How do faith and reason interact?

Question

When one accepts faith they find themselves happy but when one accepts reason they find themselves unhappy for a rational person accepting faith is to reject rationality yet rejecting faith is to reject life.

Answer 1

Faith is for people without reason.  Then they use the faith to try and argue with the reasonable people but the reasonable people are like just show me proof and the people with faith only says on well I don't need proof I have faith.  So there you have it.  

Answer 2

reason is to faith as the police is to crime.

You can not have logic and reason, and faith. One cancels out the other.

Faith is just the permission weak willed people get to themselves to believe imainary things.

Answer 3

funny dave...

i am happily faithless.  theory disproved.

Answer 4

"When one accepts faith they find themselves happy but when one accepts reason they find themselves unhappy for a rational person accepting faith is to reject rationality yet rejecting faith is to reject life."

I don't know who said that or if you came up with it but it's completely untrue, actually truth, logic and finding answers instead of pretending that I already know them makes me happy, not faith, so that would prove your argument false.

Answer 5

faith is a hope that a certain percentage of reason can be overcome.

Answer 6

Reason has a limitation.It is relevant in the field of the known only.

Faith comes into being in areas where reason fails to enter.

Answer 7

No.  There is no reasoning in faith since all beliefs are beyond verification and reasoning.  Faith and beliefs are also beyond language as language always is subject to interpretation and use or misuse.  Since they are beyond language, they cannot be honestly expressed verbally.

All verbal declarations of belief and faith are nothing more than signaling membership in a like group.

Answer 8

I have to strongly disagree with you on a few points.  First, there are a LOT of unhappy faithful.  Trust me, I know.  They accept faith looking for support, or answers to life's problems, and when faith doesn't deliver, well, they're not happy campers.

I also disagree that rationalists (which I presume includes us faithless atheists) find themselves unhappy.  Many people experience a certain refreshing feeling when they ditch religion and accept atheism, like having a giant weight lifted off their backs, a weight they were told they had to carry but which they discovered that they didn't.  I'm a more or less lifetime atheist, so I'm not speaking from personal experience here, but I've heard from plenty of former believers how free they felt after giving up their religious dogma.  And yeah, I would consider myself quite happy and content.  I think the myth of the unhappy rationalist/atheist was probably started by the same people who claim that non-religious people can't possibly be moral.

I will agree with you that to accept faith is to reject rationality.  Rationality demands that you base your beliefs on the evidence and on logic.  Faith demands that you believe _regardless_of_ the evidence or logic.  With rationality, you use reality to come to a conclusion about the nature of the universe.  With belief, you start with your conclusion and then either seek evidence that appears to support it, or ignore it if it contradicts your beliefs.

Finally, I have to also disagree that to reject faith is to reject life.  To the contrary, life can only be embraced fully with a reasoned understanding based on the soundness of reality.  Faith leads to superstition and ignorance, which hinder, not help in the appreciation of life and all it has to offer.