@thane16
The short answer is no, because reason and faith deal with entirely different things. This is despite the fact that many of the earliest profound insights for what we now call science (which is reason’s greatest achievement) were made in monasteries. But to William of Occam, the existence of God was not an assumption. His razor is still a damned handy tool though.
The slightly more succinct answer is that your teacher is an idiot who came up with what sounds like a clever question, but is mere wordplay not even attaining the patina of sophistry. But you know that already, and if you don’t your mum sure as hell does.
As a guiding principle (and as I imagine you realise), rational argument requires a minimum of two things:
- A valid chain of logic in which each link is sound;
- A sound premise.
If any link or the premise is unsound, the entire argument falls.
You could make an argument that the question, as posited, cannot meaningfully be answered because it is impossible to come up with a sound premise that does not (one way or the other) assume its own conclusion (ie which begs the question).
You could then bullshit for as many pages as you need about what form a better and more meaningful question might take. That is, after all, 99.99recurring percent of philosophy. So you might as well follow @bluesqueakpip‘s leads, even if she thinks that evolutionists believe in design (they don’t) and that physicist are unaware of the possibility of something prior to Big Bang (they aren’t, and are quite comfortable with the idea that there might be). Chuck a bit of Popper in for good measure. He’s always good for stirring up the wishy-washy liberals.
