Quote:Well OK, you "was" an atheist and the opening statement gave you pause for thought.If I were to ask you why irrational thought wasn't the best way to think what would you say? Because it isn't rational? Well prove it.
Well lets examine the statement. First of all can I say I read it and it didn't make me question anything, because as far as I was concerned it was meaningless philosophical nonsense. How can you rationally prove that rational thinking is the best way to view the world?Does it need to be proven? You have rational thinking based on sound reason and logic, and you have irrational thinking? These two are polar opposites and cannot be equal. The person who made the statement also suggested that rational thought stems from intuition. Well it can do, but reason, logic and evidence help build rational thought.
Secondly, who said it and with what authority? Not that that would make nonsense become sense.
To me, it's a non question and I'm surprised it made you stop and think. Maybe I'm just thick, though.
In the same sense then:
Of course it needs to be proven. Maybe not in your opinion, but in order for it to have any sort of ground it must be proven.
I'm not enjoying your demeaning tone, and perhaps you are a bit dense for not understanding the necessity. If you make it a point to agitate and verbally harass all who don't believe the same thing your do then you won't go very far in life. Respect is essential in a civil discussion, which you seem to be lacking.
Let's put this another way which may help people understand. I would break it into its components and argue that rationality is the best way to approach a world of causality. In our world, logic is a fine approach to the way the world works because of its closed-system nature.
Where you ran into a snag is to evaluate it within the structure of that closed system. Since all things are equal and all facts are a posteriori, we have nothing more than competing claims based on its functionalism or pragmatic value. This quickly devolves into subjectivism.
If you want to make a claim about the superiority of a value system or in the least a way of thinking, you seek to make a claim that is outside the closed system - which really has no rational basis for support of it.
But as a scientist, you can be assure yourself that the best way for manipulating the material world in both action and thought is through rationalism.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
