Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Richard Dawkins is an atheist. Hardcore atheist.

filtherton · 02-10-2007, 09:09 PM

I can't help but think that atheists are merely people who didn't realize that they were nihilists until after they found a reason to live.

I think that dawkins misses the point. His whole point seems to be that religious folk are irrational. I'm a bit nonplussed. So what? I don't see the problem with abandoning the concrete standards of science on things for which science has nothing useful to say. Dawkins worships at the church of rationality, which is fine. It's just that i imagine that dawkins idealizes vulcans, and I think that it's a tad myopic.

I think that rationality isn't that important for a lot of things. It can be useful for a lot of things, but it can also be completely useless for a lot of things and even be detrimental for a lot of things. The ability to think rationally is useless without information and time to process that information. There are a whole lot of situations where there either isn't enough information or there isn't enough time to process that information. Anyone who thinks that they are a completely rational person isn't paying attention.

As far as i'm concerned, there is nothing wrong with a particular ideology provided it doesn't persist in the face of contradictory information. Now, i'm not a particularly religious person, and i find that there are many religious folk whose activities in the context of their religious beliefs are disgusting. That said, i do know that there are religious folk who have no problem integrating the discoveries of science into their world views.

I could never be an atheist though, at least not because of a commitment to logic and reason. I get too much benefit from being irrational. There are too many instances in my life of me benefiting from purposefully doing things that have no basis in rational thought.

02-10-2007, 09:09 PM	#46 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	I can't help but think that atheists are merely people who didn't realize that they were nihilists until after they found a reason to live. I think that dawkins misses the point. His whole point seems to be that religious folk are irrational. I'm a bit nonplussed. So what? I don't see the problem with abandoning the concrete standards of science on things for which science has nothing useful to say. Dawkins worships at the church of rationality, which is fine. It's just that i imagine that dawkins idealizes vulcans, and I think that it's a tad myopic. I think that rationality isn't that important for a lot of things. It can be useful for a lot of things, but it can also be completely useless for a lot of things and even be detrimental for a lot of things. The ability to think rationally is useless without information and time to process that information. There are a whole lot of situations where there either isn't enough information or there isn't enough time to process that information. Anyone who thinks that they are a completely rational person isn't paying attention. As far as i'm concerned, there is nothing wrong with a particular ideology provided it doesn't persist in the face of contradictory information. Now, i'm not a particularly religious person, and i find that there are many religious folk whose activities in the context of their religious beliefs are disgusting. That said, i do know that there are religious folk who have no problem integrating the discoveries of science into their world views. I could never be an atheist though, at least not because of a commitment to logic and reason. I get too much benefit from being irrational. There are too many instances in my life of me benefiting from purposefully doing things that have no basis in rational thought.