Oh, sure, talking donkeys and other kinds of biblical magic is the very "foundation of reason..."
All that is necessary to illustrate that faith is the precondition of reason is to ask you, do you have evidence for everything that you believe?
If I have to believe something, it's safe to say I don't have evidence. If I do have evidence, then I know it for a fact and I don't have to have faith that it is so.
Moreover, your claim that there is no objective evidence really entails a claim of omniscience, since you would have to have had to have searched everywhere and looked at all things at the same time to be able to make the claim
Your sophism is taking you in the wrong direction. I have asked for evidence on many an occasion by those who believe and I got excuses or worse, but no evidence. So far this lack of demonstrable evidence is 100%. If you think about it, rationally, it's a tall order to ask anyone to believe something just on your word. So I don't.
If I say I can levitate wouldn't you expect me to demonstrate it? Wouldn't you be skeptical and wouldn't you look for "tricks"? Sure you would, if you are reasonable, because levitation Harry Potter style doesn't happen in the real world. But, I suppose a six-year old might find it perfectly believable.
If God subsists (and He does)...
God "subsists"? What does God supposedly subsist in?
and has revealed Himself in His Word then we are entitled to believe Him on His authority
What evidence do you have that God revealed himself? If you have such evidence then please produce it. I am particularly interested to know how does one know it is God, and not the insanity, or better yet what is God (what is divine) so that we may positively identify him.
The bottom line is that to criticize the Christian's irrational "faith" on the grounds that "there is no objective evidence" for it is itself nothing more than an expression of a different religious faith
No, it's valid criticism. rejecting claims that cannot be backed with evidence is rational and justifiable.
a faith in which you presume the ultimate authority and self-sufficiency of your own finite human mind instead of the ultimate authority and self-sufficiency of the infinite God, a presumption that cannot help but result in futility, arbitrariness and irrationality.
That would be true if such were the case. But it's not. Ignorance of absolute truth does not allow us the freedom to invent truth, to create invisible and undetectable things and claim they exist. Our proofs must be compatible with our nature. We can't presume something exists unless we have evidence of it that is not only in our heads, but clearly demonstrable directly or indirectly.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2173647/posts?page=824#824
“If there is no truth, all that’s left is a struggle of propaganda.”
If I have to believe something, it's safe to say I don't have evidence. If I do have evidence, then I know it for a fact and I don't have to have faith that it is so.
Your sophism is taking you in the wrong direction. I have asked for evidence on many an occasion by those who believe and I got excuses or worse, but no evidence. So far this lack of demonstrable evidence is 100%. If you think about it, rationally, it's a tall order to ask anyone to believe something just on your word. So I don't.
What evidence do you have that God revealed himself? If you have such evidence then please produce it. I am particularly interested to know how does one know it is God, and not the insanity, or better yet what is God (what is divine) so that we may positively identify him.
The Catholic church claims to have written the Bible. In the Catechism of the Catholic church, it deems it infallible.
107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72
If one chooses to reject the Bible as inspired or without error, one is at odds with Catholic doctrine. That one is choosing to reject the Catholic church and what it has declared.
Not only that, if one rejects the written word as handed down by the church (allegedly) that Catholics claim is merely the transcribed teachings of its tradition, then one is also rejecting the tradition from which the written portion came.
If the transcribed portion is considered unreliable, the oral tradition from which is came is unreliable as well.
The only reason the Catholic church can make any claim to handing down the truth for so many centuries was because it was written down. If it weren't for the fact that what happened was transcribed, it would have been lost over the centuries. Tradition is not reliable enough and free enough from corruption over time.
Having the oldest documents to refer back to is what kept the truth from being lost, not tradition.
Sure there are many things not recorded in the Bible that happened, but that doesn't give anyone license to make things up, claim they happened, and declare them as fact. At that point, you might as well believe in the Easter Bunny. The Bible doesn't record that it isn't real. How can you say it's not?
That would be true if such were the case. But it's not. Ignorance of absolute truth does not allow us the freedom to invent truth, to create invisible and undetectable things and claim they exist. Our proofs must be compatible with our nature. We can't presume something exists unless we have evidence of it that is not only in our heads, but clearly demonstrable directly or indirectly.
Which blows the whole immaculate conception and perpetual virginity thing out of the water, along with praying to saints, holy water, mortal vs venial sins, and a whole host of other traditions which men have added to Scripture in the name of religion.
If I have to believe something, it's safe to say I don't have evidence. If I do have evidence, then I know it for a fact and I don't have to have faith that it is so.My point is that you have basic assumptions and philosophical pre-commitments regarding metaphysical and epistemological matters such as the nature of reality, reason, laws of logic, explanation, certainty, universals, possibility, cause, and so on, which determine how you view evidence, and those assumptions about reality and knowledge have not and cannot be proved by empirical experience or logic, but rather it is by those beliefs that you proceed to prove everything else.
An example of this is your statement, "rejecting claims that cannot be backed with evidence is rational and justifiable. But how do you prove the claim itself? What evidence is there for it? If there isn't any evidence for it isn't it, on it's own terms a belief and therefore self-referential? Second, if believing something without evidence is irrational, is a person holding such a belief violating some sort of intellectual duty or obligation? Is such a person suffering from some sort of intellectual dysfunction?
Well, what you thing to be rational and justified depends upon your metaphysical and religious or philosophical assumptions. Your view as to what sort of creature a human being is will determine your views as to what is rational or irrational for human beings to believe and whether you think such persons are suffering from some sort of intellectual defect that deserves your approbation. Suppose you assume that the universe is a gigantic, uncreated, purposeless accident. The question then becomes, what is the evidence for the notion of matter in motion not functioning as it "ought" to function?
Ignorance of absolute truth does not allow us the freedom to invent truth, to create invisible and undetectable things and claim they exist. Our proofs must be compatible with our nature. We can't presume something exists unless we have evidence of it that is not only in our heads, but clearly demonstrable directly or indirectly.
Is a proof a visible, detectable thing? Where do these rules of thought that you espouse come from?
Cordially