I myself hold contradictory, irrational beliefs. I like many of them, even though part of me knows of the contradictions. I also know that if I streamlined my values to be coherent, I wouldn’t be myself, and it’s not a realistic endeavor anyways, psychologically. I very much doubt that my beliefs are especially contradictory, if a supposed rationalist were telling me he/she held very few contradictory beliefs/aliefs that would be mostly amusing.
My problem is taking a clearly irrational belief (and I suspect many smart theists deep down know this) and abusing all of one’s wits to put lipstick on that pig. It’s such a waste, and such an unnecessary self-delusion (“trying to make it seem rational”, not even “believing in it”). That’s what gets me going, the waste of potential.
I’m not concerned with the Christian version of the Categorical Imperative. Not with Christian ethics, there certainly are worse kinds. Not with having a group identity, so do fans of Vernor Vinge novels (just finished A Fire Upon The Deep).
Not even with the First Cause musings, although those often get more into the motivated cognition area. (I also think Krauss is trivially wrong when overstating his “nothing” in “a universe from nothing”.)
My problem is with the absurd epistemic claims such as “a bodily resurrection took place”, “Jesus was tortured to death so I can be saved from my original sin”. In a way, it’s as bad as Creationism. There isn’t all that much difference between saying “the devil planted the dinosaur skeletons”, and saying “eyewitness testimony of a few dozen shepherds and partly biased people thousands of years ago, in a book full of allegories and symbolisms suffices to establish that it in fact Jesus was bodily resurrected”.
Sure, Creationists make many more such claims, but really, does it matter how many risen dead you believe in, as long as the number is greater than 0?
Aww, no bet then? Apology accepted.
I myself hold contradictory, irrational beliefs. I like many of them, even though part of me knows of the contradictions. I also know that if I streamlined my values to be coherent, I wouldn’t be myself, and it’s not a realistic endeavor anyways, psychologically. I very much doubt that my beliefs are especially contradictory, if a supposed rationalist were telling me he/she held very few contradictory beliefs/aliefs that would be mostly amusing.
My problem is taking a clearly irrational belief (and I suspect many smart theists deep down know this) and abusing all of one’s wits to put lipstick on that pig. It’s such a waste, and such an unnecessary self-delusion (“trying to make it seem rational”, not even “believing in it”). That’s what gets me going, the waste of potential.
I’m not concerned with the Christian version of the Categorical Imperative. Not with Christian ethics, there certainly are worse kinds. Not with having a group identity, so do fans of Vernor Vinge novels (just finished A Fire Upon The Deep).
Not even with the First Cause musings, although those often get more into the motivated cognition area. (I also think Krauss is trivially wrong when overstating his “nothing” in “a universe from nothing”.)
My problem is with the absurd epistemic claims such as “a bodily resurrection took place”, “Jesus was tortured to death so I can be saved from my original sin”. In a way, it’s as bad as Creationism. There isn’t all that much difference between saying “the devil planted the dinosaur skeletons”, and saying “eyewitness testimony of a few dozen shepherds and partly biased people thousands of years ago, in a book full of allegories and symbolisms suffices to establish that it in fact Jesus was bodily resurrected”.
Sure, Creationists make many more such claims, but really, does it matter how many risen dead you believe in, as long as the number is greater than 0?
You know, it does. Making less mistakes = rationality.
Not much more for me to reply to here.
Point. However, I was referring to “using my cognition to defend indefensible claims”, as a binary attribute denoting a very, very bad habit.
Ah, right. Still, as you point out, I seriously doubt anyone on this site is that well integrated.