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I can't speak for other religions or even Christianity as a whole due to its breadth and differences of practice, but there were and are certainly those in the

I can't speak for other religions or even Christianity as a whole due to its breadth and differences of practice, but there were and are certainly those in the Christian church who independently reasoned their way to an understanding of the existence of God and a corresponding faith in Christ and encouraged others to do the same. See, for example, the history and works of Francis Schaeffer and C.S. Lewis. I also think the work of John Frame on epistemology might reveal some of the underlying presuppositions seemingly evident in the above comment. I'm not making any other assertion about their works or perspectives on religion, faith, or lack thereof. I point it out solely as a counter to the above perspective, which is a bad caricature at best.

xabotage 5y ago
Faith is belief without evidence or belief in the presence of contradicting evidence - people don't "reason their way" into faith, they rationalize. C.S. Lewis is popular because he uses humanist principles to spin a fundamentally authoritarian, controlling religion into something easier for the modern mindset to rationalize. The GP's perspective is extremely accurate - child indoctrination is religion's primary mechanism to maintain it's power and control.
- Alenycus 5y ago
  To be blunt, you either haven't read cs Lewis or are being intentionally deceitful. Cs Lewis's arguments are explicitly anti-humanist. Dostoesvsky and lewis changed my life and brought my from a mild agnosticism to traditional Catholicism and my life has never been better.
  - xabotage 5y ago
    Of course Lewis isn't explicitly humanist - Humanism is a "worldly" movement, and we can't let the "evil", "fallen" world take credit for anything good. I would be more inclined to buy Lewis' depiction of the Christian god if it didn't clash with all of Christian history up until, serendipitously, humanistic principles gained traction. Testimonials are not evidence.
incompatible 5y ago
You can't independently verify that a religion is valid. There's no experiment that will demonstrate the existence of gods, let alone establish what a god would supposedly want you to do. I don't understand why a god would care what a human does, in any case, especially in the case of an all-knowing god who would already know every detail of what the human will do before they are even born, or an all-powerful god, who wouldn't be emotionally hurt by the choices a human makes.
- Amezarak 5y ago
  > You can't independently verify that a religion is valid. The same thing is practically true for almost everything we believe. For the most part, we blindly trust the evidence of our senses and "authority", whether that be the "experts" or the social consensus or something else. And even for the things we can demonstrate, it ultimately relies on the assumption of unprovable axioms. > I don't understand why a god would care what a human does, in any case, especially in the case of an all-knowing god who would already know every detail of what the human will do before they are even born, or an all-powerful god, who wouldn't be emotionally hurt by the choices a human makes. I don't see why the qualities and motives an all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe would be fully understandable by limited human reason. I see this kind of argument a lot, but I don't get it - the same thing is ultimately true even of natural things, Nietzsche has a great passage on this. > It is no different with the faith with which so many materialistic natural scientists rest content nowadays, the faith in a world that is supposed to have its equivalent and its measure in human thought and human valuations-a "world of truth" that can be mastered completely and forever with the aid of our square little reason. What? Do we really want to permit existence to be degraded for us like this-reduced to a mere exercise for a calculator and an indoor diversion for mathematicians? Above all, one should not wish to divest existence of its rich ambiguity: that is a dictate of good taste, gentlemen. the taste of reverence for everything that lies beyond your horizon. That the only justifiable interpretation of the world should be one in which you are justified because one can continue .to work and do research scientifically in your sense (you really mean.mechanistically?)-an interpretation that permits counting, calculating, weighing, seeing, and touching. and nothing more that is a crudity and naivete, assu~ing that it is not a mental illness, an idiocy. Would it not be rather probable that, conversely, precisely the most superficial and external aspect of existence-what is most apparent, its skin and sensualization-would be grasped first-and might even be the only thing that allowed itself to be grasped? A .. scientific, interpretation of the world, as you understand it, might therefore still be one of the most stupid of all possible interpretations of the world, meaning that it would be one of the poorest in meaning. This thought is intended for the ears and consciences of our mechanists who nowadays like to pass as philosophers and insist that mechanics is the doctrine of the first and last laws on which all existence must be based as on a ground floor. But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world. Assuming that one estimated the value of a piece of music according to how much of it could be counted, calculated, and expressed in formulas: how absurd would such a •'scientific" estimationof music be! What would one have comprehended, understood,grasped of it? Nothing, really nothing of what is "music" in it!
throwaway290 5y ago
If ideas of Christ/God/etc. were truly independently reasoned into by someone never exposed to Christianity (as anything else would not satisfy any definition of "independent"), it would really be a miracle. However, it is much more likely to be a post-rationalisation. Yes, conceptually similar philosophical ideas could be reached from first principles, but those would not come in the same exact packaging as Christianity (and it is packaging that makes many religions not that different from cults preying on vulnerable people).

xabotage 5y ago

Faith is belief without evidence or belief in the presence of contradicting evidence - people don't "reason their way" into faith, they rationalize. C.S. Lewis is popular because he uses humanist principles to spin a fundamentally authoritarian, controlling religion into something easier for the modern mindset to rationalize. The GP's perspective is extremely accurate - child indoctrination is religion's primary mechanism to maintain it's power and control.

Alenycus 5y ago
To be blunt, you either haven't read cs Lewis or are being intentionally deceitful. Cs Lewis's arguments are explicitly anti-humanist. Dostoesvsky and lewis changed my life and brought my from a mild agnosticism to traditional Catholicism and my life has never been better.
- xabotage 5y ago
  Of course Lewis isn't explicitly humanist - Humanism is a "worldly" movement, and we can't let the "evil", "fallen" world take credit for anything good. I would be more inclined to buy Lewis' depiction of the Christian god if it didn't clash with all of Christian history up until, serendipitously, humanistic principles gained traction. Testimonials are not evidence.

incompatible 5y ago

You can't independently verify that a religion is valid. There's no experiment that will demonstrate the existence of gods, let alone establish what a god would supposedly want you to do. I don't understand why a god would care what a human does, in any case, especially in the case of an all-knowing god who would already know every detail of what the human will do before they are even born, or an all-powerful god, who wouldn't be emotionally hurt by the choices a human makes.

Amezarak 5y ago
> You can't independently verify that a religion is valid. The same thing is practically true for almost everything we believe. For the most part, we blindly trust the evidence of our senses and "authority", whether that be the "experts" or the social consensus or something else. And even for the things we can demonstrate, it ultimately relies on the assumption of unprovable axioms. > I don't understand why a god would care what a human does, in any case, especially in the case of an all-knowing god who would already know every detail of what the human will do before they are even born, or an all-powerful god, who wouldn't be emotionally hurt by the choices a human makes. I don't see why the qualities and motives an all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe would be fully understandable by limited human reason. I see this kind of argument a lot, but I don't get it - the same thing is ultimately true even of natural things, Nietzsche has a great passage on this. > It is no different with the faith with which so many materialistic natural scientists rest content nowadays, the faith in a world that is supposed to have its equivalent and its measure in human thought and human valuations-a "world of truth" that can be mastered completely and forever with the aid of our square little reason. What? Do we really want to permit existence to be degraded for us like this-reduced to a mere exercise for a calculator and an indoor diversion for mathematicians? Above all, one should not wish to divest existence of its rich ambiguity: that is a dictate of good taste, gentlemen. the taste of reverence for everything that lies beyond your horizon. That the only justifiable interpretation of the world should be one in which you are justified because one can continue .to work and do research scientifically in your sense (you really mean.mechanistically?)-an interpretation that permits counting, calculating, weighing, seeing, and touching. and nothing more that is a crudity and naivete, assu~ing that it is not a mental illness, an idiocy. Would it not be rather probable that, conversely, precisely the most superficial and external aspect of existence-what is most apparent, its skin and sensualization-would be grasped first-and might even be the only thing that allowed itself to be grasped? A .. scientific, interpretation of the world, as you understand it, might therefore still be one of the most stupid of all possible interpretations of the world, meaning that it would be one of the poorest in meaning. This thought is intended for the ears and consciences of our mechanists who nowadays like to pass as philosophers and insist that mechanics is the doctrine of the first and last laws on which all existence must be based as on a ground floor. But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world. Assuming that one estimated the value of a piece of music according to how much of it could be counted, calculated, and expressed in formulas: how absurd would such a •'scientific" estimationof music be! What would one have comprehended, understood,grasped of it? Nothing, really nothing of what is "music" in it!

throwaway290 5y ago

If ideas of Christ/God/etc. were truly independently reasoned into by someone never exposed to Christianity (as anything else would not satisfy any definition of "independent"), it would really be a miracle. However, it is much more likely to be a post-rationalisation. Yes, conceptually similar philosophical ideas could be reached from first principles, but those would not come in the same exact packaging as Christianity (and it is packaging that makes many religions not that different from cults preying on vulnerable people).