On Sat, 23 Sep 2000 10:38:11 CDT, Justin Hasselman
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> This is why all religions demand that
>their claims be accepted on faith.  Accepting an argument based upon faith
>is not something to be admired.  There is only one type of faith: blind
>faith (if you don't believe me, look up faith in the dictionary).

I did and have pasted it here, and only one out of the 6 definitions
constitutes
blind faith (#2).

Faith *

1.      Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a
person, an
idea, or a thing.
2.      Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material
evidence. See
synonyms at belief, trust.
3.      Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with
one's
supporters.
4.      ( Theology) The theological virtue defined as secure belief in
God and a
trusting acceptance of God's will.
5.      The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6.      A set of principles or beliefs.

>Just for the record, almost of the the pioneers, great thinkers, etc of the
>world were either atheist, deist, agnostic, or one of the other religions
>that encourage independent thought.  I personally do not confine myself to a
>box or title to which I belong.  However, if I had to pick one, I would most
>probably fit that of a deist b/c I consider myself to be spiritual but not
>religious.

First off, if you are a deist, then your statements about "blind
faith" don't
make sense, since you can only be a deist (someone who accepts the
existence of
God) from either experience or belief.   If you are criticizing
belief, then you
must be a deist from experience, in which case it makes no sense for
you to
state that religions require belief !

Furthermore, many religions encourage independent thought.   In fact,
it is
mostly specific practitioners of religion or religious authorities who
discourage independent thought, rather than the tenets of the religion
doing so.

Of course, you clearly leave out all the Great Thinkers within the
religious
traditions, such as Thomas Aquinas, Saint Francis, CS Lewis, Ramana
Maharshi (an
independent thinker if there ever was one), the Buddha (ditto), Jesus
Christ (so
much of an independent thinker that he was crucified by request of
religious
authorities) and on and on.

It is difficult without extensive study of historical materials to
figure out
which Great Thinkers of the past were religious rather than deists,
but
certainly all of the Founding Fathers (Washington, Jefferson,
Hamilton, etc.)
accepted the existence of God, and many scientists as well, such as
Einstein,
Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, and Maxwell.   Among
philosophers, there
were religious Great Thinkers like Pythagoras, Kierkegaard, Hegel,
Eckhart, and
Blavatsky, among poets, Wordswoth, Keats and Shelley.  And it is hard
to find a
greater independent thinker than the very religious Leonardo Da Vinci.
And, I'm
only scratching the surface.   On the other hand, the list of Great
Thinkers who
were Atheists is quite small in comparison

======
* Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language, Third
Edition Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic
version
licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V., further
reproduction and
distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the
United
States. All rights reserved.
--
Cheers,

Ken
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