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Moved to CCC - since it’s about a column.
ATMB > CCC
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Let me fix that for you:
There, that’s better…
blasphemer!!!
NOpe–that’s a universal.
So you are confirming that Cecil has no sex life?
Well, given that he was a bishop, I’m going to guess that he’s Catholic, too.
This also, incidentally, resolves the old question about how it’s physically possible to deliver all those presents: The Clauses are, of course, immortal, and they’re also Catholic, so between those two facts, the Clause population has been growing faster than the population of the planet as a whole. It’s not just Santa delivering the presents, but it is still all in the family.
The Patriarch of Constantinople would like a word with you.
We know Santa ain’t JW. In fact, he reportedly punched their ancient hero* in the nose at Nicea. Which, of course, wasn’t nice- a.
*Arius.
Not if, like 95% of English-speaking people, you mean “Roman Catholic” by that. He was Eastern.
I am SO GLAD that stereotype is untrue.
Certainly they can be rational and intelligent in most areas, but there is still a gaping hole of irrationality in their understanding of reality.
As a note on the OP, as an atheist I have no problem casually using idioms such as “God’s creatures,” “God help us,” “oh my God,” “God damn” and so on. I don’t think it implies anything about my beliefs, they’re just common English expressions.
Meh. Atheists like you are ruining atheism.
Really. Claiming to have cornered the market on reality is more than a tiny bit of hubris.
I didn’t make any claims about reality. I was just saying that in general, religious beliefs (which concern facts about the world) are not rational. They are unsupported claims, and to believe an unsupported claim is irrational.
If people applied the same type of reasoning to areas of life that are not (by mainstream modern standards) considered part of religion, such as biological functions, planetary movement and so on, these people would certainly not be “intelligent, rational, well-educated, and erudite”.
There is only one reality-you either have it, or you don’t.
There are many ways that you can have faith in something without having peer-reviewed studies supporting it. Much of science is still unproven on some level. Things that are well established are regarded as such and things that seem to be true but are not proven beyond all doubt are understood to be open to further inquiry.
Relativity for example is still a theory not a proven fact. However it seems to provide useful predictions about the way the universe works so it is provisionally accepted as fact - provisionally accepted.
So what you have really is a continuity of belief that ranges from things that virtually everyone agrees are fact to things that seem to describe reality but may not to things that no one can ever be sure about. It’s a continuum and religion happens to fall at one end of it. If my believing in relativity doesn’t make me irrational, then why should any religious belief? Both are subject to debate, it’s just that one happens to have substantially more empirical evidence to support it.
But if I lived in the 14th century and believed in relativity, I would have been considered irrational. If I had lived in the 11th century BC and didn’t believe in my local gods, I would have been considered irrational.
You seem to be saying that in the absence of absolute certainty all guesses are equally valid. This is nonsense. Absolute certainty and 100% agreement do not exist. Peer-reviewed studies are not the only type of evidence, they are just a little more reliable than other types. The rational way to make decisions is to first gather all available evidence. Hopefully, the evidence points toward a particular conclusion. Sometimes the evidence is not sufficient to draw any conclusion at all. My key point is, your degree of certainty should be directly related to the amount and quality of evidence available.
Very few religious people can claim they have applied any sort of decision making algorithm to their beliefs, given that their core beliefs have not changed since early childhood.
I don’t think there was any evidence or logical reason to support relativity in the 14th century. Unless you somehow had come up with such a reason, it would have been an irrational belief that turned out to be a lucky guess (kind of like the ancient Greek Atomists).
In the 11th century BC I’m sure they would have considered you crazy and wrong, but I doubt they had a concept of rationality as we understand it. Then again, it’s possible that based on the evidence available to you at that time that believing in the local gods would have been the most rational thing to do.
The point is that having a belief that is not supported by peer-reviewed evidence doesn’t make the person holding that belief irrational. The appropriate criteria for deciding if someone is irrational in general is whether or not they act in a way that is inconsistent with available evidence.
I would agree that some groups such as creationists would probably fit this definition since they seem to ignore all evidence inconsistent with their beliefs. But even a creationist who compartmentalized these beliefs would not be irrational as long as they act in a rational manner.
And btw, some people do have an empirical basis for their beliefs - it just happens to be based on personal experience and is not subject to rigorous study. That in no way makes them mental cases.
No one has any idea what the ultimate reality might be - and that is true by definition. So having one belief or another about something that is by definition beyond the reach of empiricism says nothing whatsoever about their general level of rationality.
Something I should have included:
You can have empirical evidence for something that is non-empirical. All that means is that you have had one or more experiences that lead you to certain beliefs. Empiricism is based on observation by individuals. An individual observation that cannot be replicated is still an observation and therefore still in essence empirical. I can try to specify which kind of empirical evidence I mean in any given case if that would be less confusing.
I think we disagree about the meaning of rational, or are using it in different ways. My underlying point is that having a STRONG belief that is not supported by ANY evidence (or shaky/inconclusive/anecdotal evidence) is irrational.
What definition are you referring to? The point of all science is to study reality, I’m not sure what makes reality “ultimate”.
I would say that any belief not supported by reproducible evidence is non-rational and not irrational. That is a big difference in my book. Irrational implies that something is contrary to established belief and knowledge.
Here is the definition from Merriam Webster. While it might be technically accurate to call religious beliefs in general irrational, the fact of the matter is that this word has very negative connotations that do not apply in this case.
Take for example the primary definition:
It’s not appropriate to say someone with a religious belief lacks the usual or normal mental clarity or coherence. If that were true then you would have to say that the lunatics are running the asylum. And although there are times I might agree with this, I think we have to recognize that this simply isn’t true.
If we limit the use of the word to the belief itself, as I said, this may be technically accurate but since the word has such negative connotations we should distinguish between irrational and non-rational.
edit - oh, and ultimate in the sense of metaphysical - beyond the physical (quick edit to catch window).