John Stuart Mill in The Subjection of Women

Quote:

So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded its adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh entrenchments of arguments to repair any breach made in the old.

A matter of faith

Donald E Knuth is one of the great figures in modern computer science. His work touches me in a small way when I use LaTeX to format and generate documents and letters. Most of Knuth's work is highly mathematical, and as such out of my reach, as I am not a trained mathematician. But I visit his home page sometimes, window shopping, as you might say.

Yesterday I found a presentation/discussion with Dr Knuth regarding religious faith and whether faith and science are compatible. It is interesting to hear Dr Knuth on this subject, because he is apparently a religious man who believes in God, yet his work is so scientific and mathematical. How can a very rational person such as Dr Knuth believe in God? As he says, he was just born into it, his beliefs stem from his upbringing. He of course tries to rationalize his beliefs but not with any success, in my view.

What this type of debate tells us is that religious faith has nothing to do with human reasoning. I believe that religious faith stems from a psychological need in humans to find some meaning and sense in life. This psychological need cannot be answered by reason. It is fruitless and pointless to argue against religion and God with people who believe. Richard Dawkins completely misses the point.

I haven't watched the debate between Professor Dennet and Dr Winston, but I imagine that this debate would have been as useless as the debate between Father Frederick C. Copleston and Bertrand Russell in 1948.

In 1758 the philosopher David Hume wrote:

Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is, by no means, fitted to endure. ...
Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

Hume is talking here about the miraculous nature of religious belief and the need to suspend reasoning when assenting to such beliefs.

The nature of religious belief poses a problem in modern society, as religious differences are often the cause of conflict, and for this reason many of us would like to see the role of religion minimized in public life and politics. But as religion is a matter of faith, it cannot be argued against, so how do we fight it when it is used as a political force?