Must faith oppose reason?

Two parents
Four grand parents
Eight great grand parents
Sixteen great great grand parents
Thirty two great great great grand parents
Notice the number doubles every generation.
Now let's say on average a generation is 20 years
Let's take a finite number of years say 6000
Let's say 6000years =300 generations
1st=1
2nd=2
3rd=4
4th=8
5th=16
6th=32
7th=64
8th=128
9th=256
10th=512
11th=1024
12th=2048
13th=4096
14th=8192
15th=16384
16th=32768
17th=65536
18th=131072
19th=262144
20th=524288

Oh my, this is a predicament, if I use this logic to find out how many ancestors I have had since Adam and Eve, don't I need to find a way to decrease these numbers?524288 is only the number of people it took to suffer and die from the time of Christ, that is how many parents it took to make it possible for me to think about this?

Mind, heart and soul... I'm not being a reductionist here, but there really is just the mind. And like discussed earlier, it is divided into two states: Intentional states (where beliefs, hopes, fear, etc belongs), and phenomenal states (where desire, affective feelings, etc belongs). The latter is what we call "the heart", the former, "the soul". But really it is just the mind.

There is a very simple variable that will reduce the entities in any regressed chart, can you state it?

Firstly lets ditch the idea of adam and eve, the levels of incest required to make a population that would last more than 5 generations would reduce that gene pool to a smoldering ruin.

we can lower those numbers by saying that there was probably some incest to some mild degree, for isntance your dad married a cousin who was 12 times removed, and so you could trace both back to a common ancestor way up the line.

nextly this is sort of going off of the 'chicken or the egg' flawed thought. it would depend on how you defined a chicken, but there was not just one chicken laying one egg, there were millions of pre chickens laying millions of pre chicken eggs.

likewise there were plenty of prehumans creating prehuman spawn and eventually something close enough to be considered near human spawn, and then eventually human spawn, and by that point, where ever you want to draw the line, we are starting with thousands of adams and eves spread across a decently sized geological spread across the cradle of Africa.

this is not to mention that for a long time it was a pretty big fashion trend not too long ago to marry second or third cousins some ways up the line in many cultures.

basically i would say that that simple variable would be recurrence, in this case incest. in some way, every human being on the planet is probably related if we go back far enough.

I believe you are correct about the variable and you answered the question better than anyone who I have seen take this riddle serious

Our existence as we know it depends on systems. You can imagine natural life existing without a solar system but that has nothing to do with reality. There are many solar systems in the universe but it makes sense to believe that because there are so many that would not support life as we know it. It would not be absurd to give credit to environment for life forms but we can safely assume that the laws of nature had no beginning and will have no end. It is a common error in this era to mistake the observation of natural phenomenon which is at least one definition of science for the proverbial supernatural being of creation or Creator

Objectively it is possible to imagine many probabilities in explaining origins
Origin of a feces thesis
That quote inspires me to do some stinking thinking. Let's suppose that my greatest grandfather was born in a mass of primordial "Substances High In Transmutations" or SHIT . Please pardon this acronym. Let me explain I am not saying that my greatest grandfather began in a pile of shit. I am saying that life came from "Substances High In Transmutations" or SHIT at least from a purely scientific theory
Now let's theorize that in order to be SHIT, you have to take SHIT. [Organic matter consumes organic matter}
This presents a problem in the law of opposites though, and philosophers have pondered this mystery to determine who gives a SHIT. Because Substances High In Transmutations can be broken down to a simpler DNA, which I understand is a the substance of life. Some people believe that SHIT just happens, but others say they don't know SHIT, because in order to know all about SHIT you have to be SHIT for a long time. Some folks feel like SHIT, but most people spend their whole life trying to get their SHIT together. If one can find the synthesis where opposites meet and merge that would be where all this SHIT began. The paradox is that if I am more full of SHIT than my greatest grandfather was, then there would seem to be some "Good Orderly Direction" involved, but if I say that GOD created SHIT I am going to get burned as bad as Giordano Bruno did from one side, and the other side will say that I am really full of Papal Bull SHIT.

Oh well I can always work on a theory explaining why every thing in the universe is getting farther apart
Well let's see, there is more room out than there is in. and they have almost proven there was a big bang
Let's see what about the cosmic Farther Apart Reaction Theory, or cosmic FART
.Damn it!!!

Matter cannot be created, nor destroyed just because you can dilute it or flush it....it is not gone
The truth always comes out. "The end"

PS I am not an atheist, but I am not against free thinking

When we all think alike heaven, and earth will unite

I think i would attribute it to the fact that ever so slowly, all systems are breaking down. a symptom of that breakdown might be the acquisition of more SHIT than is needed within an individual, or the expansion of the universe beyond a threshold, or the eventual destruction of all life.

for instance stars, the object which gives us all of our energy directly and indirectly, is fusing hydrogen to create helium. eventually it will run out of hydrogen and will be attemption to fuse helium. it gets to a point where the star is attempting to fuse carbon, and eventually the process fails consistently enough that BAM, dead star.

this is a rather poetic scientific notion, as we know that hydrogen will form from pure energy, but not the rest of the material spectrum. stars fuse hydrogen and the other elements to create either the elements directly, or the conditions for all the other elements to form, when those stars die the disperse in whatever ways and eventually reform into new suns and planets, every human being can trace atoms of carbon in their body back to a star or two.

however it also means that the universe is running out of hydrogen and helium. very slowly, very definitely. over billions and billions of years the universe will become a dark, distant, cold, quiet, lifeless place.

no idea whatll happen then, maybe since everything will be super dense and have large gravitational forces it will cause the universe to implode, or maybe string theory is correct and our universal membrane will eventually collapse with another creating another massive burst of energy.

i would probably want to know a little bit more about the big bang before i took a real stab at it, but i bet the universe will end in ice rather than fire.
----
so... yeah. all systems are breaking down.

TSI25, kudos to you for taking this seriously. I can't.

You are a randomly highly evolved ape

Mikey..evolution is not a random process. The genetic variation on which natural selection acts may occur randomly, but natural selection itself is not random at all. The survival and reproductive success of an individual is directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment. Whether or not an individual survives and reproduces depends on whether it has genes that produce traits that are well adapted to its environment.

I'm a highly evolved very specific Ape, thanks.

But to answer your question, "must faith oppose reason", I'd say no.

If there is good reason in faith, then obviously there won't be opposition. However, for many people (more and more every year, according to Census records) are not seeing the "reason" (logic) in faith.

Do people of reason need to oppose faith? Yes, I think it's important, even where clearly the large proportion of people are peaceful moderates who take a nice friendly salad bar approach to their faith and it's rules. Let us not forget, their good natures allow social cover for the extremists you find in every religion.

Religion needs to learn it's place, and for me, it's place in on the top of the trashpile we call mythology.

^ I wasn't even totally aware he meant religious faith here until you pointed it out.

I want to use the principle of charity before making any presuppositions however, so, Z poetrmd, what "Faith" are you talking about?

Religious faith? Or epistemological faith?

I hope its the latter, and even for both ,The philosopher/psychologist, William James has the most outstanding views on both.

One of his questions is: Can our will either help or hinder our intellect in its perceptions of truth?

In his book, The Will to Believe, in the early chapters he defended the adoption of beliefs as hypotheses and self-fulfilling prophecies even without prior evidence of their truth. James extends this idea to argue that adopting beliefs like God, freewill, possibility, and morality would cause evidence to come into existence, thus verifying beliefs that could not have been verified otherwise. James' rationale for this more controversial idea is in combining it with his pragmatic theory of truth, the idea that a belief is verified if it causes better interaction with the world.

I'm not saying I agree with him though, but I believe such topic of discussion is also worth, well, contemplating about. We can't easily dismiss it just because it sounds funny.

But to be extra funny though, if you are indeed talking about religious faith, and don't wish to discuss it from the framework of existentialism (Kierkegaard, Buber, etc). Then I'm with Kevin's last remark.

Titles are often diverse as words. TS125 answered my second sub question more directly than anyone one I have ever debated or discussed genes with . In fact my great -great grandfather was also great-great-great grandfather and this so called incest has to occur in every ones chart, or the numbers go of the page . Faith is powerful whether you dream about a electronic chip that will bring peace to the human race or marrying your thirteen year old first cousin like Edgar Alan Poe was accused of doing. Religion is more powerful than it is inherently good or evil . Faith in its purest form coupled with the greatest virtue of Charity have given Hope to the hopeless. The word myth has evolved to mean trash or false but the nature of mankind has changed very little since the metaphorical Genesis was inspired. There are conflicts on both sides but we will not lose our souls completely until we become more like machines . Spiritual healings happen everyday without being bought and sold like other goods such as science has to offer.

"President Jimmy Carter's Moral Equivalent of War Speech, on April 17, 1977, equating the United States' 1970's energy crisis, oil crisis and the changes and sacrifices Carter's proposed plans would require with the "moral equivalent of war," may have borrowed its title, much of its theme and the memorable phrase from James' classic essay "The Moral Equivalent of War" derived from his last speech, delivered at Stanford University in 1906, in which "James considered one of the classic problems of politics: how to sustain political unity and civic virtue in the absence of war or a credible threat...." and "...sounds a rallying cry for service in the interests of the individual and the nation."

"10. Faith and reason: do they oppose or complement each other?
To venture forth into such a complex set of problems, you clearly need to have a
good knowledge of the territory. There are and have only ever been few cases of
a successful symbiotic relationship between theologians and scientists.
Scientists' knowledge of religious matters is often fairly rudimentary, and a
visceral anti-religious posture provides enough prejudices to sever any links
between them and religion. On the other hand, the church's hostility towards
science also speaks volumes. The fates of such as Giordano Bruno, Galileo
Galilei or Teilhard de Chardin bear witness to the church's lack of
understanding in dealings with scientific issues. Both sides have a long list of
sins in this respect.
"Faith and Reason are like two wings on which the
human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth."

'Faith above reason" means "bestowal above reception." Our nature is the desire to receive, and this desire makes us opposite to the Creator. However, we can make our egoistic nature equal to the Creator by adding the intention "to bestow" to it, which will be "above reason" it will determine the essence of our actions, which are to receive.'

For me, and I suspect for you as well Mikey, you have faith because you have good reasoning for your faith. You and I can disagree on the validity of the information that makes up our respective faiths (like historical accuracy/scientific advance) but we both have the same methods, i expect.

For you, God is a reasonable proposition, one that is evidenced, and so it follows your faith is not seperate from your reason.

That is the case with everyone, even me though of course my "faith" isn't the same as yours, it's no less based on what I consider to be good information, which breeds faith and compliments my reasoning faculties, such as they are.

If anyone were to stand up and say "my faith is completely at odds and divorced from my reason" you'd quite rightly have grounds to be seriously concerned about them.

Imagine going for a job interview, and being ask "why do you want to work here?"

"I have no idea at all, just a feeling?"

Thats the same reason that there is no general truth, only individual truths than can seem fairly generally accepted.

I have faith about inductive methods. I have faith about my own phenomenological states; like what Kevin said, the "the feeling this, that" - If I feel like I'm in pain, they I have faith that I am, inspite of what others may say.

However, Mikey, you are talking about the pragmatic view towards religion... and that can always find a hole to defend itself.

It's purely psychological:

God is the projection of the human mind
- Feuerbach

Religion is the opium of the masses
- Marx

Defending faith using pragmatism is flawed. Whatever is useful to you exists? A tribe in some secluded mountain has reason to believe sacrificing a their first born would bring them good luck, thanks to that faith, it makes them feel better. Is that "good", to them - maybe. To us, I don't think so. Its opens up relativity to truth, and that topic is not nice to touch.

I have nothing against reason or medical science but I would probably only go to a witchdoctor as a last resort. Many witch remedies have been proven to be effective. Comparing the archaic failures of varied societies is not wise . Feelings are neither moral or immoral it is what you do with them that makes the difference. The faith I speak of must be experienced . I can read everything that has been written on the martial arts yet those that walk the way of kung fu will kick my ass. I have known many people who die in hospitals though I still believe in them.

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C. S. Lewis

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/c_s_lewis.html#ixzz1L9Jqqicw

All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.
Thomas Aquinas

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_aquinas.html#ixzz1L9KuCtqB

The philosophical views of C.S Lewis aren't original.

"...suppose we have only dreamt"
- Silver Chair, C.S Lewis

^ Has been discussed by traditional epistemology, namely the skeptics and solipsists (modern day? Brain in a vat. Descartes' The evil demon)

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him"
^ Again, his argument is flawed because he begs the question. He assumes in his argument as a conclusion that there is a god which then "supports" his premises. Such argument is a fallacy. If there is no god, then there is nothing to worship and there is no glory to diminish.

You wouldn't want to use medieval philosophy to support "faith". Its been massacred. Might as well use William James. But that would then put faith in the psychological level. Where it really belongs.

They say it is always darkest before the dawn and the dark ages are not the proudest era for science either

Evolutionary theory doesn't say that life came about by accident. It says that the variations that come about in life is random, but the mechanism that sifts through it(natural selection) is anything but random. Here's an example...if you take a jar full of sand and shake it up, the sand will "by accident" be mixed up by the water. However, if you leave this jar by itself for a few minutes, all the sand will have sunk to the bottom..."by accident" ! Point being, a non random filter(gravity in this case) will produce order from randomness

During the dark ages, they did not favor science, they were Scholastics and people who oppose the teachings of faith were executed. They hid and burnt books by the great thinkers so not to open the minds of the people. They wanted to use faith/religion through its most fundamental core to control people. Hence, Dark ages.

Also not all things will revert back to order. say you have a deck of cards all ordered, stacked neatly, all uniformly face down, and in perfect numerical and colored order. if you throw them, will it land in that exact same state? of course not. it will be randomly scatters, some face up, some face down, all over the ground in the immediate area.

i believe its called entropy but i could be mistaken.

Hey MIkey, show us the evidence for witch remedies that are effective, and by effective you must surely mean medically beneficial.

I can BS on all of them.

You may want to start with the one you prescribed in 2005

"Regarding drugs, i'd recommend experimenting with them if you are curious, especially with natural drugs such as weed and magic mushrooms...just play safe..everything in moderation...even moderation in moderation on occasion."

Thats not the common idea of witch-doctoring...

Would you like to guess what event began the common era?

Era's do not begin, they flow seamlessly. however, to quote,
the "Common Era notation was devised by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the year 525 to replace the Diocletian years, because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians."

Some folks believe what they read first

LoL Mikey, I am kinda worried you have a folder somewhere on your desktop titled

"out of context words of Kevins for use later"

If you are gonna pull a rabbit out of a hat Mike, make sure it's not dead and rotting. I did say that, but in the context of a drugs discussion, not a healthcare discussion.

So again I ask you, what witch remedies actually work?

Cocaine (benzoylmethylecgonine) (INN) is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. It has been used effectively by south american witch doctors for years with a few side effects

Don't tell me you never heard of the medical uses of distilled spirits

I think we have a bit of a gap in definitions of witch doctory... perhaps you should calrify to mean any kind of doctoring not common to the US.

just because it seems unusual to us, and takes place in another country, or does not come in the form of a pill, bandage, or injection, does not mean it is witchery.

"Defending faith using pragmatism is flawed. Whatever is useful to you exists? A tribe in some secluded mountain has reason to believe sacrificing a their first born would bring them good luck, thanks to that faith, it makes them feel better. Is that "good", to them - maybe. To us, I don't think so. Its opens up relativity to truth, and that topic is not nice to touch."

I have nothing against reason or medical science but I would probably only go to a witchdoctor as a last resort. Many witch remedies have been proven to be effective. Comparing the archaic failures of varied societies is not wise

This was in response to XYZ POOREST EXAMPLE OF FAITH in a fair debate am I not allowed to point to less refined science?

I've had a theory brewing...

I think TSI25 and XYZ are robots who were created to add more variety to Kevin and Mike's debates. Even if they are just AI. Let's look at the facts.

1. Their names. A robot isn't going to name itself Reginald or Wayne. Their avatars are obviously references to their models/serial numbers.

2. They are full of well-thought out arguments backed with a nice amount of evidence. Obviously, that is a rarity on this site, and must be looked on with suspicion. They seem to have access to sophisticated search engines.

3. XYZ's picture. A random internet avatar, or... an illustrative drawing of its form, as found in its owner's manual?

To TSI25 and XYZ, if you can "read" this: Remember Asimov's 3 Rules of Robotics. I urge you to stick to them.

That is all. My full journal article will appear in the June edition of "Conspiracy Circular."

XYZ... shes onto us...

I have nothing against reason or medical science but I would probably only go to a witchdoctor as a last resort. Many witch remedies have been proven to be effective. Comparing the archaic failures of varied societies is not wise

This was in response to XYZ POOREST EXAMPLE OF FAITH in a fair debate am I not allowed to point to less refined science?
---------------

hang on... what exactly are you trying to say?

the some sciences are underdeveloped?

or that science is discountable because technology is more advanced in some practices than others, in this case medically speaking?

if its the second then im just as inclined to point to the most cutting edge technologies such as spray on skin cells that heal major burn wounds within 3 or 4 days.

i guess i dont really understand what youre trying to get at

Mike: Your scattering ideas, please define this "witch doctory" that you've been defending.

And I highly recommend you to post your reference. If it's from some line from qoute-r-us, then I wouldn't want to spend my time and thought discussing it.

Sib: Or I could be a demented patient who has multiple personality disorder

Or wait, I could be a student who studies the topics discussed.

Or you could be right, I may be an AI which was born just a week ago with an implanted memory. I may not even exist outside the internet.

The possibilities are endless... :)

"Don't tell me you never heard of the medical uses of distilled spirits"

Nice, that was clever...good one.

Thank you Kevin no one knows the hair of the dog better than I

A witch doctor originally referred to a type of healer who treated ailments believed to be caused by witchcraft. It is currently used to refer to healers in some third world regions, who use traditional healing rather than contemporary medicine. In the first world it usually refers to homeopaths and faith healers.

In its original meaning, a witch doctor was emphatically not a witch himself but rather the person who had remedies to protect others against witchcraft. Witchcraft-induced conditions were his area of expertise:

My great-great-great uncle ,Moses Lewis Linton, was said to be a vigorous opponent of the witch doctor practice of homeopathy that was popular in the old days.

The medical profession of St. Louis before the Civil war drew upon Kentucky born men for some of its strongest characters. Besides Joseph Nash McDowell and M. L. Linton, John T. Hodgen, E. H. Gregory and E. S. Frazier were from Kentucky stock. Dr. Moses L. Linton came from Kentucky in 1842. A graduate of Transylvania University, perfected in his profession by study abroad, he had a short time before moving to St. Louis announced his
conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. Then had ensued a sharp controversy
between Rev. Robert Grundy, a distinguished Presbyterian minister, and Dr. Linton, running through a series of pamphlets and attracting a great deal of attention. Dr. Linton wrote with much spirit and in an attractive style. The
high standard of medical education in St. Louis owes a great deal to that farmer's son in Kentucky. Dr. Linton took a course in Europe at a time when few American doctors did that. He was associated in his studies abroad part of
the time with Dr. Charles A. Pope. That association had much to do with Dr. Linton's decision to settle in St. Louis, where he was invited to take a chair
in the faculty of the medical department of St. Louis University. The St. Louis Medical Journal, established in 1843, owed its beginning to
Dr. Linton more than to any one else. Dr. McPheeters was associated with Dr. Linton in
the editorial management of the Journal. "Outlines of Pathology" was the
title of one of the first medical books published by an author west of the Mississippi. In that book Dr. Linton gave to the profession what served for students
in the way of general instruction many years.

Distilled spirits, cocaine, magic mushrooms, and pot are not witch-craft, the are scientifically identified chemicals and compounds.

i have yet to read any credible scientific articles on the effectiveness of faith healing, in fact i read one article in which a group of patients being prayed for suffered a reverse placebo effect and did worse than patients who were not prayed for. i can recall the details of the investigation, but you would have to take them at face value because its from my memory, im having trouble finding a link to it.

Is this "witch craft" any different from placebo healing?

here's a relevant article I've quickly come across:

http://www.humphrey.org.uk/papers/2002GreatExpectations.pdf

Www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id...

Testing faith based healing in a laboratory is as futile as trying to measure the love or even the ability to accept love with a machine. On this site romantic love poems are going to get more visits on the counter than faith and religion. The coldest reality is that at least nine out of ten young people will ever find a complete match of their early hopes and dreams in seeking a soul mate. I have witnessed hundreds of convicts that have no desire to change to fit into society. I am not known as a conformist on this site and have been threatened penalties many times for not following the rules that everyone else seems to have no problem understanding. The moderators have the power to control what I say but not what I think. there is emotional conflicts reflected in the writing of all serious poets here. I believe words can hurt and many can heal

It was a hospital, not a laboratory.

words can hurt and they can heal, however it is placebo and emotional healing. this may have an effect on physical endurance, however words alone will not stitch a wound or mend a broken arm.

"It was a hospital, not a laboratory.

words can hurt and they can heal, however it is placebo and emotional healing. this may have an effect on physical endurance, however words alone will not stitch a wound or mend a broken arm."

My mother passed away in a hospital that had a laboratory in it. My father passed away in a hospital that had a chapel. A girl I wrote love poems about passed away in a the projects. Mother nature is quite a lady , but she takes what she gives.. I once was carrying a scales with a sharp edge on it . I accidentally let that edge slide across my arm until it cut a wound that required stitches . I once engaged in an unnecessary conflict that left two of my ribs cracked. My wounds healed much more quickly than my broken heart. I have put words together to remind me of my wounds that have healed and left scars . The mods would threaten me with penalties if I attempted to give them to you in the wrong forum. Thus I have a love hate relationship with hospitals churches and other forums.

Regardless

scientific health processes such as conventional surgery, stitches, bandages, and antibiotics heal the body, some help the mind by balancing or manipulating chemical levels

faith healing affects the attitude of the person, which may or may not have some minor physical healing property in the form of a placebo.

if i had lung cancer, i know which of these general methods i would choose for treatment.

people die, yes, thats an eventuality, however i will point out that as science is taking the ground more and more throughout the world, the general life span of the average human has gone up quite dramatically. some scientists even say they have found the gene in worms that causes them to age and die, and that by altering that gene they have caused worms to live twice as long.

however im talking specifically of non lethal injuries. a deep cut to the palm of your hand will heal much more quickly under a doctor's care and treatments alone, then it will under a churches prayers alone.