Editorial: 'Reason' and religion have mixed for centuries

[rug]

Quad-City Times editorial board 16 hrs ago

ive-hundred years of history are clear: Reason and religion are not mortal enemies.

But those are the battle lines drawn in Davenport as atheists pressure City Hall into a "Day of Reason" proclamation, a political response to municipal "Day of Prayer" edicts. Those are the terms set by religious radicals who claim a monopoly on truth as the nation grapples with the issues of our time.

Both sides are are short-sighted.

Since the late Middle Ages, reason and religion have been linked by the ideas originating from deeply religious philosophers. Thomas Aquinas modernized classical Greek realism in the 13th century. He also happened to be a Catholic friar, sainted after his death. Rene Descartes legitimized scientific evidence gathering with his meditations in the 17th century, setting the groundwork for the Age of Reason. His work hinged on God's existence. Otherwise, the simple act of observation couldn't be justified, he concluded.

http://qctimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/editorial-reason-and-religion-have-mixed-for-centuries/article_58ae2690-dc3b-5bba-956a-6aacb53e4887.html

[Skittles]

1. maybe that explains how f***ed up the world is

[struggle4progress]

4. The screwed-uppedbess of our world seems in history so far to have defied

all simple analyses and all easily-implemented solutions

[Albertoo]

2. Reason mixed with religion by lack of information

Since, Darwin and the Big Bang have exposed the religious accounts of the genesis of earth and animals as ludicrous, modern history and archeology dismiss Moses as fiction and the advancement of democratic freedoms is increasingly laying bare the moral shortcomings of the 'sacred' texts.

Religion and Reason became estranged during the Enlightenment and got a divorce in the XXth century. The analogy stops there though in that Reason will flourish while religion will wither away. The parting of the sea, talking snakes and other pretty stories will be back were they always belonged, in books of fiction for children.

[rug]

3. You're equating reason with science.

That's unreasonable.

[Albertoo]

5. No. I am stating that reason operates with facts

People who do not reason from fact are called delusional or misguided.
Which is pretty much what the chaps who wrote the sacred religious fairy tales were.

[rug]

8. State the evidence that the "chaps" were delusional or misguided.

One would not think you fall into this category:

People who do not reason from fact are called delusional or misguided.

[Albertoo]

9. It's already in my post #2

[MisterP]

6. that's what gave the Scholastics such a bad tradition: too rationalistic

the Hellenic fanboys of the 1700s and 1800s didn't like them horning in on their fantasy version(s) of Greece so they had to get kicked out

[Brettongarcia]

7. Too much rationalization in scholasticism

Nor enough Empiricism, or physical evidence. For miracles, for instance.