It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Faith itself is a horrible mechanism that stunts the growth of ideas. It also stunts the act of questioning, and it does this by pushing the idea that you have to have faith - and that nothing has to be proven.
Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws - a thing which can never be demonstrated.
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
Faith is a higher faculty than reason.
Faith is a personal matter, and should never be a cudgel to stifle inquiry. We tried that approach about 1,200 years ago. The experiment was called the Dark Ages.
Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence. Faith is daring to do something regardless of the consequences.
The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.
Faith is not contrary to reason.
Too often today, we do not rely on faith so much as on our own ability to reason and solve problems.
Faith is a continuation of reason.