The attempt to justify the presence of a metaphysical reality/God through rational means is futile.

It"s my first time on debate. Org and I"m very much looking forward to starting out by exploring this issue with you. Philosophy of religion did not start with the Age of Enlightenment. Take, For example, The cosmological argument; it can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle writing thousands of years ago. In Christianity, People such as Thomas Aquinas were working on such arguments in Medieval times, Centuries before what is generally considered to be the Age of Enlightenment. In short, Using rational means to justify the presence of God is not some post-hoc response to secularism but a tradition with a long and varied history. Even the Bible records Paul debating with philosophers (e. G Acts 17) I don"t want to go back to a pre-reformation, Pre-enlightened age when the Bible was only available in Latin and your ordinary person had little freedom. I certainly don"t want to go beyond that and prevent theologians and clergy from intellectual study. I"m sure that you don"t want to either, In which case you"ll need to modify your position to clarify which parts of rationalism you want to keep and which parts you don"t like. Secondly, I don"t think we can easily turn back the clock. We need to engage with the world we live in now, If the church fails to do that then it will simply get left behind. Whilst I don"t hold a post-modern view when it comes to morality or truth, I think diversity in styles and change is a good thing when it comes to how churches present themselves or communicate with the outside world. I don"t believe that anybody believes in God purely based on intellectual arguments however I do think that if somebody has a few honest questions then the loving thing to do is take those questions seriously. What if God loves the sceptic and wants some of the intellectual resources to be diverted towards them? Just because there are many downsides to the Internet (e. G online scams, Child pornography) it doesn"t mean that it"s wrong for a church to have a website. Equally, Just because rationalism has its downsides (e. G arrogant atheists who spew out bad arguments) doesn"t mean all attempts at rational thought are bad. Finally, Contemplation and rational thought are not opposites of each other. I don"t want a purely mushy, Vague, Feeling based view of God and I fear that without any intellectual understanding and rationale that"s all that"s left. Your opening post lays out your position and I"m genuinely interested to hear how you arrived at it. Where"s the evidence that rationalism is the main reason so few people believe in God (judging by the number of trashy gossip magazines Vs science journals in my local newsagent I doubt that your average atheist has even a passing interest in science or arrived at their beliefs through philosophy)? What damage has been done to the human condition (church attendance may be going down, But that"s only one way to measure the state of humanity. For example, If many people went to church in medieval times for social and cultural reasons then is that better than a smaller church full of people with a faith of their own)? On what basis should the metaphysical/transcendent be arrived at through contemplation rather than multiple experiences (of which intellectual understanding is one)? I look forward to your response.