Opinion

Why are faith, reason mutually exclusive?

Posted September 03, 2011 5:00 am

I would like to respond to the column by Kathleen Parker in the Aug. 31 edition of the Daily Herald. She suggests that you cannot have religious faith and still be reasonable. She says they are “mutually exclusive.” In other words, faith is unreasonable. It is for people who can’t think clearly.

For example, she suggests that you can’t question “the evolutionary theory of the earth’s origins” because that is a fact which excludes any thought that there is design, and therefore must be a designer (God) which is faith. Why is it that those who claim to be reasonable in teaching dogma that “the evolutionary theory of the earth’s origins” do not want to have an open discussion with any other approach? What are they afraid of?

Kathleen Parker calls it an evolutionary theory. If it is a theory why is it not debatable on rational grounds? Why must we insist that faith and reason are “mutually exclusive”? Why must she insist that “intelligent design” is unreasonable? Many good scientists believe it.

To believe that everything came about by a vacuum that created the cosmos that is an unplanned vacuum is also faith.

Elton Heimsoth

Lombard

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