Rationalism
Definition
Rationalism describes any philosophy that claims that beliefs and opinions should always be logical, deductive conclusions rather than being based on experience, observations, religious teachings, or divine revelation.
Keywords: Rationalism, Philosophy, Logical, Reasoning, Deductive, Experience, Observations, Religious, Revelation, Contradictory.
Veracity
Rationalistic claims are false .
Proof
All self-refuting or contradictory claims are deductively false.
Premise 1: Only deductive conclusions should be believed.
Premise 2: Premise 1, being the foundation or starting point of the philosophy, is not itself a deductive conclusion.
Conclusion: Therefore, premise 1, also known as "rationalism", should not be believed.
Rationalistic claims, when adhered to, require the rejection of rationalistic claims. To accept them is to reject them, making rationalism inherently contradictory and deductively false.
Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons
Riveting, yet absurd; romantic, yet innocent; Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons is a little Roald Dahl, a little Harry Potter, and a little Chronicles of Narnia, all rolled into one. Timothy McCabe collaborates with the great Benedict Ballyhoot to bring you the novel of the century!
In Printed Form
Along with numerous other authors including Don Landis, Bodie Hodge and Roger Patterson, Timothy McCabe contributes analyses of various world religions and cults in this volume from Master Books.
Other Writings
"Why does God allow charlatans to use His name to extract money, sex, attention and even their very lives from devout believers, who truly, honestly believe that they are listening to the word of God?"
There are several assumptions made in this question. The first assumption made, is that God actually does this. I'm not convinced that God does do this, because I'm not convinced that these things happen as described. I haven't seen any evidence for it. Granted, this website does not allow for very lengthy questions that could include evidence, but regardless, my point is that I see absolutely no reason to accept the question as asked.
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"Why did God only send Jesus to Palestine at one particular point in history? If God wants everybody to be saved, wouldn’t the gospel have spread a lot faster if he had sent Jesus to every place on earth in all time periods?"
Are you sure that God wants everyone to be saved? There are many Christian philosophers who do indeed claim that this is the case, but it seems to me that this concept contradicts scripture. John 12:39-40 (re Isaiah 6:8-10) For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, "HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM.
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"Did God have to be created? Why or why not?"
God was not created. If something is created, then it is necessarily temporal -- in other words, it changes over time. Specifically, it must begin to exist, and "beginning" is itself a temporal process. However, since the only things that are infinite are things that have no end, and since past time has ended, we can say with certainty that past time is not infinite, which means that past time had a beginning.
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