Jonathan Witt of Witting Shire has written a short article in The Seattle Times explaining again the enlightenment of Antony Flew (which I first mentioned here). His conclusion hits the nail on the head:
The amazing complexity of even the simplest cell; the information-bearing properties of DNA; the exquisite fine-tuning of the laws and constants of physics that make organic life possible; the Big Bang of the cosmos out of nothing — these signs of intelligence do not compel our belief in a God who thundered from Mount Sinai, lay in a manger or hung from a cross. But the evidence does have metaphysical implications, drawing us to a still place of wonder where such notions can be reasonably entertained.
It will always require faith to believe in God: that's a feature, not a bug.
Hebrews 11:6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Only once God's existence is acknowledged can the search for truth really begin.
(HT: Bill Hobbs.)
Whether it's a bug or a feature depends on whether you're interested in truth, or something other than truth. If truth is the goal, faith is a bug, as I'm sure you'd agree in the cases of Islamic faith, (non-Messianic) Jewish faith, Mormon faith, atheist faith, Buddhist faith, Shinto faith, and just about every other kind of faith there is except one.
X: Hm, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I expect that faith is an intended feature of those other beliefs as well as my own. I do, naturally, believe that their faiths are in vain.
Here's one I mean: if your ultimate goal in life is to continue believing whatever it is you believe now, then it makes sense to exalt faith as a virtue. But if your goal is to learn the truth - not your "truth," but THE truth, then faith is largely an impediment to that goal, as it causes people to overstate any facts that appear consistent with their faith, while downplaying or ignoring those that tend to contradict it (or, worse, chalking them up to a "test" of one's faith).
As one who believes that Christianity is the truth-with-a-capital-t, and one who also values faith, I'd think you'd be troubled by the reality that faith does just as much to keep some people out of the kingdom of God as it does to keep others in. Don't question, accept the gospel with the faith of a child, or else! But even while you're busy not questioning the validity of your child-like faith, better hope you've unquestioningly and childishly accept the right faith, or else you're just as screwed as the skeptic.
X: Faith can only be an impediment to learning the Truth if it's possible to learn the Truth. However, I don't think it is. We're rather limited beings, and there's simply no way to answer a great many questions.
Your argument only makes sense if you assume that no truth is knowable, or that the only truth that is knowable is so blindingly obvious that it will be known no matter what. To the extent that at least some truth is capable of being known and is also capable of not being known, faith is an impediment to knowing that truth.
X: Sure, I agree with that. Perhaps our disagreement is about either:
1. Which questions are answerable, or
2. Whether believing an answer is true in the absense of evident is ever valuable.
Perhaps so, with the caveat that know should be construed loosely enough to include not only absolute certainty, or necessarily even correctness, but just enough knowledge to make one's educated guess more likely to be correct than a random guess would be.