evidence to justify the conclusion, then faith isn't needed. So to suggest that faith and evidence jointly justify is acknowledging that the evidence by itself isn't enough, and I will ignore that gap and believe anyway."

"In fact, the need to invoke faith to bridge the gap affirms the inadequacy of the evidence."

"In effect, the faith response amounts to, 'I'm going to believe anyway, despite those objections.' That's just dogmatic irrationality, not a serious consideration that the critic must give some further objection to."
Victor Stenger, from the Preface to his book God and the Folly of Faith:
“Faith is belief in the absence of supportive evidence and even in the light of contrary evidence.”

“Theology is faith-plus reason, with some observation allowed. Science is observation-plus reason, with no faith allowed.”

“Science and religion are fundamentally incompatible because of their unequivocally opposed epistemologies—the separate assumptions they make concerning what we can know about the world.”

"The differences between science and religion are not merely matters of different points of view that might be harmonized with some effort. They are forever irreconcilable."
David Eller:

“Knowing is not believing.” According to him “knowledge is about reason” while “belief is about faith.” He says, “the two are logically and psychologically utterly different and even incompatible.” (Natural Atheism, p. 133).

Now to help Christians see why skeptics have come to this conclusion all we have to do is insert other religious faiths into these statements. Let me do this for just a few of them:
"Faith is the license Mormons give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail."

“The Muslim faith means making a virtue out of not thinking.”

“The whole point of the Orthodox Jewish faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices.”

"The Scientologist faith is an attitude or feeling whereby someone attributes a higher degree of probability to the evidence than what the evidence calls for."

“The Hindu faith is an irrational leap over the probabilities.”

“Reasonable faith in Haitian Voodoo is an oxymoron.”

“The overcoming of doubts or counter-evidence is the essential feature of the Shinto faith.”

“In fact, the need to invoke the Baha'i faith to bridge the gap affirms the inadequacy of the evidence.”

“The Santeria faith is belief in the absence of supportive evidence and even in the light of contrary evidence.”
Perhaps it might seem clearer now to Christian philosophers who think such a view is philosophically naïve. Christians reject the faiths of other religions precisely because they are faith-based. They just do not understand that their own religion or sect within it shares that same foundation.

David Eller, probably more than anyone else, explains what religious believers do and why skeptics reject faith of any kind as fundamentally incompatible with scientifically based reasoning. Eller claims that if believers “can drag down real knowledge to their level and erase any distinctions between the true and the false, the known and the merely felt or believed or guessed, they can rest comfortably in their own undeserved self-certainty.” (Natural Atheism, p. 132).

That’s exactly what believers do too. But these attempts all fail, for as Eller explains, “In situations where the evidence is inadequate and the question is unsettled, it is wise for us to neither believe nor disbelieve but to wait for more information…if the evidence warrants a positive conclusion, accept it as true; if the evidence warrants a negative conclusion, reject it as false; if the evidence warrants no conclusion, postpone arriving as a conclusion while pursuing more information. But at no point is belief warranted, necessary or helpful. Belief can never be anything better than premature arrival at a conclusion (figuratively ‘jumping to a conclusion’) and can often be much worse, like accepting an unjustified and more-than-likely false conclusion.” (Atheism Advanced, p. 398). Eller goes on to say, “There is knowledge and there are other kinds of things-—opinions, hypotheses, theories, preferences, predictions, hopes, values, and wishes—-but belief quite emphatically and thoroughly has no place in our mental world.” (Atheism Advanced, p. 402).

Okay, let the blog wars continue. You wouldn’t expect deluded people to give up their delusion this easily now would you?

In fact, Christians have admitted the same kinds of things.

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