" It is perfectly rational to accept the existence of influences in the universe that act unencumbered by laws of physics, and beyond the scope of scientific method. Physics is a set of laws created by us to help understand certain phenomenon that we are concerned about, no one but a lab cloak cleric would claim physics is the answer to all inquiry."
I'm curious how it is rational to accept this, since it cannot be proved or reasoned out. It seems to me that the only rational response to the things we cannot know, is to say "We don't know that yet", and NOT to accept a conclusion of any sort. To accept the influence of things unproved is irrational- and there is nothing per se wrong with the irrational, but you can't really call it rational and get away with it. When you accept things on faith, you enter the realm of the irrational, and I think the best argument, for the religious, is that God intended there to be a certain irrationality to belief, because if faith were logical, everyone would believe it, and there would be no "test" for the faithful. Almost all religious texts have something in them about the need for believers to have this sort of faith- which would set them apart from the other people on the planet who are not willing to take the irrational leap. I don't think I've read many religious texts that don't have something to say about this, so I do think that trying to apply logic and reason to faith is probably a non-starter, at least if you are dealing with the world's dominant religions (not to mention the logical problem with trying to do it). |
