Okay, trying again.
Terry
The __method__reason employs is LOGIC--and logic is the art of NON-CONTRADICTORY measurement.
Maybe you could define it that way, but I studied logic while doing my maths degree, and the idea of non-contradictory measurement only really applies to maths. If you get a contradictory result in a maths problem, then your premise is wrong or your deductive process is wrong, and you know it. When applied to words and ideas, however, you can't pin them down to start with, nor anywhere in the process, nor measure the outcome. How do you measure an idea?
Also, 1=1, but words have infinite definitions and nuances, one for each person really, although we struggle and struggle to match them so we can understand each other. And, as Descartes pointed out, ideas can change in midstream, without you even noticing it. Because of this, I do not believe that logic is the final answer to giving us reality. It is merely a tool, a very useful one, but not infallible because the users are not infallible.
Logic is also limited because it is never a closed system. This has been mathematically proven, and what it means is that logic cannot, logically, ever give us reality. Whatever we establish logically is established within an incomplete logical system. It is all provisional, and when the logical system expands, some things will always be found to have been contradictory in the larger system that were non-contradictory in the small system, and vice versa. Flatland showed this beautifully.
acquiring knowledge. The rejection of reason leads to men acting REGARDLESS of the facts of reality.
Different people have different perceptions, and logic cannot make up that shortfall. We don't have the facts of reality, and we never will. The FACTS that are provided by scientists still stem, originally, from perceptions of scientists, who are people. Behind those perceptions are also assumptions. Scientific logic is as inherently limited and vulnerable to invalid premises as anyone else's, because of the nature of both logic and human nature.
BELIEF is blind acceptance of propositions without regard to evidence.
It's not at all clear to me what belief is, and what is the relationship between knowledge and belief. Yet what I see in believers is that they often believe based on evidence, but it is the evidence of their own experiences and perceptions and feelings. I think it is rather disrespectful to invalidate this as any kind of evidence. Isn't it enough to say that this is not good enough evidence for you to base your own beliefs on?
Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, 1911]
LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. (Ambrose Bierce)