Chapter IX: Authority and the Adventurer Summary and Analysis

At this point, even if the value of the individual beliefs of the Christian religion have been proven, it has not yet been shown why one must accept the doctrines. In other words, even if it is good and useful to believe these things, it is not clear why one must accept them within the religious context in which they have been presented. The first and most obvious response to this is simply that it would not be intellectually honest to believe in these things without justification, and since their justification comes from religion, one must accept it as it is.

Critics of Catholicism and Christianity in general offer many arguments against the Church, often based on a number of small facts. This method, in general, is a valid one&mdash...