> Ultimately, because there is no objective basis for faith itself (it is a
> "method" of no actual method at all), and because it is empirically
> demonstrable that most faith-beliefs are false, a rational person has to
> reject faith.
I have to say, that's the nicest way that I've ever been called irrational!
;-)
Let me repeat your final paragraph: "Philosophy is where the only rocks are.
Something exists. You exist (if you don't, I don't have to worry about you
reading this and getting upset at my presuming that you exist). What a thing
is, *is* what it is. Etc."
For me, faith exists, and therefore is what it is, etc. Unfortunately the
only way I can convince an empricist such as yourself is to literally have
you ride around in my body with me so that you can fell what I feel. Since
that cannot be done, and since faith is not an empirical matter, we shall
have to agree to disagree. Remember, as an evolutionary creationist I
believe in the existence of both a physical and a nonphysical universe.
Since science can be applied only to the physical universe, I have to apply
something else to the nonphysical universe, and that something is faith.
Oh, one last point. In reading your essay I couldn't help getting the
impression of someone desperately trying to convince himself of something he
really didn't believe was true. In other words, it appears to me that you
are trying to rationally reject something that in fact you believe in quite
strongly despite your rationality.
Kevin L. O'Brien