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The Religion of Reason

I have heard more than a few Christians argue that atheists worship their own reason. By this, the Christian means that the atheist worships the ideas they have built using their rationality, as if the Christian has somehow managed to avoid this pitfall but worshiping the irrational.

And in this way, the Christian exercises the divine ability of being omnipresent on all sides of an argument, while at the same time denying they are simply scoring touchdowns by continually moving the end zone.

When the Christian argues with the atheist, engaging in what the Christian refers to as "apologetics," they are relying on their ability to reasonably defend their "beliefs," even though their "beliefs" are by their very nature, held not only without supporting evidence, but even held in spite of evidence to the contrary.

This is why priests are required to study philosophy for so many years before they are ordained. Apologetics, which is a formal and indeed logical defense of Christian beliefs and dogmas, is predicated upon the use of reason as the necessary means of defending Christianity. It is the very  basis for the writings of Paul's letters, St. Augustine, and even Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica.

In this respect, the Christian tries to make Christianity respectable by trying to demonstrate it is not wholly irrational, despite it being a "belief" in something that is held "without seeing," as Jesus put it.

But when the atheist rejects the arguments employed by such apologists as irrational, and explains why the arguments offered by people like Aquinas and C.S. Lewis and others ultimately fail in their logic,  the Christian then switches tactics, as well as sides of the debate, by impugning the atheist's religious devotion to rationality, as if a devotion to irrationality is somehow logically superior (at least at that point).

The Christian argues that we were given the ability to reason from God, so that we may find our way back to god, while at the same time arguing that those who have used their reason to disprove the arguments used to support God's existence, are blinded by their religious faith in reason itself. In this way, the Christian gets to have their spiritual cake, while eating their reason as well.    

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