Religious Discrimination

[goddamnit]

Well, even if you think that every religious person has necessarily committed an error in reasoning, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're more prone to reasoning errors than irreligious people.

First, an error in one context doesn't necessarily translate to other contexts. A person might have a 'soft spot' for their parents' religion. A man who is unfaithful to his wife might be very loyal to his bank, or very trustworthy with his clients' money. So a theist who reasons poorly in religious matters might reason well in other contexts.

Second, a lack of error in one context doesn't necessarily translate to a lack of error in other contexts. A person who is meticulous in his reasoning with regard to investments might have terrible reasoning with regard to chess strategy. So an atheist who reasons well in religious contexts might reason poorly in other contexts.

I never denied that an atheist can be more irrational in separate contexts. I even explicitly affirmed that "of course" it is not an absolute, so whenever you say something does not "necessarily" follow it has a straw man feel.

Anyways, let's analyze this. If the hiring manager knew a candidate believed magical flying ponies lived in his or her basement, all of your analogies would still apply. You could bring up a story about loyalty to a bank vs loyalty to one's wife. You could easily and successfully argue that an atheist can be irrational in one context and not another; again, I do not deny that and I even patently rejected that all atheists are rational in other contexts. At the end of the day, if I know nothing else about the career candidates, I sure as hell (pun intended?) think an applicant who believes in magical flying ponies is more likely to fail at critical thinking in other contexts. You can contest the idea that a magical flying pony believer is more likely to be irrational in another context, but it seems (as an axiom) to be silly.

Third, an error on one matter doesn't necessarily indicate a systemic flaw in reasoning. Suppose A and B reason just as well as each other. A and B both experience some event E; A correctly believes that he has experienced E, whereas B mistakenly believes he has experienced some other event F. A and B might come to different conclusions, but not due to a difference in reasoning.

Once again, you say that it doesn't "necessarily" entail a conclusion, as if I made a deductive argument, but I never asserted that anything "necessarily" follows. I merely viewed this as a matter of probabilities. Yes, a person can infer a faulty conclusion using cogent reasoning, but cogent reasoning has a higher probability of leading the thinker to a true conclusion. More specifically, in the context of Christianity, the belief system is so bogus that entertaining the possibility of it being wrong for the right reasons, is just plain dishonest.

Of course, I suspect you're just guilty of assuming that the people you disagree with are dumb, and the people you agree with are smart.

I already stated that plenty of religious people are smart. My position is that in the context of religion, Christians are irrational. Yes, I am being condescending about the subject of religion. I will not lie out of fear I will be seen as pompous. You, and every other Christian, are less logical than me in the context of religion. Yes, Francis Collins, the DNA genius, is an inferior thinker in the context of religion. That does not mean I think you or Francis Collins are dumber than me or any particular atheist. (You are obviously a good writer.) If you earned a PhD from MIT and became a billionaire because of your financial genius, and I scrubbed floors while wishing I could multiply and divide, it would have no bearing on the fact that Christianity is insanely stupid. I do not think people I disagree with are dumb. I think Abrahamic religion adherents are irrational in the context of religion.