I once told my girlfriend that rationality yields to two greater forces - emotions and faith. I think that my need to become more rational has made me numb to both my emotions and my faith. Tonight I had a very had time showing my emotions through to my girlfriend. In honest reflection, I don't think I show my emotions through to anyone. I think I am in such a pursuit of reason that I see emotion as an enemy. However, I think that I need to allow my emotions to be in unison with my emotions. She got me to such a point that I stopped reasoning and I just started feeling (the irony being that I am reasoning right now). But for that brief moment I got a glimpse of a reversion to emotion. I feel numb inside and I think it's because I believe that emotions cloud reason. The other thing that supersedes reason is faith. Many of you see me as a drug addict ("Religion is opium of the people) trying to distort my reality in effort to rationalize or escape the events around me. I have been that person, but I am trying to grow out of it. However, it has made me very cold about my religion. I don't feel anything when I go to mass. I sit there wishing I could get something from prayer, from song, from scripture but it all feels very cold to me. I do not feel the Lord even though I still for some reason believe he's out there. I feel a great pain inside because of this.
I realize that faith destroyed reason because it told people to be satisfied with those things that they could not prove immediately. However, I still believe that there are unexplainable events on this Earth and while I think the Church oversimplifies the complexity of this world so does reason. You can only go so far before you will drive yourself mad. There must be something greater than us, I just do not have the spiritual intelligence to tell you what. I don't think spirituality can be explained with reason, but with a feeling and right now I feel nothing. I reason much, but I feel nothing.
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Reason has limits, but within those limits knowledge can be found. Faith has no limits and that is why it is useless for finding knowledge. If I could "know" by faith that there is an invisible deity that controls the universe then I could "know" that there is a dancing purple hippo on the moon, and if I could "know" that then I can "know" anything. And if I could "know" anything by faith there is no difference between that and knowing nothing and making wild guesses. So why do people still use faith? Many reasons: sense of community, comfort during hard times, indoctrination, social expectations, genetic predispositions, or as a mechanism of social control. These are all more or less valid reasons for the use of faith but as a system of knowing things it is, literally, nothing compared to reason.
Reason is limited and imperfect but it is the absolute foundation on which all true knowledge is based. It is the only candle in the dark. The light only extends so far and it flickers, giving a different impression from one moment to the next. But through sustained effort and observation, the flickering impressions give way to certain knowledge of one's surroundings. When fuel is added to the fire, the light extends and the darkness retreats. Human history is great evidence for the advance of reason. Once everything was claimed by darkness (also known as the divine sphere). What made clouds, made the rain, made a thunderstorm? That darkness has retreated before the imperfect but still advancing march of reason.
Faith and Reason are methods of acquiring knowledge and emotion is the impetus to act on it. It is a completely separate sphere. Emotion is the motivation for all actions. You get up in the morning because you get positive feelings for getting stuff done and negative feelings for being lazy. This is also based on the knowledge of positive consequences for getting stuff done and negative consequences for not doing things. You care about someone because they have qualities you admire and you admire those qualities because you have knowledge or belief that they are good. This is why politicians often make appeals based on emotion. They want you to act without having to establish knowledge for you first.
I understand your numbness Joe. It is hard to show your inner self sometimes. I would say that emotion is not your enemy as long as you understand where it comes from. Pursue reason and let your emotions flow from the knowledge gained through that.
As a former catholic who felt nothing from prayer or mass I think I may be a foreshadow of the direction you are headed... Not that you would necessarily go as far as me! No, but I could easily see you looking for something that is more satisfying than the empty lines of the church. You could be a deist, a spiritual humanist, or a Unitarian. There are many choices between catholicism and disbelief. I'm not trying to convert you, I just honestly feel from your statements that traditional catholicism is not going to satisfy you. You need something that encourages your self examination and also fulfills your spiritual needs.
Oh, how I wish I had more time to truly think about these things.
I've felt the same way as you about mass, Joe, I went for Christmas last time, and although I had a good time and I like the community aspect and the music (which as Dan says, can be duplicated in non-religious services), I still was left kind of wondering what I was really celebrating.
Jesus is my #1 model for how to live my life--but even that is sort of a conception of Jesus, as there are a few contradictions in the gospels--but 95% of the material points to this person who is a role model for selflessness.
But then I'm bombarded with all of this Church doctrine that contradicts my basic conception about Jesus--and I'm left with knowing for sure that I'm going to the Catholic conception of hell if it exists the way they say it does--but yet at the same time I know I break my standards all the time but I still am a "good person", right???
So anyway, all of that is completely rationalized, it makes sense to me, as I am a college educated human being, I've read most of the Bible, and I don't need anybody to tell me how to live my life--or essentially order/threaten me as the Church sometimes does. I appreciate advice, but I am fully capable of making rational decisions on my own.
But how often do I actually make rational decisions?
Dan's concept of positive/negative consequences is interesting. I'm trying to decide if I accept it or not, but I've been stuck on this paragraph for about 15 minutes, so I'll have to wait on that.
As for reason, it will never fulfilling for me, and I can't see a time in the future of human history where it will answer everything.
One part of this is like the South Park episode where in the future, everyone is an atheist, but at the same time, there is a world war going on over what to name the atheist organization. So I recognize that the human mind isn't capable of being fully rational, even if our society may advance in terms of overall rationality.
Also, I'm stuck on some of the issues of the origin of the universe. Where did matter come from? Where did the laws of the Universe come from--the laws that govern rationality in the first place? Is there an end to the Universe? Is there more to life than fulfilling our biological purpose and contributing to the natural world?
To me, some sort of higher power that set things into motion is the most rational and logical answer to some of those questions. I can see that it could be possible for there to be no God, for there to be better answers to those questions.
Issue #2 deals with some of the spirituality/emotional things that I have experienced. If we assume there is a God, how much of an influence does this being have on our lives?
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