Believers Arguing on Behalf of Their Beliefs

After years of struggling with something, it's nice to be able to come to a new understanding.  I suppose some of my readers may dispute the validity of my new thoughts.  If so, I hope they will offer comments here.

For a long time, I've wondered, 'What's the point of trying to rationalize religious beliefs?'  My understanding of christianity (i.e., that resulting from my upbringing) is that one should accept the existence and divinity of Jesus purely on faith - in his words from Mark 10:16 - "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."  This classic case of biblical ambiguity leaves open the definition of receiving something "like a child".  Just what exactly does that phrase mean?  Various interpretations exist, but the obvious one is that it means to accept something entirely without evidence, trusting in and accepting the "gift" without any questions as to its validity.  A child-like trust in the teachings of leaders is one that accepts things as given.  Questions are impertinent and out of place.

If this is a valid interpretation, then it follows that believers are supposed to accept Jesus as their "Lord and Savior" without question and without evidence.  If that's what someone chooses to do, then I'm fine with that.  It's their choice and their life.

Where I have a problem is when christians attempt to use logic and, yes, even evidence to validate their faith.  This has always seemed pointless to me - if you accept it on faith, why seek to make something irrational seem to be rational?  I observe that all humans in my experience have both rational and irrational aspects, including yours truly.  It's not an insult to label a belief as irrational - it simply says that logic and evidence have little or nothing to do with it.  If a christian has faith, then s/he has faith and that's that - end of discussion.  There's no need for, or point to, trying to create some sort of house of cards to justify that faith to someone else, if you truly have that child-like faith.

Such faith has no need for explanation.  In fact, explanations are antithetical to religious faith.  Of course, it's well known that the blind obedience associated with religious faith leads people to commit monstrous acts on behalf of their chosen belief system.  But perhaps most importantly in the context of this blog, it represents a source of cognitive dissonance in the mind of any reasonably rational person.  Religious faith inevitably clashes with logic and the rule of evidence.  In most aspects of a believer's life, they accept the rule of logic and the use of evidence.  Is such an acceptance based on faith, just like religious belief?  No, not all all.  It's a faith that's based entirely on evidence and empirical observations.  Hence, the word "faith" has two diametrically opposed meanings - I talked about that here.

It now seems clear to me that attempts at rationalizing religious faith (e.g., those of C.S. Lewis) are simply a manifestation of cognitive dissonance.  Despite claims of childlike faith, believers may seek to convince others of (i.e., to try to justify) the rationality of believing in a divine lord.  They sense that an unbeliever isn't likely to be convinced by an irrational argument.  They implicitly understand the weakness of their position in a logical discussion.

Just whom is it they're really trying to convince?  Most such attempts I've seen are pretty transparently flawed in their logic and completely devoid of any credible evidence.  Such rationalizations are not the province of true fundamentalists, who've accepted such things as the creation myth, the age of the Earth as less than 10 thousand years, the evil of homosexuality, the subservience of women, and so on.  No, the ones who seek to rationalize their irrational faith are those otherwise rational people who accept the validity of science and logic, but seek to put some sort of handwaving "spin" on the biblical passages that clearly are not consistent with our modern understanding of the world based on rationality.  Perhaps they seek to interpret biblical myths as reflecting the late Bronze Age absence of science-based understanding.  Perhaps they choose to see unsettling biblical passages as metaphors, or representing the concepts of a time 2000+ years ago that are no longer relevant.

If someone grasps the irrationality of religious faith, why not let it go with that?  Seeking to rationalize religious faith seems to be the direct consequence of - dare I say it? - doubts lurking in the minds of such believers (likely at an unconscious level).  It generates a clash between the rational and the irrational in their brains, and their rationalizations may be at least as much directed at themselves as they are to others around them.

Keep trying, and perhaps you can convince yourself - but it doesn't convince me.  I think I now understand why you hope to construct a logical argument for your religious belief.  The very effort to do so undermines your credibility as a believer - it seems faith isn't enough for you, after all!