RE: Atheists in church
September 22, 2021 at 3:23 pm
(This post was last modified: September 22, 2021 at 3:25 pm by Simon Moon.)
(September 22, 2021 at 11:58 am)Ahriman Wrote:(September 21, 2021 at 7:38 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Why don’t you care about being rational?Holding irrational beliefs has served me well so far. I have no reason to adopt a hard-line rationale for everything I do or believe.
With regards to things like: love, taste in art, music, movies, hardly anyone bases these on rational thinking. These fall into the category of being non-rational. It is neither rational or irrational to like the art one likes.
But, with regards to beliefs in existential claims like the existence of gods, this is different. One's beliefs don't live in a vacuum, they have real world consequences. People vote, and treat people differently, depending on their god beliefs.
And you claim that your irrational beliefs have served you well, so far. But I would suggest, that having an internal model of the world, that can be demonstrated to more closely map to reality, will help people navigate their lives making better decisions. Just because you have been doing ok, so far, doesn't mean you couldn't have been doing better, by holding rational beliefs.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.