Any religion , what do you think of this statement?

[YuraraT]

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize your agrument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young. This is for my Phil class, Do you believe this to be true? if yes ,why? and if no, why? Please take into account world history. Thank you.

 

[princessscissor]

I believe it to be true in many cases, not all. I see this practiced daily. Christians trying to prove Jesus is the son of God, Atheists trying to prove there is no God...it is pointless to debate...therefore I simply give my opinion and my beliefs and express them as nothing else. That way I maintain balance between myself and the person I am conversing with, without the need for an argument or fight.

-Words of a Christian

 

[Valerie]

I think its a stupid statement.

It uses an either/or statement which doesn't fit into real life.

For instance Stalin was a believer in the state of communism. He based he beliefs in the teachings of Marx and Lenin. These people believed their philosophy to be based on scientific fact.

Hilter may have been born a Christian but he did not practice it. He formulated a type of belief based upon science. His scientists believed in eugenics, His scientists believed that the Arian race was the superior race, and they set out to prove it.

Everyone believes his own system of beliefs to be a combination of reason and faith. Thomas Aquinas, the great teacher of the Catholic Church had a very rational, and systemmatic approach to the study of theology. Priests in the Catholic Church have been acknowledged as the Father of Modern Genetics (G. Mendel) and the physicist who discovered the Big Bang Theory (G. LaMaitre).

People in the Jewish, Buddhists, Christian, and Muslim religions all believe that they have a reasonable faith. They believe that science and religion will converge and their ideas will not run contrary to each other.

 

[RallieFlorencioC]

History are also distorted reports by those who are in power. None of the ruling kings or leaders of many nations who were alive at the time of the writings unless it was written underground can be totally believed as true.
Most of it were forced upon the minds of their subject lest they will suffer the consequence of going against it..
In the same manner that religions were also for sometime in the early days they were manipulated by the same rulers over their subjects who found it more convenient to control the minds by using a power they claim much greater than them and they were there as the appointed and anointed caretakers
I believe in God for reasons that I am not just born to die later but for a reason that I was born in a place, time and circumstances I did not choose.For what reason I do not know and for the reason I have yet to find and for the life I have to enjoy walking along. I will not believe in the organized religions however until I will find the answers to our existence that will show reality from all the truths that lies around..
In the meantime say in your subject of philosophy that the truth is relative as to how your mind was molded by your circumstances and the pleasure you take in that belief because though our eyes have seen so many tangible things as part of reality there are essential things invisible to the eyes yet the heart can feel and oftentimes the mind can sense the unexplainable.

 

[Devo]

I guess that depends on the religion..
My religion (Kemetic) is old, and back in those days, there was no separation of religion. In fact, there was no word for it, either. It just merely was. Due to the way my religion is set up (Monolatric) there is no need to get angry at others for having different gods. All gods are legitimate. So worshipping different deities isn't a big deal for us. And therefore, we have never pushed our views on anyone else. Nor would I ever.
I agree that if you have reason, you will support by arguement, but with many religions of today (such as the Abrahamic faiths) they seem to employee both. Many people feel that they *know* that their religion is accurate and real, and they usually base it all off of a book. In the end, I agree with your statement, though I don't believe that everyone is capable of distinguishing btwn what is reason/argument and what is futile/force.

 

[mathiusdragoon]

There is a grain of truth in what you are stating here, but you are also overgeneralizing. If your beliefs are based solely on reason, it does not necessarily mean that you will give them up merely because you have lost a debate, there are reasons why you would continue to believe even though your ideas didn't pan out in a reasonable debate. On the other hand, if your beliefs are based solely on faith then you would not necessarily resort to violent or forceful conversion. Some of these types of believers simply accept that no one can be forced into their beliefs, they have to come to them on their own. This was the view of Soren Kierkegaard on Christianity, who was an important philosophical and theological writer so you might want to research him some more. Finally, there are those that believe that reason and faith are both important to their beliefs. This was the view of St. Thomas Aquinas.