A theist has definitely embraced an irrational concept. It’s one of the requirements of theism. Believing in something supernatural with no evidence to speak for it is irrational.
An atheist may be less rational in specific cases, but being an atheist does not require irrational beliefs for membership in the club.
That’s what we do.
What is believing in something supernatural with sufficient evidence called?
I’ll let you know when it happens.
I’d be more prone to believe in the supernatural if there were any evidence at all for it. But unless you’ve dug up a god coprolite in your back yard I’m skeptical.
Believing in something with compelling evidence *is *rational. Religion, having no such advantage is not.
But they believe there is evidence. We may disagree that it is evidence, or that it’s good evidence. But they think it is. And so it’s perfectly rational. The problem is with the premises, not from the process to the conclusion.
No it hasn’t. You perceive it has become much stronger. See my post http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9676127&postcount=334
I perceive that anti-religion has become much stronger in the last few decades.
When you shake a tree the nuts fall out. The analogy is not meant to be derogatory.
So… You’re drawing a close parallel to fascism and ‘Holy Roller’, because both are trying to ‘exert their will’, only one uses guns and one uses words? If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t ‘college professor’ be close to fascist? They’re also trying to convince other people how to think by using words. Or perhaps ‘pundit’ should be there as well?
If you think that’s silly, that might lead you to realize that the key element missing with the ‘holy rollers’ is the use of FORCE on others. Everyone tries to convince others that their way is right. That doesn’t make them fascist.
So perhaps you would like to explain why a ‘Holy Roller’ is close to being fascist, whereas, say, a humanist liberal isn’t?
Why this distinction? What’s the difference between the ‘god-fearing’ and evangelicals? Why do the evangelicals need to be pushed in a category next to fascism?
You’re going to have to explain this better. You can be non-religious, yet ‘reverent’ to others? Reverence can be defined as either ‘godly’, or as ‘respectful’. Since you seemed to single out reverent from agnostic and athiest and such, is it your contention that athiests are not respectful of others? Is this why you think they’re the next closest thing to anarchism?
Again, I don’t think any of this makes any sense. You’re trying to build connections between religion and behaviour which just don’t exist.
I think it’s far more likely that people self-identify as ‘god-fearing’ because they adhere to the general notion of a god, but they don’t attend church because they don’t particularly care, don’t practice a religion, don’t pray, and in general behave like people who don’t believe in God.
I think this describes a very large proportion of society. It’s rare to meet someone in the general public who says that they don’t believe that there is a god, yet it’s also quite rare to meet someone who truly behaves as though there is a god who has given them commandments to follow. It’s just a hard thing psychologically for many people to come right out and say, “I don’t believe there’s a God - I’m just an animal, and when I die, I’m gone.”
Sure, but that doesn’t dictate whether someone will be good at Chemistry or not. The biggest example cited, whether people believe in Evolution or not is as hotly contested amongst the religious as it is between the religious and the non-religious. I am perfectly happy accepting Evolution as THE explanation until something better comes along. It makes sense as far as it goes.
There’s no club remember?
This is a bit of a numbers game. It seems like there are more irrational theists because there are more theists in general, so you are more likely to come across an irrational theist than an atheist rational or not, simply because they outnumber them by about 10-1, as theism generally is the default condition for most people. The game in that case is skewed by the number of people who would answer, “Christian”, on the census.
Yes, religion has definitely seen no resurgence in recent decades. People have a skewed idea of proportion because the Evangelical set became the deciding demographic in the last couple of elections. American religiosity as a whole is generally down, and even moreso in Europe.
We are getting to an answer to my question “How does the teeming masses belief in God make a large contribution to their rational thought?”
When logic and rational fails what do the teeming masses do? When the teeming masses have no time to carry on a debate in their minds what do they do? When the questions are such complexity that the answer is beyond the training of the teeming masses what do they do. You guys tell me. Some of the teeming masses run in circles scream and shout and they are in the minority, thank god. What do the rest do?
Among other problems - like ignoring the increasing power of religion in the federal government and the military - you seem to be confusing “Christian” with “religious”. Islam is a religion too, you know.
Apparently it’s not meant to be coherent either. What ?
Make wild guesses and screw themselves, or hurt others, or both. In no small part because they are so religious; basing your worldview on a lunatic, brutal mythology isn’t going to produce good judgement or moral behavior.
Screw up, if they base what they do on religion. Religion has a history of being utterly wrong, when it comes to anything involving the real world.
“Evangelical” in the theological sense, according to the Barna polling organization’s criteria:
All Barna Research studies define “evangelicals” as individuals who meet the born again criteria; say their faith is very important in their life today; believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians;
The line is how strongly they accept their personal responsibility and stupidly ignore the meaning of the word “share”. It seems I stepped on toes here. It was not my intention. I completely understand that there is a great gulf between Fascist and Holy roller and maybe adding a category of fanatic and extremist between them might assuage your concerns.
Fascist, fanatic, extremist Holy roller, God fearing, reverent, agnostic, non-Deist, Dibblist, atheist, extremist, fanatic, anarchist
Does to. Practically all religions proscribe a behavior that is expected to be part of the religion. And all categories along that graph are what I called a fervor index ranging from belief to non-belief.
Atheism by definition - as an explicit position, either affirms the nonexistence of gods[1] or rejects theism.[2] Affirm - To declare positively or firmly, declare is an action verb.
And the various sects of protestant, Judaism, or Islam differ by the behaviors expected.
Any organization that prohibits a behavior they consider crucial to their existence will not long survive.
This seems an oddly worded definition to me.
If this were true, it would be possible to identify anyone according to their denomination simply by watching their behavior. Aside from the matter of liturgical practice, I doubt that any such determination is possible. Regardless of religious belief (or lack thereof), the overwhelming majority of persons love their spouses and children, honor their parents, pay their taxes, put in their time at work, enjoy their leisure, and otherwise behave in pretty much the same way as their fellow humans. Do you have examples of Protestants behaving in remarkably different ways that Protestant of other denominations, Catholics, Jews, or Muslims?
Hmm, they cling desperately to some feel-good fantasy in order to sooth their anxieties?
But going back to the first sentence, logic and rationality (both are the same thing) don´t fail, they can be misused, abandoned or supresed. It´s like saying “what to do when maths fail?” when you add 2 plus 2 and you get 5, it´s not a failure of mathematics, the problem is you´re a dunce.
If I may nitpick myself, they are not exactly the same thing. Rationality is the aplication of logic.
They can fail; if you, for example, simply lack the data needed to reason something out; that seemed to be what he was getting at. At that point, you pretty much have to use trial and error, or take a guess.
He/she obviously wanted to say “They turn to religion!”. The problem is, religion isn’t a better solution than either wild guesses or trial and error; it’s worse. It’s a real world example of the old line that having no plan is better than a bad plan, because with no plan you might get lucky. Religion is so detached from reality, so full of nonsense about the world that following it pretty much guarantees disaster.
I still think that´s not a failure of the method itself, just as it´s not a failure of a car to function if you don´t put gas on it, or fill the tank with water. You fumbled, don´t blame the car.
I suppose I was thinking more in terms of “failure to achieve the goal”, rather than"failure to work properly". To go with your analogy, a failure of the car to work ( my meaning ), rather than a failure of the design of the car ( your meaning ).
My learning is deficient - what is a Dibblist? Does it have anything to do with CMOT Dibbler, and suspicious meat stuffed in wrappers?
If you are looking for a specifically religious assault on freedom, try the attacks on birth control, the call for movie censorship in the '30s, and the attack on Lenny Bruce, much of which came from him saying things that religious cops and prosecutors didn’t like.