Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 26, 2008 10:06:30 GMT
Inugami, I think most people (including Webster's) would agree with the distinction that you're drawing but I respectfully maintain that the difference is illusory. I know it's an old saying that someone can be "of two minds" about something or other but that's just not real. People either believe things or they don't, and what people actually do gives testimony to what they actually believe.
What I was trying to say in previous posts is that I think this doctrine of divide between faith and reason is a result of the cultural wars between Catholicism and an emerging materialistic scientific community over the last few centuries. It's a trick of language formed into a rhetorical hammer to beat people of different faiths than materialism into either hypocrites or non-rational (animal-like, as the creatures of the Gillite woods?) beings. Sadly too many people have gone along with this doctrine because it lets them "compartmentalize their faith" and live just like the materialistic folk around them. I think western civilization is spiritually poorer for it.
My point is that faith, even faith without supporting experiences, is a basic part of existing as a human and not alien or antithetical to reason as some people have taught. I would argue that a faithful husband is one who keeps his vows and so fulfills his wife's faith in him. A true friend is one your faith will not be misplaced in. Now when you mention Faith with a capital "F" I think you're talking about a faith in something specific as being virtuous, not what faith itself is. That Faith is not what I was talking about but it does tie in, especially in how Faith without works is dead.
What I was trying to say in previous posts is that I think this doctrine of divide between faith and reason is a result of the cultural wars between Catholicism and an emerging materialistic scientific community over the last few centuries. It's a trick of language formed into a rhetorical hammer to beat people of different faiths than materialism into either hypocrites or non-rational (animal-like, as the creatures of the Gillite woods?) beings. Sadly too many people have gone along with this doctrine because it lets them "compartmentalize their faith" and live just like the materialistic folk around them. I think western civilization is spiritually poorer for it.
My point is that faith, even faith without supporting experiences, is a basic part of existing as a human and not alien or antithetical to reason as some people have taught. I would argue that a faithful husband is one who keeps his vows and so fulfills his wife's faith in him. A true friend is one your faith will not be misplaced in. Now when you mention Faith with a capital "F" I think you're talking about a faith in something specific as being virtuous, not what faith itself is. That Faith is not what I was talking about but it does tie in, especially in how Faith without works is dead.