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Originally Posted by Yakk
What do you mean by "believe"?
Do you mean "I don't know what is in my kitchen right now, so I'll believe that if I enter or look into my kitchen I'll be eaten by an invisible rabid wolverine?"
I think that having that belief would be a pretty damn big deal. Note that there is no way to disprove this belief other than risking being eaten by a rabid wolverine -- there is no evidence that can be produced that would prevent an invisible from being in my kitchen, and be about to eat me.
So now I can't enter my kitchen.
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I don't get what the invisible rabid wolverine would be an explanation of. Furthermore, you should be able to understand the difference between speculation concerning what may or may not be in the kitchen and speculation concerning what may or may not occur after one dies. One is easily tested, the other is not. The difference is between believing in things that fly in the face of what would generally be expected and believing in things that exist solely in the context of the unexpectable.
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Such beliefs can cover everything. And it is not that hard to construct a belief that cannot be disproven -- "after I cease to exist, my undetectable soul will be judged by how many sinful women I have killed".
If a belief is fundamentally irrational, there is no way it can be addressed or disproven using rationality. No evidence can be provided that contradicts it. No arguement can be made against it.
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I know. Again, if you think that an effective rebuttal of faith can be administered by pointing out how unscientific that faith is you might save yourself sometime and not bother.
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Our existence rational, it is just increadibly complex. There are some parts of it that resist being reduced -- but they are almost always bounded within a set of rational bounds. These bounds on human behaviour can be checked, studied, examined, and used to predict what is and isn't reasonable.
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Science is at the mercy of reality, when it comes to viable modeling, not the other way around. So far, in terms of many of the things that theism/spirituality seek to address, reality hasn't been very submissive to the needs of science.
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Rational does not mean perfect, correct or predictable.
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So then why isn't theistic belief rational?
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Neither am I -- but I know that "athiest" is a position about the existance of god, not a position about the supremacy of rationality in all modes of human behaviour. As such, claiming that the supremacy of rationality is a seperate, larger arguement than athiesm seems pretty damn reasonable. :P~~
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It depends on the grounds the atheist in question uses to justify the dismissal of theism. If theism is dismissed on the grounds that it is irrational, than the supremacy of rationality must be essential to the atheist identity for that particular atheist.
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Have you met most Christians? Just curious!
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I haven't met them all, which is why i like to qualify my statements about christianity and christians as such. I am continually amazed how those who profess such a fondness for the exacting theories of science can't seem to wrap their heads around the notion that there is no such thing as a prototypical christian in terms of ideology or practice. Christians believe in christ as a messiah, beyond that, they're pretty diverse.
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Or he's argueing that the lack of scientific justifiability should be a reason why you shouldn't put much stock in religions. By putting forward that position, it is possible that more people will agree with his measure of meaning. They are likely to teach their children, friends and aquantances this measure of meaning. Some of them might be swayed.
It could be that Dawkins realizes that there are people who are lost causes, who are so heavily indocerinated that they are immune to his arguements. And maybe he's fine with that -- you can never convince everyone. But that doesn't mean he has to tolerate their stupidity or coddle them.
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Sounds downright evangelical. This isn't much of a rebuttal to what i said. It's more just a moderately ethnocentric, historically ignorant rephrasing. Do you really think theists are all stupid, and that not telling them that they are stupid amounts to coddling them? I hope you're not one of those people who wonders why atheists get such a bad rap?
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Rational doesn't mean right. Rational doesn't mean infallible.
I can come up with situations where it is Rational do believe something that isn't actually true.
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I agree with you. In the context of a less than reasonable existence, it might be rational to believe in things that aren't "true" in the scientific sense.
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Neither of these are strictly religion based. Yet strangely there is a huge correlation between gay marriage and stem cell opposition and being more fundamentalist.
It could be a third factor causing the correlation. Can you think of one?
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There is also a huge correlation between support for gay marriage and stem cell research and being a liberal christian. Apparently the correlation is more one of progressiveness than theism.