The Old Secular Saw: Reason vs Faith/Religion

Post 42—:

Why Again on This Stuff
If you’ve been following this blog, you will know that a major emphasis has been the relationship between Reason and Faith and/or Religion. (I capitalize these words to emphasize their centrality in this post.) I am putting you on notice that I don’t get tired of this subject and I won’t in the future as long as spokesmen/spokeswomen of the secular establishment don’t get tired of the subject and keep foisting their vision as the only reasonable one on the rest of us. As long as they unload their secular old saw about Reason vs Faith/Religion on us, so long will I counter them with my Kuyperian Christian guns about Faith/Religion and Reason or, better, Faith/Religion in and underlying Reason.

The "Sensible" World of the Secularist
This time the subject is triggered by an article the Vancouver Sun borrowed from the Los Angeles Times by Anderson Thompson and Clare Aukofer (A&T), co-authors of the book Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith (“Imagine: Man Created God,” July 22, 2011). The article begins by declaring upfront that they strongly wish for a world without religion. To clarify their religionless utopia they pit a number of things against each other. In a world cleansed of religion, “mistakes like the avoidable loss of life in Hurricane Katrina, would be rectified rather than chalked up to ‘God’s will.’” Or take this gem: “…Politicians would no longer compete to prove who believes more strongly in the irrational and untenable.” They long for a world “where critical thinking is an ideal. In short, a world that makes sense.”

"Scientific" Caricatures
Since I am an openly religious person and a missionary at that, those scenarios are supposed to describe me. You know what? I don’t recognize myself in any of that. Our “faith scientists” have just drawn up a scarecrow. To be sure, there may be some individuals, groups of them even, that fit one or more of these caricatures, but as a general situation, these are just silly caricatures hardly worthy of serious scientists. They express secular prejudice more than anything else, certainly not serious science.

Inside vs Outside Knowledge
True, Christians and Muslims—I confess that I don’t know enough about the other religions to speak for them—may see natural and other catastrophes as somehow incorporated in the will of God. However, I don’t know of any Christian or Muslim who would, on basis of that perspective, not work at or, at least, not favour preventing their re-occurrence. Seeing things in relation to divine will simply does not negate corrective or preventive action. Muslims have a reputation of being fatalistic, but they are very active and even pro-active in life’s affairs and by no means twiddle their thumbs while life overtakes them. Pitting such concepts against each other is typical of the outsider who makes logical deductions without having delved deeply into the subject, in this case, specific religions. They appear to have asked some scientific questions of and applied some scientific methods to religion, but they seem to know very little about the content or the inside of religion or about the way adherents experience their religion. How scientific, rational and critical is that?

Utopia: Freedom from the Irrational
Or take their snide at politicians. Most politicians are, unfortunately, politicians. Many will appeal to almost anything they think will bring votes. If it is not religion, it will be something else that A&T would describe as “irrational and untenable.” There are plenty of other issues to which voters cling with strong convictions and emotions. A&T seem to want a total make over of humanity so as to exclude all the “irrational and untenable,” their characterizations of Religion/Faith. They want a world of “critical thinking,” one that “makes sense” to their secular souls. Being isolated academics, they seem to demand that everyone should drop all of life’s reactions to reality except the rational. What an impoverished life that would be—a cold, strict, linear rational affair. God help us!

Secular Faith in Reason
As a serious Christian, I am at this very moment engaged in critical thinking and I am trying to make sense of this world, including the extremely biased views of A&T. Again, they are pitting concepts against each other that in real life always co-exist, namely Faith and Reason, even in their own article! It is they who are uncritical, for they do not seem to have subjected their own secular faith to the critical thinking they demand of others. They appear to simply accept it as the plain unassailable truth that does not require any corroboration or proof. Reason is the source of all truth. Punkt. That’s it. And don’t you dare to challenge that, for then you have ventured into the land of the politically incorrect. But pray tell: who has ever proved that assumed “unassailable” assumption? A&T, until you have proved that article of your faith, you are contradicting yourself. Yes, your faith, your belief system. You are demanding a world without faith on basis of your own belief in unassailable Reason. I can’t rewrite the same things time and again. So, if you're really interested in this issue, skim your way through previous posts and you will find it referred to repeatedly.

Next Post
I hope to deal with A&T’s scientific explanations of religion in the next post.

Public School System--A Discrimination Factory?

Post 20

In the last blog or so I have referred to Humanists cum Atheists—from here on I will refer to them all simply as “Humanists”-- in the Public Schools. They tell me they feel excluded. The schools may celebrate some religious holidays, especially Christian, but no one ever pays attention to or singles out Humanism. As if they do not exist. That’s the complaint I keep hearing from my Humanist friends of World Views Collaborative (WVC).

Humanists are not the only ones to complain. In fact, it seems almost everyone complains. Almost everyone feels excluded in one way or another or at one time or another. Jews and many others feel excluded during Christian celebrations like Christmas. Almost every year, some people will take their Public School or their Public School Board to task for being so pro-Christian and, thus, discriminating.

So you would think that of all the various groups, Christians would be the happiest with the Public School system. After all, according to some, the system reflects their values more than that of any other group.

But this raises the question why it is that Christians in BC have established so many private schools of their own and have opted out of the public system. Humanists haven’t opted out and neither have Jews, but Christians have, by the thousands. Christians of all stripes, with the Catholics and the Reformed family of churches in the forefront, but also Evangelicals. Do Humanists, Jews or others who complain about the Christian culture in the Public Schools ever wonder about that? Christians are so unhappy with these schools that they spend fortunes of their own money on these alternative schools, money that others spend on luxuries and travels. Christians also feel discriminated against in the Public Schools.

So, now we appear to have a system no one is happy with and everybody feels it discriminates against them. I have not even mentioned the complaints of the gay community. Why does the public put up with a school system no one seems to like and everyone experiences as discriminatory? That’s not the way it was supposed to be. Everyone was supposed to feel at home in this system because of its alleged neutrality when it comes to religion or worldview. We all were expected to be happy with the common platform provided by secularism, but, it seems, many are not.

In the next blog I will explain why so many Christians have opted out. Good night.