Fideism - Belief in God is not intellectual suicide

How faith and reason are complimentary, not contrary to one another

fideism

fē′dā-ĭz-əm, fī′dē-

noun

1. Reliance on faith alone rather than scientific reasoning or philosophy in questions of religion.

2. the doctrine that faith is the basis of all knowledge

The state has long been trying to replace God with government.  Washington DC and the oligarchs that reside within, seek demigod status as we have watched this pan out in other countries throughout history, always ending with the same result, mass genocide.  We are currently on this path, and I think that it is necessary to analyze this attempt by government officials to replace God with an all-powerful government.  Fideism is a philosophical term that refers to the idea that faith and reason/logic, are mutually exclusive.  Some even believe that the two are adversarial in relation to one another.  I am going to analyze fideism and explain why I believe that this idea is terribly flawed.

When we think of faith, we tend to think of religious faith, but faith does not always refer to belief in a higher power.  We put faith in people, organizations, and institutions every day.  We wake up and want to know what to expect from the weather before we head to work.  Who do you consult?  The weather channel, your local news, cable news?  Do we not have to have faith in these entities to trust their forecasts?   We are in a mid-term election year, where do we go to assess politicians’ views on the issues?  Do we not put faith in news outlets to inform us of current happenings, at home and abroad? What do we really know, and how much of our logic is based on acquisition of data from sources that we trust to give us accurate information?   How much information do we receive from the perspective of an eyewitness account?  The point that I’m trying to make here is that, those things that we believe are true through what we consider a logical assessment, has been the product of information obtained through sources that we believe to be reliable sources of data.  In order to come to reasonable conclusions by way of, what one would call logic, we have to have faith in the data that we have utilized to come to our logical conclusion. 

If the media reports that an ISIS leader was killed in the Middle East, we rely on the credibility of the news outlet to determine in our own mind, if the report is accurate and/or truthful.  We do not reside in the Middle East, so we cannot confirm authenticity of the report on our own, in other words we can’t see it with our own eyes.  Many argue against the existence of God by saying it cannot be confirmed through observation, and you cannot physically see God.  How is this lack of physical confirmation via an eyewitness, proof that God is an impossibility, or disprove His existence?  Why is this the standard when arguing for the reality of Almighty God, but when you are using so called, “logic” to come to a conclusion based on second and third hand information, the same standard is not applied?  If the argument is that you have to be able to see and touch for something to be real, then that vast majority of what we call knowledge, is at the mercy of an information source’s desire to mislead or misinform. 

Let’s look now at religious faith.  I believe that in order to make an argument that holds up on the battlefield of ideas, you have to point to objective evidence or at least give it a scientific explanation.  When trying to inform non-believers on the presence of God in our daily lives, and the Biblical account of creation, it is best to use science to make you case for God.  After all, science has many laws that govern our physical world.  If there are explicit laws associated with science, isn’t it reasonable to see God as the lawmaker?  God is the creator of everything, including science.  The trouble comes when man thinks that he is smarter or morally superior to God.

I think that faith in God should be genuine within oneself and that the individual should be capable of articulating exactly why he believes in God and why he believes that Christ Died for us.  This puts some thinking behind your position of faith, and doesn’t make you look like a mindless drone, quoting scripture word for word, with no level of understanding regarding the meaning behind it.  This requires much knowledge of scripture but also puts emphasis on the need for a deep understanding of science, and what arguments you can make that come from science’s own playbook.  When you understand this, you start to realize that science actually validates the existence of God, it does not contradict it. There is nothing more satisfying, than the look on someone’s face when you shoot down their science argument challenging God, with a scientific argument of your own.  You can make valid arguments for God and creation by referencing some of the most basic scientific theories, and pointing out the contradiction that exists in their argument, hence going against science.  You can take advantage of the fact that these so-called scientists tend to break their own rules and pull things out of the air in an attempt to verify their claims.  They usually get away with it because anyone that questions them, get the whole, “are you a scientist?” or “what is your degree in?”.   Some of these people really think that they are the flesh and blood, personification of science.  Remember Fauci’s comment, “I am science”?

Reason and faith are not polar opposites, they actually complement each other, and in some cases, are dependent upon one another.  There is faith in logic, and there should be logic in faith.