Monday, October 09, 2006

Two Questions

Much of the history of Philosophy has been taken up with the question of what can be known to be true. Much of this, has in turn, been centered round the question of god:

Does god exist?

After literally hundreds, if not thousands of years of debate, the consensus is this:

There is no consensus.

If you place a religious believer and a committed atheist in a room to discuss this, it will usually come down to an argument between faith and reason.

The religious person discounts any reason they disagree with by use of faith. Religion requires faith. The atheist discounts religion on the basis of reason. There is no proof of god. How can you believe in something for which there is no proof?

There are flaws on both sides of this argument when put in such a simplistic way. Instead of replaying an argument that has gone on for centuries and is unlikely to ever be resolved, two questions that can be asked of the believer and the atheist and that are valid for both are these:

What are the limits of faith?

What are the limits of reason?

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