And I wouldn’t call that person rational, either. He may want to be rational, and just be wrong about the how.
Well he might be rational and he might not be, but pretty clearly he perceives himself to be rational. Or at a minimum, he does not perceive himself to be not rational. Agreed?
Some Christians are merely not rational, but some groups are explicitly anti-rational: they attack rationality, science, and evidence-based reasoning by association, even when they don’t disagree with the actual evidence or conclusions.
Would you mind providing two or three quotes from Christians which manifest this attitude so I can understand and scrutinize your point?
The Reddit thread is interesting. 5 isn’t a big sample, and we got examples basically of all points of view.
That’s true. But I would say that of the 5, there was only one individual who doesn’t perceive himself to be rational. Two pretty clearly perceive themselves to be rational. And two are in a greyer area but pretty clearly would come up with rationalizations to justify their beliefs. Which is irrational but they don’t seem to perceive it as such.
I agree that it’s unusual. My original claim was that many more people don’t accept rationality as a valid or necessary criterion and don’t even try to evaluate their beliefs’ rationality.
Well, I agree that a lot of people might not have a clear opinion about whether their beliefs are rational. But the bottom line is that when push comes to shove, most people seem to believe that their beliefs are a reasonable evidence-based conclusion.
But I am interested to see quotes from these anti-rational Christians you refer to.
After some reflection, and looking for evidence, it seems I was wrong. I felt very certain of what I said, but then I looked for justification and didn’t find it. I’m sorry I led this conversation down a false trail. And thank you for questioning my claims and doing empirical tests.
(To be sure, I found some evidence, but it doesn’t add up to large, numerous, or representative groups of Christians holding these views. Or in fact for these views being associated with Christianity more than other religions or non-religious ‘mystical’ or ‘new age’ groups. Above all, it doesn’t seem these views have religion as their primary motivation. It’s not worth while looking into the examples I found if they’re not representative of larger groups.)
Well he might be rational and he might not be, but pretty clearly he perceives himself to be rational. Or at a minimum, he does not perceive himself to be not rational. Agreed?
Would you mind providing two or three quotes from Christians which manifest this attitude so I can understand and scrutinize your point?
That’s true. But I would say that of the 5, there was only one individual who doesn’t perceive himself to be rational. Two pretty clearly perceive themselves to be rational. And two are in a greyer area but pretty clearly would come up with rationalizations to justify their beliefs. Which is irrational but they don’t seem to perceive it as such.
Well, I agree that a lot of people might not have a clear opinion about whether their beliefs are rational. But the bottom line is that when push comes to shove, most people seem to believe that their beliefs are a reasonable evidence-based conclusion.
But I am interested to see quotes from these anti-rational Christians you refer to.
After some reflection, and looking for evidence, it seems I was wrong. I felt very certain of what I said, but then I looked for justification and didn’t find it. I’m sorry I led this conversation down a false trail. And thank you for questioning my claims and doing empirical tests.
(To be sure, I found some evidence, but it doesn’t add up to large, numerous, or representative groups of Christians holding these views. Or in fact for these views being associated with Christianity more than other religions or non-religious ‘mystical’ or ‘new age’ groups. Above all, it doesn’t seem these views have religion as their primary motivation. It’s not worth while looking into the examples I found if they’re not representative of larger groups.)