The LDS Concept of Faith is Irrational.

I am honored to be your first debate! Welcome to DDO and good luck. Argumentation: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints places Faith as the first Principle of the gospel. How is faith defined and taught? In Hebrews 11: 1 we read “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (1) Notice the lack of evidence is inherent in the definition provided of faith. Alma 32: 21 from the Book of Mormon says “faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” (2) Finally from LDS.org we read that to have faith is to “show.. hope for something that we cannot yet see.”(3) From this we see that the LDS concept of faith is to hope for things that are unseen. Things that the evidence for is absent. As stated in the Book of Mormon “faith is not a perfect knowledge.” This is ironic as if by chance you were to visit an LDS congregation during a testimony meeting you will likely hear people state that they “know” the Book of Mormon is true, or that they “know” the Church is true. Usually such proclamations are given along with phrases like “with every fiber of my being…” and “without a shadow of a doubt.” I have often wondered how many members realize or notice this incoherency. Do they “know” or do they have “faith?” As much as it may seem pedantic or overkill to quote a dictionary, it is worth doing in this case. Evidence is “that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.”(4) Thus we see that the notion of “walking by faith, and not by sight” (5) is to believe in something without grounds for belief. This is clearly nonsensical. Can I tell you to walk without the means to walk, or to see without the ability to see? Surely not, but here the concept of faith is just that. To believe when one should not. Either 12: 6 in the Book of Mormon states “I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not… “ (6) Essentially in LDS culture to lack faith, or to dispute things without evidence is to be discouraged. The only way to know that faith based claims are true is to believe them without evidence and reject doubt as a weakness. We see than that faith is unreasonable. The great danger in faith is the blind obedience that accompanies it. In James 2:17-18 we read that “Faith without works is dead.”(7) Thus it is not enough to profess belief in something without grounds to believe, you must act on it. Let say, for example, I have faith that the world is to end tomorrow. This means that despite lack of evidence of any kind I believe that the world is to end. I must now act in a way that demonstrates this belief. No matter what evidence is provided, rational reasoning, persuasion or whatever, doesn’t matter. “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than man” I am to have my faith override all. (8) This makes those acting on faith unable to be reasoned with… unreasonable. Overview: I have shown using entirely LDS sources that the concept of faith taught in the way that they teach it is unreasonable. Additionally it causes those who adopt it to act unreasonably. There is no rational way to contend with a religious concept that requires "faith." This is because Faith as taught by the LDS church is unreasonable. To close out my space in this round I would like to present Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s new clothes.” “A vain Emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes hires two swindlers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "hopelessly stupid". The Emperor's ministers cannot see the clothing themselves, but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions and the Emperor does the same. Finally the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects. The townsfolk play along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspects the assertion is true, but continues the procession.” (9) The issue of Faith is much like the “clothes” in the story. I have repeatedly pointed out the issue of faith to which, the “faithful”, like the emperor must see this issue, but choose to ignore it or don’t mind believing a bare assertion or acting unreasonably. With that I send it back to con. Sources: (1) https://www.lds.org... (2) https://www.lds.org... (3) https://www.lds.org... (4) http://dictionary.reference.com... (5) https://www.lds.org... (6) https://www.lds.org... (7) https://www.lds.org... (8) https://www.lds.org... (9) https://en.wikipedia.org...