Religion: Exempt? (part II)

The argument from definition has a way of shutting down any kind of debate about religion. If 5+5 is defined as equal to ten, then even the possibility that 5+5=9 is out of the question. Similarly, logic, reason, and science seem to have all been tossed out of the ring in this debate. Is faith the winner?

Perhaps a better question is this: why does religion demand immunity? it seems clear to me that it does so precisely because it can’t stand up to logic, reason, and science. If it did, there would be no need to demand exemption. Faith would be more of an accepted scientific principle, like gravity, or like a logical exercise (All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; Therefore, Socrates is mortal.)

Now, my readers of faith (if I still have any at this point) are probably at least a bit irritated. Don’t go away yet – just consider this question a moment. Why bother with a set of beliefs that don’t stand up to evidence, science, reason, logic, etc? Sam Harris in The End of Faith notes:

Even most fundamentalists live by the lights of reason in this regard; it is
just that their minds seem to have been partitioned to accomodate the profligate
truth claims of their faith. Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating
on him, or that frozen yogurt will make a man invisible, and he is likely to
require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent
that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an
invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept
its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no
evidence whatsoever.

Next time: A proverb. Thanks for reading!

Should religion be exempt?

Last time, I asked for the suspension of skepticism with regard to self-evident facts, simply to stave off the boredom that such mental exercises frequently are associated with. Now, I want to turn to a different (and more controversial) issue: Should religiou be exempt of skepticism as well? Many people take the view that faith, by definition, is not compatible with reason; or in other words, that reason cannot and should not be applied to faith. Why might this be so?

Personally I do not take this view, for reasons I will address later. However, I will attempt to outline the primary arguments voiced by proponents of this view. (I would be interested to hear any other lines of argument that I might have missed.)

The first, and I think most powerful, of these arguments I will call The Argument from Definition. (I’m not sure if it has an official name, but in the meantime mine will do.) I’ll state it like this. Religion must necessarily be taken on faith. Therefore, to examine religion using reason is invalid. An analogy: like trying to make a hamburger with a waffle iron. It just doesn’t work. \

Really, this is a pretty simple argument. Its refutation, however, deserves a seperate post. Stay tuned!