(March 2, 2011 at 5:25 pm)The Omnissiunt One Wrote: People are much better at reasoning about everyday situations - common sense, as it were - than they are about abstruse philosophical matters like God's existence. Hence there's a logical puzzle involving cards which most people can't figure out, but when an entirely analogous puzzle is posed involving people and drinks, it's easy to crack. Little of what people do in normal life is irrational in the sense that DvF means it, anyway. Their basic assumptions may be irrational, but their behaviour is not irrational, or even unreasonable, on the supposition that those premises are true e.g. going to church.I know some atheists who are addicted to crack or hard into alcohol, can't change human behavior just through a particular focus on the notion of religion, I think Dawkins paints a too positive picture...even if people are less inclined to be irrational or stupid, humanity still shines through.
As for the initial topic of the thread, I think that atheists who are insulting and rude are irresponsible, because all atheists are inevitably tarred with the same brush in the eyes of some theists, and indeed people of other theological positions such as agnostics. They ought, out of consideration for their fellow non-believers, to paint a positive image of atheists.
