So you think faith and emotions are synonyms?
You don't think someone, some fallible human, can't rationalize himself into error thinking he's reasoning?
What was the motivating force that led apostles just to walk away from their lives when Jesus said "Follow me."?
Reason?
Why did Augustine start reading Bible when he heard a child outside who wasn't talking to him say, "Take up and read, take up and read."?
Reason?
It is pretty straightforward that emotions can lead us astray.
To conflate this with seemingly irrational acts of faith seems just as dangerous as being an overly emotional sensation seeker.
And then there is intuition too, which very often seems to go defiantly against reason. Is this also just an irrational idiosyncratic sense that needs to be reined in by reason?
Or does it have a deeper logic of its own? One that only reveals itself when you have faith in it and take the intuitive leap that makes no sense on the surface.
Is intuition not a faculty that can be developed by trusting it, and doesn't this development come in a way that is closer to faith and more agnostic to reason?
Or how about when you are feeling that God is very far away from you. Can you always reason your way closer?
Or is it something like a song or a poem that can unbind the heart and remind you of the connection in a near instantaneous visceral way?
Does a parent give a crying child an emotionless analysis of their situation or does he just pick the kid up and give a good squeeze?
So if God is our father, will he not, at times, reach us directly through our emotions and not bother with the analysis till later?
This is all food for a really good discussion in which rationality has a part, but if you want to say that it is superior to emotion, faith, intuition, in a person's spiritual walk, that case still needs to be made.
Luckily we have a forum for just this sort of thing.
You don't think someone, some fallible human, can't rationalize himself into error thinking he's reasoning?
What was the motivating force that led apostles just to walk away from their lives when Jesus said "Follow me."?
Reason?
Why did Augustine start reading Bible when he heard a child outside who wasn't talking to him say, "Take up and read, take up and read."?
Reason?
It is pretty straightforward that emotions can lead us astray.
To conflate this with seemingly irrational acts of faith seems just as dangerous as being an overly emotional sensation seeker.
And then there is intuition too, which very often seems to go defiantly against reason. Is this also just an irrational idiosyncratic sense that needs to be reined in by reason?
Or does it have a deeper logic of its own? One that only reveals itself when you have faith in it and take the intuitive leap that makes no sense on the surface.
Is intuition not a faculty that can be developed by trusting it, and doesn't this development come in a way that is closer to faith and more agnostic to reason?
Or how about when you are feeling that God is very far away from you. Can you always reason your way closer?
Or is it something like a song or a poem that can unbind the heart and remind you of the connection in a near instantaneous visceral way?
Does a parent give a crying child an emotionless analysis of their situation or does he just pick the kid up and give a good squeeze?
So if God is our father, will he not, at times, reach us directly through our emotions and not bother with the analysis till later?
This is all food for a really good discussion in which rationality has a part, but if you want to say that it is superior to emotion, faith, intuition, in a person's spiritual walk, that case still needs to be made.
Luckily we have a forum for just this sort of thing.