Suprisingly, I almost always have to begin my debates with Christians by defending reason! That's right I spend paragraphs trying to prove that reasoning or thinking is better than just believing what you are told or what makes you feel good! I don't know who to blame for this - a bad school system or really stupid parents but unless a society agrees that thinking is good... well we really have problems!
Here's a quote from a messageboard demonstrating the standard Christian hatred of reason:
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And yet you willingly bury yourself in the cults of rationalism and scientism.
The greatest enemy of mankind was Descartes and his spurious dictum, "I think. Therefore I am." This rubbish has warped the world. There has been never been a discovery, a development, or a new idea that has been made only with reason. All discoveries, developments and ideas have their genesis in intuition. Einstein did not develop his Theory of Relativity through reason. He discovered it with intuition or, as some may term it 'imagination'. He developed that theory while riding a light beam. he fleshed it out and made it intelligible to others through logic but the discovery was made intuitively. Open your wings and fly. Know yourself as Divine. |
As ridiculous as this idiot sounds, he is much more mainstream than I would like to believe. Yes, there are millions of people out there who are not only indifferent to but actually hate reason.
THREE FORMS OF THINKING:
If you are faced with a decision you have one of three ways to come to a conclusion: Reason (thinking), Faith (consulting sacred texts) or Emotion (does it make you feel good).
Reason
Reason or Science is the act of critical thinking. Instead of believing what you are told - reason demands that you only accept claims that are well represented by facts, evidence and argument. Reason is the soldier that stands between the child of emotion and all the predatory hoaxes that want to steal your time and money. The child will believe anything as long as its fanciful and especially when it comes from the parents. This is why so many people are religious - the child was indoctrinated before the soldier (reason) developed. Reason is (should be) how adults solve disputes, science decides on theories and professionals conduct their business.
Faith
Faith is simply the gullible act of believing whatever you are told - either by your parents, your peers or books you've read. Faith means that you ignore evidence, arguments and facts to the contrary while holding onto beliefs that may have absolutely no basis in reality. People of Faith rarely believe everything and yet appear to have absolutely no standard with which to judge spiritual truth. A Protestant will not believe that Mary was assumed into heaven. A Muslim will not believe that Jesus was resurrected (or was killed for that matter). A Jew will not believe in either Mohammed or Jesus. A Buddhist does not believe that a race of giants lived on the planet in the past. The Mormon and the Muslim can point to each other's prophet as an obvious fraud but is apprarently incapable of using that critical thinking on his own religion. Christians puff up and believe that their unquestioning FAITH in Jesus is some sort of virtue but it is only the extremely gullible act of believing what their parents have indoctrinated them into as a child. Had this Christian's parents died before he was six - he should show the same pride in believing that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are real.
Feelings
Feelings is the third way to think. Feeling is a perfectly valid way to choose your hair color, a cute dress or how you want your apartment arranged but it is a completely invalid way of arriving at the truth. Something may feel right, it may feel absolutely wonderful and still be one of the biggest hoaxes in the world. As an example look at the adherents of the hundreds of cults around the world: Meier, Branch Davidian, Heaven's Gate, Jim Jones, Krishnas, Scientology, the Bhagwhan Shree Rajneesh, Ramtha, PBMA... all composed of hundreds if not thousands of followers who FEEL that the cult is right. These adherents are, of course, wrong as we can prove through REASON but these victims chose to follow their emotions rather than reason. Christians, including William Craig, use feelings to validate their religion and yet every adherent of every religion has at on time or another had a religious experience with his religion. Why is the Christian's experience more valid than a member of Santeria?
Often when Christians proudly announce their faith with accompanying contempt for reason - I will suggest that they suffer from "True Believer's Syndrome".
TRUE BELIEVER SYNDROME:
From http://skepdic.com/truebeliever.html. True-believer syndrome is an expression coined by M. Lamar Keene to describe an apparent cognitive disorder characterized by believing in the reality of paranormal or supernatural events after one has been presented overwhelming evidence that the event was fraudulently staged.... Keene believes... "no amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie."...Since by definition those suffering from true-believer syndrome are irrationally committed to their beliefs, there is no point in arguing with them. Evidence and logical argument mean nothing to them. Such people are by definition deluded in the psychiatric sense of the term: they believe what is false and are incapable of being persuaded by evidence and argument that their notions are in error.
This is a DISadvantageous, UNdesirable mindset and something we need to be on the watch for because "Wishful Thinking" will often push us into the mental disorder of "True Believer Syndrome". Many Christians simply do not care about facts or evidence, they have fully given themselves over to "True-Believer Syndrome" and are thoroughly immune to reason. Sometimes a Christian will proudly state this along with his overt hostility to reason and science.
The Difference between Science/Reason and Religion/Faith:
Faith and Reason are not equivalent, they are not even seperate. Faith and Reason are absolute opposites and cannot stand each other! When religion is in control it will seek to persecute science since science has this bad habit of revealing hoaxes. When science is in charge - it will seek to educate people out of the superstitious ignorance of religion.
Science/Reason praises intelligence.
Religion/Faith usually villifies intelligence.
Science/Reason requires the unbiased examination of facts and evidence in order to arrive at a conclusion. Old ideas are tested and questioned and new ideas may replace them.
Religion/Faith demands that the adherent sacrifice his brain to an ancient superstition and just believe what he's told no matter how ridiculous the statements are. Old ideas are tested and questioned by unfortunate fools who will either lose their heads or get kicked out of their church. Faith after all, is belief in the face of evidence to the contrary. Since reason is not involved - questioning is met with persecution or ostracism.
Science/Reason takes old data and information, creating new templates for potential scientific breakthroughs while challenging established scientific hypothesis. Science is the process of life... learning, growing and changing.
Religion/Faith... Old ideas are clung to like VooDoo dolls in the NASA space center. Ancient, ridiculous superstitions and myths are kept around with massive rationalizations explaining that the Great Zebulon really meant something different when he said that the Earth doesn't move and was placed on a sturdy foundation with the sky keeping the water out! When people want a better life by developing new medicines, governments and tolerances - those people are cheerfully slaughtered in a theocracy.
Science/Reason has brought us freedom, prosperity and technology.
Religion/Faith has only ever brought us oppression, dictatorship and poverty.
ARG: Science is Fallible:
This is an example of religious thinking - science is not a Pope or Bible, it is a method of reasoning! The process of scientific reasoning is learning and adapting, not pronouncing infallible dogma! It's just ASININE that religious people will note that an old antibiotic used for Leprosy is replaced by a new antibiotic and then point, screaming "Look, oh ye adherents to the god of science, your pope is errant in his pronunciation of the first anti-biotic and is therefore fallable. Ye have placed your faith in a fallacious god." To which science looks over at the guy covered in holy paint, shaking his rattles and asks - "What were YOU going to do? Drain some birds?" Science may make mistakes but that's part of the process. Religion is always wrong.
ARG: You cannot use Reason or Science on Religion:
Science is the act of reason and if we cannot use reason on Jehovah than we cannot use reason on anything! Really, if you're just going to shut off your reasoning and believe a pile of nonsense... why stop at Jehovah? Why not believe in all of earth's thousands of mythologies, I'm sure Tiamat of the Babylonians, Odin of the Norse and Osiris of the Egyptians cannot be understood with REASON. Reason is the soldier that stands between the child of emotion and the packs of predatory frauds and hoaxes waiting to take your time and money. So if you're just going to knock down the soldier of reason then why not dive in and believe in EVERYTHING? Go ahead and believe in herbal cures, psychic healers, ufo cults, The Urantia, mediums, reflexologists, fortune tellers and witch doctors? How about sending a blank check to JC Knight, check into the remains of the Branch Davidian and wonder whether maybe Joseph Smith's X-Ray vision 'could not be understood with REASON'?
Well - okay, let's say that we can't use reason on religion and we have a world filled with contradictory, superstitious, ritualized worship of all sorts of invisible, magic people handed down for generations. How could I, as a worshiper of Quetzacoatl get a job at a plant where the owner worships Odin?
Resolving Differences with Faith:
When groups of people have randomly accepted piles of unsupportable mythologies as reality what can we possibly use to resolve differences?
Resolving Differences with Reason:
This is the natural state of human to human interaction. We don't go to a court and demand that the Judge cannot preside because he doesn't automatically believe you (the INSIPID presuppostional apologetic found HERE.) We don't quote passages from ancient texts at the Judge - we provide these things called facts, evidence and argument. The Judge decides on the merits of the case based on the arguments. This is how humans normally decide on the veracity of claims. If you get an email claiming that a Nigerian dictator needed your bank account to launder his money, do you 1) accept it on FAITH, 2) consult ancient holy texts or 3) come to a conclusion based on facts, evidence and information? Obviously you should test the veracity of all claims using reason.
ARGUMENT TURNERS:
Sometimes Christians will try to 'turn the argument' in order to avoid a question or to somehow equivocate positions. Here are some common (and idiotic) arguments used by 'argument turners'.
ARG: Atheism is a Religion
ARG: Science is a Religion
ARG: Science is your God.
ARG: You have faith in Science.
Argument-turners are people who simply cannot come up with answers to my questions so instead, they just turn the questions back at me. The first problem with this strategy is that the argument is irrelevent when used in this bizarre manner. Christians don't understand this since they do not appear to understand the difference between reason and faith. Here are some questions from "Argument Turners".
ARG: SCIENCE IS YOUR GOD OR YOU HAVE FAITH IN SCIENCE:
Science is not my god, my giant, my witch or my fairy queen, it is just the correct method of reasoning if you want to arrive at honest, truthful conclusions. It is not infallible but it will honestly attempt to arrive at a rational conclusion using the evidence at hand rather than pronouncing dogma and persecuting heretics.
ARG: YOU HAVE FAITH IN EVOLUTION OR BIG BANG:
Faith is belief in an idea that is unsupported by facts or evidence. Big Bang and evolution may not be proven but they are supported by facts and evidence and therefore believing in them is NOT faith! This is NOTHING like believing in a religion. Big Bang and evolution are just theories that have as much impact on my life as believing in blackholes or string theory. I actually don't believe in either theory wholeheartedly and whether I do or not is thoroughly irrelevent as it does not make me behave, vote or raise my children any differently. Turning the argument in this absurd way does nothing. Explaining that a system of religious beliefs, prejudices, doctrines, commandments, sins and rituals is different from entertaining the possiblity of a scientific theory should go without saying and simply wastes time.
ARG: YOU HAVE FAITH IN EVERYDAY LIFE:
Some Christians will confuse "confidence" with FAITH - they will say that when you turn the keys in the ignition you have FAITH that the car will start. This isn't faith, it is "confidence". Faith is the belief in insubstantiated dogma irregardless of lack of evidence or even with evidence to the contrary. Confidence is a rational assumption in the behavior of known forces. Experience will provide you with confidence in certain behaviors whereas no amount of experience will help you with faith. If you believe that a medicine that has cured pneumonia in the past will cure pneumonia now, you are only showing confidence. If you believe that faith healing, which has a track record of zero proven miracles, actually will work than you are showing FAITH - you are ignoring the lack of evidence and believing in something for which there is no substantiation.
Quoting Various Bible Passages Hating Reason or Punishing Unbelievers:
Anything that fears or hates critical thinking is a fraud, a hoax, a myth that simply cannot survive the light of reason. Religion isn't the only hoax that hates reason. Psychics, naturopaths, reflexologists, ufo cultists, angel healers, hell... any of the hundreds of hoaxes you find here recoil from such demonic concepts as "double-blind testing" and "control groups"! Anytime you hear something like "Reason can only take you so far." - you are certainly dealing with a fraud and you need to hide your wallet! Let's look at a Chain Letter. Chain letters appeal to the superstitious core of humanity while promising sometimes fatal punishments for unbelievers who refuse to follow the instructions. Would you be alarmed if some "Chain Letter" believer quoted a "Chain Letter" at you telling you how dumb you were or threatening you with death? No? Now you know how a skeptic feels when Christians quote scriptures at them calling them fools or threatening them with damnation. In fact I quote these Leprechaun scriptures back at Christians often:
Oh yeah, well my "Book of Leprechauns" says:
Eli 3:14 "The fool has said in his heart that there are no Leprechauns. He's not only a fool, he's a stupid, ignorant fool who would install a screendoor on a submarine!"
Eli 6:11: "Yeah the unbelievers will be blinded so that they cannot see the power of the Leprechauns! No sign will be given them and they will live in their own deprecations and filth until the day when the Great Leprechaun takes them away to serve in the gold mines as slaves forever!"
Shay 2:3 "And 50,000 witnesses did watch as the Leprechauns built the Town of Dublin." (How can you dispute 50,000 witnesses - 100 times as many as 1 Cor!)
Dudly 14:3 "For the holy green words have been breathed from the mouths of Leprechauns and are never false."
Dudly 21:2 "People who don't believe in Leprechauns just cannot be made to understand that Leprechauns exist. The only thing that can change these degenerate, perverted child molesters is if they fall to their knees and declare that the diminuitive green ghosts exist! Killing infidels is also a good way to go!"
In summary, reason is the only way to run your life effectively. Faith is for victims of conmen and chimps can make decisions with feelings. The only thing that seperates us from conmen and hoaxes is NOT faith, NOT feelings - it IS REASON!