Talk:Faith and rationality

message: The article states: "Natural theology holds that faith and rationality are compatible, so that evidence and reason ultimately lead to belief in the objects of faith." Evidence and reason ultimately leading to believe in the "objects" of faith is completely different from faith and rationality being compatible. Indeed, natural theology states that one need not have mere faith in, for example, the existence of God, but rather one can infer, through empirical observation of the natural world, that God exists. Again, this is absolutely not identical to the thesis that faith and rationality are compatible. Thus, this section needs to be changed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.27.138 (talk) 17:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Natural Theology

message: OK, I'm taking first swack at this. I'll make sure the current content remains available in the page history.--FeloniousMonk 21:35, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article cleanup

message: This article needs to be cleaned up to meet Wiki's nPOV. <personal attack removed by FeloniousMonk> As it reads, it heavily favors rationality and (sometimes subtly) puts down faith.--Jason Gastrich 18:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for putting this back up. I never launched a personal attack, though. <personal attack removed by KillerChihuahua> --Jason Gastrich 19:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed you have. And I've reverted your attempt to hide the evidence. FeloniousMonk 20:30, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Jason, you need to stop . Do not delete the comments of others from talk pages. FeloniousMonk 20:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I will stop, but I deleted the things above because they have nothing to do with the discussion at hand. Furthermore, they may tarnish someone's objectivity in the matter. You do want people to come and be objective, yes? --Jason Gastrich 20:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: This NPOV dispute is specious, completely without merit. Its motivation is transparent. The last person to substantially rework this article was neither I nor Markkbilbo, but Mel Etitis, who is an Oxford philosophy professor. I think we can trust his opinion and contributions to be fair, neutral and informed. The NPOV objection here reeks of sour grapes. FeloniousMonk 20:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's not concern ourselves with smells and appeals to authority. Let's concern ourselves with the issue at hand. With all due respect to everyone involved (even the Philosophy professor), this entry can be improved.--Jason Gastrich 20:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's one opinion. The motives for raising the NPOV issue are central to whether it is well-founded and objective, responsible editors will judge for themselves. FeloniousMonk 21:12, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: That is also a misapplication of "appeal to authority." I suggest reading Appeal to authority. They have a very good example in the article concerning Linus Pauling who made claims outside his field. Appealing to him as an authority on the medicinal efficacy of vitamen C does amount to an "appeal to authority" fallacy. Appealing to expertise within a field is not an "appeal to authority" fallacy.Mark K. Bilbo 22:32, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Nope, its a one-person crusade as it stands. I suggest WP:CON applies. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:34, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality Dispute 

message: I have to admit that I endorse Sarek's view. There is nothing objectionable in there. Like other user said it seems a pretty balanced statement of the subject.
Don't put the neutrality dispute tag on the page, you may have your discussion about the things that are POV also on talk page.  Bonaparte  talk 15:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediator response: [[Faith and rationality]] 

message: This sentence "Rationalism makes no statement either way regarding the existence of God or the validity or value of religion; it only rejects any belief based on faith alone. " was not clear, because the "only" modified "rejects."  It could have been reworded: "Rationalism makes no statement either way regarding the existence of God or the validity or value of religion; it rejects only any belief based on faith alone. "  but now it reads awkwardly.  So I did my best fix.  You could fix it to: "Rationalism makes no statement either way regarding the existence of God or the validity or value of religion; it rejects any belief based only on faith. "  If you like that.  But "only rejects" would contrast "to reject" with other possibilities, such as "to refute" .
But, by the way, I think the section is a muddle anyway, because I do not see a clear discussion of belief based on faith and observation. The dichotomy that is implied is not sustainable. In a highly polarized world, one group claims to put faith ahead of rationalism, but ends up using rational arguments. The opponents might claim they are not accepting anything on faith, but they have faith in their senses and reasoning power. Anyway, the set of beliefs supported by faith alone is extremely small, because even those people who proudly proclaim their faith have documents (bible,  Koran, or whatever) and often tales of miracles to back them up. Carrionluggage 08:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  misplacement of "only" 

message: "Rationalism holds that truth should be determined by reason and factual analysis, rather than faith, dogma or religious teaching." This is not true, see the article on rationalism. Srnec 04:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rationalism

message: I've done a little cleanup, corrected some spelling errors.  Still a lot to be done.  Also, the title should be Faith and Reason. Rick Norwood 23:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  cleanup 

message: First I'd like to say that I think the article is pretty good currently.
The section "Faith as underlying rationality" notes that even a die-hard rationalist has to rely on basic assumptions somewhere, denoted here as "properly basic." This is a theological term, however this problem has been thoroughly discussed secularly, and there are a lot of other (and perhaps more common) terms for this idea, e.g. "axioms", "fundamental assumptions", "metaphysics", etc. I think I would like to see some these other terms mentioned.
I also note that the apparent "undermining" of rationalism by underpinnings of faith is a very Western concern. Cf. Daoism which, among other things, seems to admit right from the start that we can't really be certain of anything, and that all classifications and conceptual distinctions placed upon our raw sensory input are artificial anyway. Daoism further suggests that while it might be good to be aware of this artificiality, on a day-to-day basis there's no need to worry too much about it. (This means we shouldn't take God too seriously either.) I find this philosophical position relevant because it is in some sense a distinct approach that avoids the conflict entirely. --Jonathanstray 20:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foundations of Rationality 

message: Would it be appropriate to note somewhere that the staunch promotion of "faith" as a valid mode of belief is closely associated with those who hold religious convictions? This seems to me to be of major importance in understanding the history and dynamics of the debate. --Jonathanstray 20:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Societal/Religious Context 

message: I appreciate your willingness to work with me on this.  The new version is certainly an improvement.  But it still gives a negative definition of faith as the absence of reason and evidence.  Why do you object to a positive definition, faith as belief in revelation.  As best I can tell, people who talk about "faith" in this sense usually mean a direct revelation by God to man, often using the authority of some "holy" book.  Some claims personal inspiration, as in the case of many New Age beliefs.  I thought my "revelation, inspiration, or authority" covered the ground fairly well.  What do you object to in that formulation? Rick Norwood 15:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest rewrite 

message: :"This view holds that all chains of logical reasoning are either circular reasoning, and thus invalid or else they are rooted in a first principle, axiom, self-evident truth or statement of faith/dogma, all of which are, this view claims, things of the same type. Therefore, faith underlies all rationality. Rationality is dependent on faith for its coherence. Under this view, there is no way to comprehensively prove that we are actually seeing what we appear to be seeing, that what we remember actually happened, or that the laws of logic and mathematics are actually real. Instead, all beliefs depend for their coherence on faith in our senses, memory and reason. The foundations of rationalism cannot be proven by external evidence, without indulging in circular reasoning, since one must be rational already in order to consider evidence. The real difference, under this view, between someone who says they rely on faith and someone who says they rely solely upon evidence is simply the object of their faith, not whether they have faith in anything or not."
I'm just clarifying this. (Forgot to login) It didn't have a source before, so to require a clarifying edit to have a source when the original passage didn't have a source seems inconsistent to me. I might be able to dig up a source, but if the original can stand without one, this can stand without one. If the original cannot, it shouldn't be here either.
This passage is, I might add, dealing with first principles. What do you want the sources to do? Show that someone, somewhere actually holds or has held this view? If so, any random Wikipedia editor is just as valid a source as any source writer who tries to explain the idea. I, myself, could be a valid source if not for the fact that I'm already editing. --Nerd42 (talk) 17:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additions to "Faith as underlying rationality" section 

message: This article is not specific to Catholicism - can we remove the reference to the Catholic Church in the intro and put it somewhere later in the article?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.77.204.217 (talk) 21:37, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction - Catholic Church? 

message: The section "Biblical View" argues:
 "The word 'faith' as used in the Bible is very specifically defined, and very different from the modern English usage of the word, such that there is little difference between faith and rationality. Faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1 as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.." The Bible uses the word 'faith' simply to refer to the things that we believe due to indirect evidence, as opposed to direct observation. There is therefore no conflict between biblical faith and rationality. [12]" 
I basically don't see how this could be called "the biblical view" (Shouldnt it be Pauls view?) and the source [12] points to Jehovahs Witness literature; hardly an unbiased source. I don't think the use of "we" is accidental either.
I propose the section is re-titled "The WTBS view" or even better removed and or replaced by something from a proper source.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:878:200:1043:3D49:7EF2:37E4:C25E (talk) 14:18, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the section as poorly sourced. — goethean 15:23, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Biblical View"? 

message: Removed recent addition of Islamic quotes along with excess block quotes from Catholicism and bible quotes. Seems the concepts can likely be presented or summarized without the excessive long quotes. Vsmith (talk) 12:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excess scripture quoting 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I think this statement in the introduction may need support, and or clarification. I read quite a bit in topics of philosophy and have never heard of either faith or rationality refered to as an ideology.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.21.96.44 (talk) 00:16, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed this issue and have editied it before reading this, but I agree it was problematic to describe both as equal "ideologies" without more context or basis...  —PaleoNeonate – 05:08, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it correct to describe faith and rationality as ideologies? 

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :Faith in Science and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at  until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Steel1943 (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Faith in Science" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]