From the APA: is faith a virtue?

In one word... YES! The inane and irrational choice of religious dogma over reason, science and the body of knowledge built by mankind throughout history is holding back the progress of our civilization. The Catholic church has branded intellectuals as heretics, stifling the most progressive innovators in history. Most organized religions suppress learning, innovation and questioning in all their forms. Indeed in all the Bible, there are no references to learning or education. Check any concordance to verify this! Verily I say unto thee, read, learn, question and think... and you'll run as fast as you can away from religious indoctrination, myth and brainwashing and toward rationality, thought and the comfort of knowing your world view is based on reality and man's best system for deriving truth and substance, the scientific method!

RELIGION FAILS, SCIENCE PREVAILS!

Darwin was a keen observer and theorist and his theory is PROVEN beyond a shadow of a doubt. The only reason it is still called a theory is because it can't be proven in the same way a mathematical theorem can. That is a problem with semantics, NOT the science!

photojack wrote:"Most organized religions suppress learning, innovation and questioning in all their forms. Indeed in all the Bible, there are no references to learning or education. Check any concordance to verify this!"

Um, try actually reading the book. Or search an online Bible. Just because you didn't find the words "education" or "learning" in the concordance doesn't mean that acquiring of knowledge is not promoted in the Bible. It is. Here, for example, is the first proverb of Solomon:

For attaining wisdom and discipline;
for understanding words of insight;
for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life,
doing what is right and just and fair;
for giving prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the young-
let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance-
for understanding proverbs and parables,
the sayings and riddles of the wise.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

And again:
A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.
The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,
but the mouth of the fool gushes folly...
The lips of the wise spread knowledge;
not so the hearts of fools.

In fact, most of Solomon's proverbs are about the importance of knowledge and wisdom (the application of knowledge). He says they are more precious than gold and silver. In the book of Hosea, God reviles the priests because they lack knowledge "Because you have rejected knowledge," he tells them, "I also reject you as my priests..."

Jesus, for his part, describes a process of reason that will lead to the discovery of truth—judging things by the fruits they produce, weighing the evidence for something. This application of reason requires knowledge and wisdom. He also rebukes the priests for "taking away the key to knowledge." His disciples had occasion for reproaching religionists for zeal that was not "according to knowledge." The Apostle Paul was a learned man. So much so that he was accused by the Roman Governor Festus of being driven insane by his learning.

Muhammad, as a matter of record, exhorted his followers to go to the ends of the earth if necessary to acquire knowledge. As a result when the Christian crusaders came to Muslim lands, they found huge libraries and institutions of learning ... which, at the behest of their religious leaders, they set ablaze.

That's three down. Here's one more: "Man is the supreme Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess. ... The Great Being saith: Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom…." — Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, p 269

It's manifestly true that current sects of the various religions are anti-intellectual. But that's not because of the scriptural record, it's in spite of it. Does that surprise you?

Psychiatrist H.B. Danesh writes: "Religious fundamentalism ... promises cure without pain, salvation without effort, illumination without knowledge, and victory without sacrifice. It is the naive expression of religion in a materialistic society. ...The leaders of such fundamentalist groups ... aim at keeping the masses ignorant and frightened. ...These approaches to religion represent the most glaring rejection of the reality of religion."

By their fruit you will recognize them...
Fundamentalism is not an "aberration". These guys just forgot to migrate to better defensible positions like the major organized religions did. Their positions were christian (and mainstream sunni/shia, too) positions two hundred years ago. That's what makes it so difficult to argue with them for members of the tamed religious mainstream: They share not only the holy scriptures, and believe in them unerringly, they share thousands of years of unbroken religious history... during which the leading guys preferred to
aim at keeping the masses ignorant and frightened.
And, one might add, poor. But paupers are (pun intended) poor customers. Emerging trade and capitalism with their hunger for profit and ergo markets have done more for human rights and mass education in 250 years than monolithic religions in thousands of years when they had unchallenged say. I don't deny the two-sided face of rationality and enlightenment that is the result of this strange alliance. But religions have never moved by themselves. All those friendly people today who don't intend to send their infidel neighbors to hell - they did not reach this tolerant position because their bishops, imams, rabbis etc. were enlightened, but because they had to accommodate. Take the position towards slavery in your own country, with the North wagering on wage labor, thus developing markets for industrial goods, while unindustrialized southerners feared for the prizes of their agricultural products if they'd have to cope with wage-costs...
You can explain the result of this conflict as a victory for humanitarian ideas or as the expansion of capitalist markets. But, as it looks, the idea with the more or better guns and economy wins...
And, as an aside - where did you get the bit about burnt libraries during the crusades? No doubt the crusaders were in general less cultivated than their opponents, and behaved in an inexcusable way, but library burning?
Could it be that you mistake it with Caliph Omar's order (642 ) that the remaining books of the famous library of Alexandria be used to heat the public baths? Because
"they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous" (see Al Quifti, Al Makritzi, Ibn Khaldun).
Historians agree that this was just the last act of devastation, after Caesar's and a christian mob's attempts...
As I said, Mathew 7:16

Emerging trade and capitalism are not new phenomena--the 12th century in China saw the first breath of capitalism and your much-derided dar-al-Islam saw an enormous growth in trade and learning. If you're going to smear a religion for doing something wrong, then at least point out that the Muslims did amazing things in optics and mathematics, medicine and agronomy and that it was directly related to holding a book (and therefore writing) as sacred. We shouldn't pretend that the religious world of the past was some kind of Dark Ages caricature, because it's a soft bigotry and it promotes the idea that we modern peoples have nothing to learn from history.

I wonder, do you consider the burning of the Library of Alexandria to be worse than the bombing of Dresden or of Nagasaki? In my mind, there are enough nasty mistakes made in the modern era to make me distrustful of arguments that are based on flashy incidents in past ones.

I am a big believer in that belief with evidence and reason is rationality and that belief without evidence is mere faith. I do think tho that there are a few cases anyway where this mere faith is most likely the most rational option. These involve situations where it is the faith itself that effect the outcome. Without question penicillin is better but for those who cannot get it it has been empirically shown that those who have faith in a placebo fare better than doubters. I think this also applies to the case mentioned with the injured skier and plenty of situations where having faith or confidence in oneself actually does cause one to perform better. I remember I decided at one point inmy life that I was going to become happier. I then made a leap of faith and in so doing, I did become appreciably happier.

Also various social institutions are largly based on faith and they work well enuf so long as people continue to have faith in them. Paper money, the general rule of law, and democracy may be examples of this kind of faith being rational. Again these work largely precisely because of the faith vested in them.

I think tho, the key with all of these that these theists, who talk about faith as a virtue, miss is that there is not any way that this kind of faith can have any effect on the existence of any deity. (I did read in a Thor comic book that Odin, Thor, and all that bunch derived their power from t faith and worship of the Asgardians and that now that so few mortals worship them any longer, Odin and crew are that much less powerful nowadays .) Unless theists are ready to admit that this is how it works, then they can not plead that their faith acts like faith does in those few exceptions that I mentioned and so they are back to faith being merely belief without good evidence, regardless of what they call it.

@ Elijah Meeks
1
I'm well aware that the Song Empire had trade capitalism structures, and we know how it ended. Like Angkor or Venice, habitually plundered by folks who did not understand how it worked. The birth of new economics seems to be preceded by a lot of miscarriages. I'm far from believing in "dark ages" and such stuff except for Europe between roughly 300 and 1100, and I've made clear on quite a few occasions that that dark age, in my opinion, was directly induced by the absolute rule of Catholicism/the pope over everybody in the region, including the diverse rulers. If an age is dark, I'll call it that way. I don't entertain the idea that everybody was stupid before "Steve Jobs invented apple". But history is a weird wrench at times, especially when looked upon on a global scale, and one can't reduce her on a linear basis. At least I won't do it.
2
In my discussion with kaath, she insisted that all major religions are fond of education and learning by quoting Salomon the wise, and quoting Jesus - for both of whom knowledge was not mundane science, but spiritual wisdom - and referring to the "learnedness" of - of all apostles - Paul. Being learned does not necessarily mean you want others to be as educated as you.
She further put out that Muhammad
exhorted his followers to go to the ends of the earth if necessary to acquire knowledge.
which indeed they did, acquiring a hoard of mathematics and applied sciences when they sacked Spain, especially the jewish community at Cordoba, and, more still, India. What we know as "Arabic Numbers" is correctly called "Hindi Numbers" in Arabic... But the scientific output of "dar al islam" over the last 400 years (when its expansion by conquer came to a halt) is pretty meager.
3
I replied to this idealistic picture of the three main Abrahamic religions, and questioned the idea that the crusaders were merely destructive when they retook Jerusalem - conquered 1067 by dar-el-islam - in 1099. After all, the returned knights inspired Gothics and brought hitherto unknown/suppressed Greek Philosophy to christendom - which laid the foundations for renaissance, reformation and, finally, trade, banking, and capitalism in Europe.
4
All this has brought us - you and me - a life expectancy of roughly twice as much as in Aquino's time, low child bed death rates, spectacles and cardiac pacemakers, MP3 players and net books. Abolition of slave labor, powerful machines, better working and sanitary conditions...
And the violent conversion of rural paupers to a "workforce", an intense plundering and exploitation of the Americas, India, China, and Africa for 150 years, in an intensity compared to which the Mongols and Moguls were mere rookies. Plus fascism, Stalin, Dresden and Hiroshima. My family's from Hamburg, where 40.000 died in a single RAF night raid...
5
All in all, not a very impressive account. But it laid the foundations for a global development. I'm Asia based, and I share the current expectations that the major Asian nations - India and China - will end the "christian" Euro/US predominance in the next 50 years. The world, then, will be a less Abrahamic and more Confucian and Taoist place, plus the cardiac pacemakers, antibiotics, and iTablets and headgear or whatever silicon valley dreams up next.

I noticed after making my own response that you were responding to Kaath on a specific count. All in all, I can't really argue with you, it seems like a generally decent appraisal of history, except on two counts:

1) You can't speak of the Catholic Church before Gregory II takes the Donation of Constantine to Pippin the Short and creates one in the 8th century. Before then, you had a polycentric Early Christian Church that (especially in its North African and Egyptian regions) more resembled Islam. Folks seem to forget that the Catholic Church only came into existence when the Holy Sees were conquered by the new Muslims, leaving only the one at Constantinople and in (the practically depopulated and crumbling) Rome.

2) I dislike the notion that the Muslims stole their fancy knowledge. Though the Hindus invented "Arabic" numbers and the zero, it was all the synthesis going on in Al-Andalus and Baghdad that created so much learning. And, regardless of the current crop of Talibani miscreants, a very large part of the reason for all this learning was the inherent legalism stemming from holding a book as sacred.

It'll be interesting to see China restored as the center of the world, won't it?

1) Your dating is much correcter than mine.
Just to be complete, said donation was a plain forgery, intended to assist Pope Stephen II in his dealings with Pippin the short, 754. It worked long enough. But L.de Valla's book "de falso credita..." (1440/ed 1518), proving the forgery is still on the index...
2) Well, everybody stole knowledge in those times - didn't I mention the crusaders and their effect on medieval immobility? What I was trying to demonstrate was that inherent tendency (of both islam and catholicism) to be content with matters as they are. The dynamics of early islam resulted in vast conquered areas, and the heydays of islamic science and culture were the places where islam met other developed cultures : caliphate of Cordoba (Jews & Christians), Baghdad (Persians) and Shahjahanabad (Hindu). But those heydays soon, after a century or two of bloom, came to an end - because holding a book sacred simply keeps you from writing another one, which might be heretic, and the general tendency towards one ultimate ruler (Amir) - the "pope-effect".
Often I think what really impeded islam's role as a cultural motor was their inability to get around Sure 3 : 130 (Riba) as elegantly as Jews and Christians around Exodus 22,24:25 and Leviticus 25, 36-37 - thus no banking of any importance until the 1970s... And musharaka, banks directly investing in enterprises is a far too slow and far too bureaucratic instrument...

Yes, it makes sense to judge teh Caliph Omar by his fruits. Meaning he may have called himself a Muslim, but his actions and ideas were distinctly in conflict with the teachings of his own faith.

I've made this point before and never having gotten a response will make it again: If someone claims to be a vegetarian and you see them down a porterhouse steak, do you think "Oh, vegetarians must eat meat now." or do you think, "Huh, Harry isn't really a vegetarian after all."

Here's an interesting point of information I came across in my studies. Most suicide bombers are not poor disenfranchised or under-educated folks. They are usually well-educated and may have come to their radical beliefs late in life.
Anthropologist Scott Atran, who has worked in the area of terrorism and its causes for some years, notes science education is a strong positive predictor (the most representative educational categories of suicide bomber - a finding independently confirmed by Oxford sociologist Diego Gambetta- are engineer and physician, be it for Al Qaeda or Hamas)."

Exposure to religion and indoctrination into religious belief is certainly a strong indicator with regard to suicide bombers. Whether or not it makes sense to regard suicide bombers as "real" Muslims is a distraction – and one that, I think, atheists are ill-advised in getting involved in. It is debatable whether it is even coherent to talk about "real Christians" or "real Muslims". If you want to talk about exposure to things and causes we can similarly view religion in these terms. We can look at what happens when people are exposed to religion, and when they are indoctrinated into it. Some of them blow people up, regardless of how we classify them when they have done it.

To someone who thinks that religion is an insight into truth, the violence done by those indoctrinated into religion may be tolerable. After all, if someone blew himself up because Australia has kangaroos in it, we would hardly condemn the belief that kangaroos live in Australia. We could hardly expect everyone to pretend otherwise to stop terrorism. The belief that kangaroos live in Australia has some value by being true, that offsets any occasional act of madness associated with it. Someone may occasionally kill himself putting together a piece of flat-pack furniture, even with good instructions - but we accept that such instructions generally have some value if they are "true".

To someone who thinks religion is fantasy, however, this would be a pointless argument. Such a person merely sees acts of madness being caused by the promotion of a set of beliefs (regardless of what we call people who have those beliefs), and the beliefs themselves do not even have the one thing - truth - that might give them some value.

Even worse, some of these beliefs tend to involve the worst kinds of bigotry - just the kind of thing to make them dangerous and, to anyone who rejects religion, these beliefs all must involve compromised critical thinking, meaning that the demands that can be made of believers need not be limited by what is sensible.

Someone may promote kindness and love as part of a religion, but to a non-believer like myself, this can only be done in the first place by promoting flawed ways of thinking for the religion to be portrayed as rational – and if anyone runs with that flawed critical thinking and decides that God wants all the heathens to die, the peace and love advocate is not innocent. As an example:

Suppose I happen to be a nice person and I believe that William Lane Craig’s Kalam cosmological argument is a proof of God (I don’t, by the way – I think it is nonsense.) I tell people this.
50 years later, someone who was influenced indirectly by my support of the Kalam cosmological argument decides that (a) there is a God (b) he wants all non-believers killed. He then acts on this.
I just killed a lot of people – and I did not promote any hatred. All I promoted was bad philosophy. I am responsible because what I was doing – promoting defective critical thinking – was asking for trouble. I was providing the means for someone to project any hatred they wanted onto some imaginary being – and to use my words to make it more convincing.

If someone came to burn my house down because the earth is round, I would be very angry, but I would not be angry about the whole “the world is round” position per se. On the other hand, if someone came to burn my house down because everyone on my street had started to believe that smurfs are real and talk to people in dreams, I would want to meet the person putting such dangerous nonsense around. I would not care about what a true smurfist was. There may be a smurfist on my street who is preaching that the smurfs want peace or love: I would still find him partly culpable for any damage to my house, because he would be helping to damage the critical thinking of others. He would be helping to promote the idea that we should take smurfs in dreams seriously - and that makes him culpable for what everyone else's smurfs say too. At the very least, he would be guilty of philosophical incompetence.

The Caliph of Muslims, ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab may be a controversial figure between Sunni and Shi'a, but not because of the Alexandria library bit, it's more to do with his alleged "usurpation of Ali's right to the Caliphate". To Sunni he is the second rightly guided caliph. I did not find a single muslim voice accusing him of infidel behavior towards books, au contraire.
Even Hamas, in their Charta, refer to his fatwa that all palestine is a Waqf...
So, your interpretation is a bit singular.
To correct your porterhouse steak scenario: If you saw the Dalai Lama kill a mosquito in public ( which I'm sure he wouldn't, but let's pretend), you'd think that he's not as serious about not taking life as he claims to be. Maybe that would even render him a bad buddhist. But firstly it would mean that not taking life is not very important for him.
If all books were sacred, a Rushdee fatwa would be impossible.

I found Gambetta and Hertog's "Why are there so many Engineers among Islamic Radicals?"
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/browseFreeContent - end of the list.
really very interesting, especially as they aptly demonstrate the role of the conservative/religious mindset that is over-represented amongst engineers and engineering students world-wide, combined with a severe lack of professional opportunities in most islamic countries (exemption: Saudi Arabia), which, they suggest, led to islamist radicalization
But I doubt your generalization on all suicide-vest-carriers :
"That engineers are mainly sought for their ability to fill technical roles is also refuted by the case of Hamas where many engineers serve in senior management positions with no technical function (while many Hamas suicide bombers pursued religious degrees)" [p.214]