The LDS Concept of Faith is Unreasonable

== Rebuttal ==Pro's response is based entirely on a single sentence I said in the last round, when I mentioned hope and belief completing faith. I made a small error in leaving out "works" (or step 3) of the process in my definition of faith, but I have already stated multiple times that acting is such a vital part of faith, and that it doesn't work without it. Even if you buy my opponent's argument that I said that hope and belief make faith, he had already acknowledged that I believe the verse "Faith without works is dead", yet attacked a completely different premise. As I have structured my own case and have made very clear, faith is a 3-step process: hope belief acts which leads to knowledge.There is absolutely no reason to believe that faith relies simply on hops and belief, as James 2:17 pointd out: "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." Faith without works is simply useless, and is clearly not what the LDS church believes it to be. I also pointed out how "works" doesn't mean one must believe and tell everyone that believing = knowledge, he or she must act upon their hope and belief in order to complete the process and receive an answer. This is made clear by Moroni 10 and D&C 9. Pro conceded this point and has literally said nothing about it in his last round, besides quoting me on it and simply concluding that it is "obviously irrational" without providing evidence that it is.Pro focuses all of his argument on a single thing I said while ignoring the rest of my advocacy for seeking truth being essential to faith. I have already admitted that I left out "works" erroneously, and have pointed out that my entire case focuses on the whole process anyways. If someone said 10 things that were consistent, and then happened to mentioned something else that wasn't in line when it was really accidental, it is lazy to focus all of your attention on that one misnomer and not actually examine what that person is really advocating. That is exactly what Pro has done.Pro's rationale on LDS faith is a complete misrepresentation of it, which is by definition a straw man. It would be different if it were true and the LDS church actually believed that belief = knowledge, but I have shown several verses that say the exact opposite. Faith is hope + belief + works, with works being the equivalent of asking or seeking truth. Math exampleThere is a problem when my opponent tries to equate the process of faith to math: "Whether I hope that 1+1=2 does not affect the truth that it is. Or in converse, if I hope 1+1=3 that does not make it any less true." There are several issues with this, 1) we already know that 1+1=2, so it is nonsensical to seek knowledge when knowledge is already present. I don't know why anyone would ask God whether 2+2=4, when the answer is clearly obvious. A seeker of truth doesn't seek out whether truisms are true, and to do so would be an abuse of the faith process. 2) This theory of knowledge applies to spiritual/religious things, not materialistic or secular ones. 3) Hope =/= knowledge. Even if the faith process did work, one would have to go through all 3 steps in order to discover truth, not just hope that something is true for it to be true. I think I've made this very clear already.Faith as it isWe see from the scriptures that the faith process is consistent with every verse mentioning faith and is the correct representation of it. Hebrews 11:1 states that "faith is the evidence of things unseen", which wouldn't make sense of one equated it with belief. In the process, however, one is able to seek truth and gain knowledge via the steps, and receive evidence of things unseen. Pro mentions Alma 32:21 of faith not being a perfect knowledge of things. Of course it is not, in that we do not know everything about the universe. Every person, whether religious or not, will admit this. What the process helps is for people to uncover more knowledge about things - not necessarily a perfect one.[1] https://www.lds.org...