javelin,

Sorry for the delayed response. Busy and all that.

I’m glad we’re clear on the type of knowledge you feel is neccessary for religious belief. I don’t think there has ever been empirical proof of God’s existence, let alone that Christianity has anything to do with this God. Because of that I do not attempt to “prove” God’s existence by “rational” means because as good as some arguments are (and there are some good ones. The most tempting ones are Aquinas’s various “proofs”) I expect if that is what you’re looking for as a foundation for belief, you’ll never find it.

You asked if I could give you examples of not being able to reliably count on rational ways of viewing the world? The first person I would point to is the Scotish empiricist philosopher David Hume. Hume believed that we construct our worlds by piecing our experience together; but since all our knowledge, minus some mathmatics, come to us by experience; there is no rational account of the world that is not first based on experience, and so subject to critique as experience, or more severely put - is unjustifiable from a purely rational account of an object or idea. I highly recommend reading his “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” to see it spelled out more completely.

Many believe that even Kant was unable to overcome Hume’s incredible skepticism concerning the neccessity of scientific knowledge. It is doubly ironic that Humes rational logic was what led him to be skeptical of rationality.

Another classic critique of the idea of the universal reliability of science is Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” In it Kuhn recounts historical moments when scientific though experience massive shifts in understanding. He called these “paradigm shifts” He lays out the way in which regular science operates; which is under a predetermined paradigm, one that will work for a while, but will eventually be replaced by another paradigm which in “incomensurate” (completely at odds) with the last paradigm. Our experience often is somewhat “reliable” ie-the sun will most likely rise tomorrow (but Hume has some interesting ideas on this), or if I throw a ball it will fall to the ground; but the way in which we understand these things changes regularly. For example, recent discoveries completely shifted the way we thought about gravity.

- By mentioning prayer and worship I was trying to demonstrate what I believe are valid ways of knowing which are not rational ways of knowing. I wasn’t trying to say that they would be valid enough for you.

In the end there is no “reason” only “reasonS” And these two, certainly not the only two, are not even Christians trying to “disprove” science. They’re just really damn smart.

Don’t know if I explained anything or just made myself sound smarter than I am.