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Jack comments on Thwarting a Catholic conversion? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Of the branches of Christianity, and perhaps of all religions, Catholicism has the most developed theology, the most rigorous set of justifications for belief, the longest intellectual tradition and tries the hardest to be convivial with reason. Other branches and other religions would be a lot more surprising (unless you're counting Quakers and Unitarians, for which religion has very little to do with "belief" as we understand it here.) Especially for a self-described virtue ethicist.
I think you're forgetting about Orthodox Jews, who have the Catholics beat on pretty much all counts (age, complexity, and at least arguably "reason"). Of course, it's all mere rationalization -- the bottom line has already been written. And the Orthodox tend to reason within their framework rather than trying to justify their framework to outsiders, presumably because they're not seeking converts.
Catholicism has probably spent a heck of a lot more money on complex proselytizing than Orthodox Judaism. Also Catholics were competing with the Protestants - rabbis have no real competition, since their only audience is Orthodox Jews. But mostly, my point is just that there's this huge, worldwide organized Church that has spent who knows how many equivalent billions of dollars on theology. It's amazing how little they've accomplished, really, given how much they've spent and how many geniuses it wasted (theology was the string theory of its day), but they still did end up with something. Probably an equivalent amount of raw genius, if not money, was wasted on Orthodox Judaic halacha, but in a much less competitive, outside-world-facing way.
The remarkable thing about halacha is that an effective legal system grew out of it. When Jews in Europe didn't have access to the mainstream legal system, rabbinical courts worked well enough.
Even a broken clock...
+1
I don't think inventing incredibly convoluted ways to rationalize a bottom line is trying to be "convivial with reason". In fact, it's the exact opposite.
I didn't say it wasn't a religion.
"Convivial with" doesn't mean "conforms to the prescriptions of". One way to be convivial with reason is to invent convoluted rationalizations so that reason hums along happily without realizing that it's being thwarted.
Is your background Catholic? Asking because although I haven't delved in depth into 'justifications for belief' of various religions recently (I stopped shopping around for a religion 16-17 years ago), I don't remember Catholic justifications as being particularly stronger than that of the others I was reading up about (Islam/Buddhism/Hinduism).
There is a base level scaffolding here called A. A is based on shaky assumptions and essentially a choice to 'believe' in something, and nothing else. People standing on A refuse to look below it, or question why/how it came about, but instead they build these fabulous castles and really intricate structures, the supports and beams for which they easily carve out of A -- since nobody is going to think about how A came to be, or what supports it, we can just have it give us more pillars and beams for the next floor of the castle. Let's build as many floors, as we want.
I do not see this as rigour, or worthy of any merit.
What you're talking about has more to do with the typical person's relationship to their religion than belief. (Or "belief")