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Originally Posted by filtherton
I don't think this is true at all. From what I've seen, most theist on atheist conversations result in anger on the part of all involved, and the anger has less to do with who was right than with the fact that conversations like that tend to bring out the inner douchebag. There is no shortage of misplaced smug self righteousness on either side of the debate.
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Quite literally two people speaking different languages - much like the example I quoted above. It is frustrating for both parties, but the mystic has no recourse when "faith" is the basis of their conversation.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
What you're claiming seems to me to be more like rationalization, perhaps a tad self serving) of the communication problems inherent between two fundamentally divergent perspectives. Cognitive dissonance would only come into play if the theist in question believed that faith and reason weren't compatible. Some theists do some theists don't.
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One cannot choose reason when it is convenient to do so and ignore it when mystic claims fit. Even if some theists try to make reason compatible with faith - it does not make it so. The fact that some may "believe" they are compatible has no bearing on whether they actually are.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
And as far as Ayn Rand and reason vs. brutality, didn't one of the protagonists in The Fountainhead rape on of the other protagonists into loving him? Isn't her version of a free market utopia based on the rich, intelligent, strong people (I guess for her these words are synonyms) force the stupid, slovenly, poor folk to submit?
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Trying to invalidate all of what is found in
The Fountainhead because Roark and Dominique had a complex relationship that requires a grasp of reason to understand does not make any of the ideas presented there any less true and is itself and escape from reason. And no idea from the book represents a free market that has anything to do with forcing anyone to do anything. In fact it is the exact opposite. Reading it may help, but I suspect not.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
Aside from that, I think it is generally a stretch to claim that men ever really deal with one another from a basis of pure reason.
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I do. It is my only way.