Which is more desirable, Faith or Reason

I do not want to debate about definitions either, but I am arguing about reason over faith according to the definitions which I laid out and which you did not define yourself. The definitions are not beneficial to either of us. If you have a reason to believe in something than you do not have faith in it. If you have faith in something then you do not have a reason to believe in it. Reason is most certainly the antithesis of faith. "So first off, I feel it's important to point out that my opponent has conceded the base idea of this contention; that everybody needs something to believe in. " This is not what the resolution states. The topic of this debate is whether it is more desirable to believe something based on reason or based on faith. Me conceding that everyone needs something to believe in does not help your case. "he completely skips over my point that we can know nothing beyond the shadow of a doubt" This does not mean one has faith in everything they believe. I for instance do not believe there is a god. This does not mean I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is not god. However, I base my beliefs directly proportional to the evidence which is available to me. This leaves absolutely no room for faith. And to your contention that all reason is based on faith, it is not. I believe things based on reason because reason works. As I said earlier, when doctors treat patients they do not use faith. They use reason and their reason is in no way dependent on faith. They do not have faith that their medicines will work. They believe their medicinees will work because the evidence and more importantly reason tells them to. My opponent then claims that without faith reason could not exist however this is just not the case. One believes in reason because time and time again one is led to the correct conclusions based on reason. When a doctor realizes that time and time again patiets die when he/she does nothing he/she uses reason to conclude that he/she should do something. And when certain treatments allow patients to love, using reason, those doctors conclude that they should use those treatments. Faith is what you use to believe in something which reason tells you is ridiculous. Faith is why people used to believe in witches, that the earth was flat, or that we were the center of the universe. Reason is what has shown us that witches are things of fairy tales, that we live on a circular planet, and that we merely orbit a medium sized star. "My opponent refutes by saying that while an Atheist may not believe in God for reasons of Faith that he just couldn't exist, others may not believe in him because they believe in the theory of evolution. " I was not saying that people do not believe in god only because they believe in evolution. I was merely using that as an example of people evaluating evidence and using reason to believe in something. One may also be an atheist because the alleged evidence which theists have brought forth in no way adds up. It is up to you guys to prove your god exists. And to your contention that because we can knonw nothing beyond the shadow of a doubt everything talkes faith, you ignore plausability. That is when one takes into account all available evidence and from that deduces that something is plausibly not true or true. Theists have brought forth many allegeed proofs of god's existence and after reviewing that evidence I have concluded that god's existence is incredibly implausible. "The Atheist still cannot know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no God; thus faith comes into play to support the idea. " Of course here you are merely trying to refute strong atheism and are not doing a very good job at it. This says nothing of weak atheism or a simple lack of belief in god. As for strong atheism, one can become a strong atheist by following evidentualism. One may look at qualities of a supposed god and using reason will conclude that it is impossible for that being to exist. "Now with that said, and My stance on faith presented I would now like to point out that my opponent has not made a case to vote for reason, but has simply refuted my own stance. Thus you have to vote for the Pro as my opponent has not upheld his burden of proof to advocate Reason. " I think my part about how reason alone is what cures diseases and allows us to gain credible knowledge of the world around us is a case enough.