Faith and Athiesm, Emotion and Reason

"Imagination is more important that knowledge. Knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world." - Albert Einstein

Why I am Agnostic

Prominent atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins offers up a picture a society that is based on evidence alone and is void of faith. On this specifically, I must disagree. Faith is so fundamental for human beings and acts as a medium for far more good than evil. It is the evil, and only the evil, that is publicised for its sensationalism. His vision of society strikes me for that reason as rather bleak. Faith without evidence is far too linked to the trust we give each other as citizens every day.
Science must always take priority, I think it is more inspiring to see scientific discovery as an act of worship: to honor God's work by understanding it in full. The only two times I could ever think of moral reasons to draw limits to science, would be experimentation without purpose. It is not at all imperial, and experimentation for its own sake the use of animals in ways many have not yet even encountered

When the social sciences (which have to include economics {human nature, money, and logic}) use imperial methods, they often choose to ignore culture and context for the sake of simplicity. Context and culture are inconvenient for imperial methods, but ignoring them renders obsolete the method's practical intentions.

Emotion and Reason

Classically in politics, liberalism has focused on reason to give an optimistic view of human nature, conservatism has focused on emotion to give a pessimistic view of human nature. I should say that emotion and reason (used at the appropriate times for the right things) give reason for optimism.

Importantly, emotion does not have to be just viewed as just some hindrance to reason. Trust, creativity, and faith are all born of emotion, it's what separates the human from the machine. Imagination is fundamentally irrational when in the right light. The single most iconic TED speaker, Ken Robinson, stressed that one cannot exercise creativity if there is a persisting fear of making a mistake. You cannot help but take risks in the creative process, it is born of emotion. If you want to exercise true creativity, you must rid yourself of any fear of making a mess, or being mistaken.

Reason, importantly, puts crucial limits in place. History shows time and time again that actions and votes made out of fear are both irrational and harmful to a society. It cannot be allowed to happen. Voters, thankfully, appear to appreciate optimism in candidates for office- except when times are down. In Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill voters appreciated figures who were down to earth and could 'tell it like it is.' In both cases the trust of the electorate was worth it. But even when a society is hindering on economic disaster, with our modern elections, I have seen the votes goes to the optimist.