Which is more desirable, Faith or Reason

"Next, Faith is not the antithesis of reason; for this to be a true statement they would have to be polar opposites and one could not exist with-out the other. A belief can be rooted in both faith and reason, so while I can believe that the bus is going to stop at the bus stop to pick me up because reason would indicate that it is true; I also have an element of faith to believing that. " This is again where we unfortunately disagree on the definition of faith and reason. I claim that if one has faith that the bus will arrive at the bus stop, I am not using reason to come to that decision. And if I use reason to deduce that the bus will arrive at the bus stop then I am not including any element of faith in the matter. One cannot believe something because of faith and reason. "Next, I concede here, the resolution is not whether or not everybody needs something to believe in. However I never advocated that; My mentioning of this point is in conjunction with the fact that we can know nothing beyond the shadow of a doubt only goes on to prove my point that faith is both necessary and more reliant than reason. " I certainly do not believe that I know anything beyond the shadow of a doubt, but I do not compensate for this by bringing in faith. There is a philosophy called evidentialism and it is one which doctors and scientists most certainly follow, as do I. "Person S is justified in believing proposition p at time t if and only if S's evidence for p at t supports believing p. " . http://www.iep.utm.edu... That means that one believes only what the evidence supports. There is no compensation with faith. Because there does not need to be. One can believe something only because the evidence supports that belief. I believe that the garbage men will come by my house every tuesday because they have every preceding Tuesday and the city provides that garbage men come to houses in my area once every Tuesday. This does not mean that I believe this beyond the shadow of a doubt but I do not need to. I go where the evidence is. And you cannot mix unwarranted with warranted reasons for belief. At least you do not need to. "Next, my opponent claims he bases his beliefs going off of the evidence directly available to him, thus leaving no room for faith to come into play. However again this is not true, since he does not know all sides to the issue, he has faith that the evidence he is using to base his beliefs are true. " Again you are mistaken here. I do not follow evidence because I have faith that it will lead me to the correct conclusions. I follow the evidence because in almost every case, reason leads one to the correct conclusion. Doctors do not use reason to find cures for diseases because they have faith that they are using the correct method. They follow reason because it is the most proven method of finding solutions to problems in this world. If reason did not work then I would not use it, however it has proven itself time and time again as the most effective way of forming conclusions about the world around us. There is no element of faith in my or anyone's decision to follow reason. "First; reason is not exclusive to evidence; but also includes logical analysis which can completely and utterly rely on only faith and faith alone. : I do concede that reason may also include logical analysis but disagree that logic can realy on faith alone. Extend my argument form above that the only reason people follow logic to form conclusions is because it works. It is a purely pragmatic view and realies in no way on faith. "Finally; for anyone to take a medicine they have to at on point in time rely on faith to some degree. That's what trial medication and such is for in the first place. " This again is the wrong conclusion. When one takes a trial medication, the only reason they are approved to take it is because doctors and researchers have poured a long time into researching and testing said medication before it goes anywhere near a human being. Doctors do not just whip together a new medication in an hour or two and give it to a patient in the hopes that it will work. "Next, my opponent assumes that because I hold faith to a higher value, I give not value to reason. This is simply not the case! There is a time and a place for reason, and my opponent's doctor example was an excellent illustration for that; however even there is no reason to believe that medicine will work again just because it's worked in the future. That prescription could be bad, or there may an allergic reaction, and it certainly takes faith for the patient to take the medicine. " I do not assume that you do not give value to reason. I am just saying that reason is more useful as it relies on evidence and as you pointed out, logical analysis of the world around us. And of course there is reason to believe the medication will work. Doctors do not just pick out a medication at random and give it to a patient. No, there is always evidence based thinking or logical analysis of a patient's symptoms and history before one is assigned a medication. "as for my opponent's arguments about witches, and the world being flat; this is a new argument. And also this is faith, but it's a bad example of faith. This is an abusive argument as it is just like comparing all reason to logical fallacies, or all races to one racial stereotype. This is otherwise known as a correlation causation fallacy. " I will concede that argument if you think it was abusive or logically fallacious. "Next, the thought of plausibility takes faith that you know enough to warrant a true belief. You say that based on evidence you think God's existence is implausible, but if God is real then his existence is beyond comprehension; Thus since he cannot be proven, your plausible thought process is utter flawed when you say you take nothing on faith. " You do not have faith that you know enough to warrant true belief, you base your belief on logical analysis and available evidence. And if god is real then there would be some type of evidence to prove this. Take the Christian god for example, or even the Jewish or Muslim god. One can analyze prayer. After all, many faiths proclaim that prayer's can be answered. If one were to do a study on this and find that religious people had their prayers answered at the same rate as nonreligious then isn't that evidence of non-existence? "Next, on strong and weak Atheism; I implore you, believe me when I say I know the difference. We have spoken of Atheism prior in this round and you haven't brought this up as an issue yet; but at the base level my statement is still true. Since you cannot know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no God faith comes into play. " Again, one does not need to compensate for not knowing something beyond the shadow of a doubt with faith. I already pointed out evidentialism. One bases one's beliefs completely on available evidence. "Finally, my opponent still give you no reason to vote on faith. refutation of a stance is not adequate grounds to accept an alternate stance. " I already pointed out what has been accomplished through reason such as cures for innumerable diseases.