Many Atheists are not Rational

[the_antithesis]

Many Athiest are not rational.

So what?

[Sal1981]

sure, but striking supernatural belief out from the bucketlist certainly has its benefits, logically speaking.

[leo]

I do not believe in signs.  Maybe that's why I keep going into the ladies room.

How often do you crap and fart?

[Givemeareason]

I do not believe in signs.  Maybe that's why I keep going into the ladies room.

Yeh that's the ticket!  I will try that on the bouncer next time.  I will claim he is obstructing my freedom of religion!!

[Brian37]

"atheist" merely means "off, or "empty" on god claims. It does not describe anything outside that position. It says nothing about education level, or economic view, or political views. It is not a religion, political party, economic view, loyalty oath or even a moral code. It merely means "off" or "empty".

I certainly don't agree with Ayn Rand "fuck you I got mine" economics. But I am also no fan of Che "rid a planet of 7 billion of the private sector" as if you could. I also know other atheists who have their own conspiracy crap like 9/11 or JFK.

Atheist is not a patent holder of our species morality either. Having said that, I do get down on those who stupidly think the traditions of antiquity or the religions of antiquity are patent holders either. NO, sorry, our planet was around long before humans. The meteor that killed the dinosaurs didn't stop and ask what dinosaurs believed or what their morality was. In the future our species will go extinct and there will be no record of either the atheist or theist or the positions we hold. The universe was fine before we existed and will continue on long after the planet and our sun dies.

I see nothing wrong with humans giving up on the past and bad ideas rooted in superstition and mythology. No that is NOT  call to force religion out of existence. Just a simple statement of we have better tools to measure the nature of reality and if we decide to move forward, we tend to progress.

I hate my well intended friends on the left who rightfully say "we are all capable of being good regardless of label", I AGREE. That should tell liberal and moderate believers worldwide of all religions, that the morality is not in the book itself, but in our common evolution..

Victor Stenger's "The New Atheism" makes this case in it's later chapters. Combine that with Dawkins "God Delusion" neither amount to calls for a fascist atheist world, but a simple recognition of the psychology as to why humans gap fill and end up creating religion at all. No different than saying the earth revolves around the sun.

[Solitary]

Great post Brian!  Solitary

[trdsf]

Having cogitated a while, I have come to the opinion that the subject makes no sense.  Of course many atheists are not rational.  Many--probably most--humans are not rational, and unless someone's planning on coming out of the saucer, or has a trick for reading animals' minds, I feel pretty comfortable in stating that all atheists are humans.  At least on this planet; I can't speak for any unknown civilizations out there.

I haven't seen anyone here claim to be perfectly rational at all times, and I haven't seen anyone claim that perfect rationality is the goal of atheism.

I have a couple phobias.  I'm afraid to visit California because I'm sure--on the basis of no evidence whatsoever--that there would be an earthquake, at which point I would levitate back to the geological stability of Ohio.  This is not a rational fear, I understand that it's not a rational fear, and I am therefore not 100% rational.  I do choose, however, to deal with it in a rational way: to wit, I have no plans to visit California.  Problem solved.  More to the point, problem solved rationally.  And you know?  I expect that if I were ever presented with a situation where I needed to go to California for some reason--for example, a complete collapse of literary taste in science fiction leading to me being nominated for a Hugo and Worldcon that year was being held in L.A.--I would actually probably go anyway.

Rationality is a process, not a state of being.  It's how you make sense of the world around you, figure out your place in it, and how you're going to react to it.

I might make further arguments that it's our ability to be irrational that makes music, art and humor all possible, but that's a philosophical thing that I really have no desire to get into.  I'll just float it as an idea rather than posit it as an actual theory of creativity.

Brian makes a great point about conspiracy theories; I believed in a few in the 70s, but they all eventually paled in comparison to the reality of what went on in the Watergate scandal.  I mean, if you tried to write that as a political thriller, you'd never get it published on the basis of it being far too ludicrous to ever happen... but it did.  And I have a sort of memory of letting go of the idea of a Loch Ness monster, mostly on the realization that if there was only one, it would have to be immortal since there's no breeding population.  Myth busted, right there.

Applying rationalism takes practice.  We're creatures that pattern-match so well, we can spot patterns that aren't actually there.  It was really useful for our ancestors half a million years ago to be able to take a faint noise, a half-glimpsed flicker of fur among the leaves, and a low growl that might have been more imagination than reality and go "Holy shit!" and scamper up a tree before being eaten by something.  This kind of hypersensitivity may no longer be a survival advantage, and certainly plays a role in the amount of irrationality in all our lives.  We're accustomed to believing our senses, so even if we glimpse something that's not objectively there, we're still sure we saw it.

This is being human.  We have to work with what we've evolved into.

[aitm]

Having cogitated a while,

WHOA THE FUCK WHOA!!!! WE DON'T FUCKING ALLOW THST COGITATING SHIT AROUND HERE….DO THAT AGAIN AND I WILL HAVE TO…ER……….ask somebody what the fuck it means…IN THE MEAN TIME NO FUCKING COGITATIN! GOT IT?

[trdsf]

WHOA THE FUCK WHOA!!!! WE DON'T FUCKING ALLOW THST COGITATING SHIT AROUND HERE….DO THAT AGAIN AND I WILL HAVE TO…ER……….ask somebody what the fuck it means…IN THE MEAN TIME NO FUCKING COGITATIN! GOT IT?

*cogitates about aitm*

[Jason78]

Many Athiest are not rational.

Who says I have to be rational?   

[Mike Cl]

Giveme is a real jerk.  He starts a thread, then walks away from it without commenting on the responses his post gets.  What is the point of starting a thread if the starter of the thread walks away from it with participating????  And he claims he wants to be a part of this board.  Really?  Act like it, then Giveme--do you giveashit?????

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Atheism is abnormal (you failed to respond to many retorts in that thread as well, remember) and now many atheists aren't rational.

Tell me, you say in your signature that you're shy and that you try to be kind, but surely this is pretence right?

Many atheists aren't rational. As anti says, so what? What's your point? You won't ever find someone here saying 'all atheists re rational'. So thanks for telling us something we already know.

yadda yadda atheists dismiss things yadda yadda . *yawn*

[GSOgymrat]

I get the impression that some people assume all atheists are like Dr. Beverly Hofstadter.

https://youtu.be/T2JyvheWwk0

Sigh, if only...

[Givemeareason]

Giveme is a real jerk.  He starts a thread, then walks away from it without commenting on the responses his post gets.  What is the point of starting a thread if the starter of the thread walks away from it with participating????  And he claims he wants to be a part of this board.  Really?  Act like it, then Giveme--do you giveashit?????

I am sorry, Mike.  I certainly can be a jerk but I don't mean to.  I cannot address every post under a thread I started but I do read them all.  This experience of being on a board is somewhat new for me.  I just got my smartphone a few months ago and it has been eye opening for me.  You in particular have helped me a couple times here.  Firstly by your correcting me that atheism is indeed profound.  And secondly by your observation that I am like an unfocused philosopher.  This entire experience here has engaged me in a great deal of thought which keeps expanding and is becoming ever more profound for me.

[Mike Cl]

I am sorry, Mike.  I certainly can be a jerk but I don't mean to.  I cannot address every post under a thread I started but I do read them all.  This experience of being on a board is somewhat new for me.  I just got my smartphone a few months ago and it has been eye opening for me.  You in particular have helped me a couple times here.  Firstly by your correcting me that atheism is indeed profound.  And secondly by your observation that I am like an unfocused philosopher.  This entire experience here has engaged me in a great deal of thought which keeps expanding and is becoming ever more profound for me.

I am happy for you.  You are about as far from profound for me as anybody can be.  How do you think you are 'engaged' here?  You don't explain a thing.  You don't sustain a thing.  You contribute nothing.  You are like a fart--cause a stink for a second and then fade away to nothing.