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
"What do Mormons believe? Do you consider them Christians?"
This depends on the definition of Christian. It also depends on your definition of Mormon. For "Mormon", I will take this word to mean a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), the largest and most missionary-oriented Mormon denomination in the world. If by "Christian" we mean someone who calls them self a Christian, then Mormons are definitely Christians, as they do consider themselves to be.
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"Do we have free will? Please explain."
Free-will has been defined in several different ways. Some would say that free-will is "the ability to do what we want to do". Under this definition, it's clear that we do have free-will, as all of us (at least on occasion) do what we want. However, another definition of free-will is "the ability to choose, or to choose otherwise". Free-will by this definition has been the subject of debate for centuries. We should note that the issue is not "can we choose?
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"What do you think of the book "The Godless Delusion" by Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley?"
The subtitle of "The Godless Delusion", released June 30th of 2010, is "A Catholic Challenge to Modern Atheism". Based on the subtitle, I was expecting that the book would attempt to make two cases: 1. Atheism is clearly false. 2. Roman Catholicism is clearly true. While reading the book, I quickly realized that making these two cases was not at all the intention of the authors. Rather, they were attempting to establish a different set of conclusions: 1.
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