Hi!
Given that a lot has happened while I was sleeping, allow me to discuss in a more general vein.
First of all, I am always a bit surprised by people desiring to put discussions into a context of losing. Personally, I only see people winning in a good discussion. The only way you can "lose" in a discussion would be if the discussion itself became a waste of time by people not talking with each other...
Secondly, you may recall that I described myself as an atheist with agnostic awareness. Personally, I give agnosticism the theoretical potential to be used as a belief system, although it is beyond my ability to move there. In order to function mentally, I have to give some answer to the God-question, so I have to split believing from knowing.
Giving percentages for something that you don't have the slightest knowledge about seems rather silly, so suggesting that agnostics give theism and atheism 50:50 or anything sounds rather silly. Why do they need to give percentages? Can't they simply say they don't know?
Claiming that agnosticism/agnostic awareness is a natural result of rationality is a bit short sighted in my opinion. Because in doing so, you would logically suggest that all who do not have at least agnostic awareness are irrational (which kind of brings us back to the general field where the original article dabbled in). True agnostic awareness, however, has serious consequences for the way you perceive things and how you act. For instance, trying to convert people to your belief system is counter-intuitive for someone with agnostic awareness, since you may actually be factually wrong and the ones you would be trying to convert may be actually factually right. Likewise, deriding people for their belief system or belitteling or insulting belief systems is also counter-intuitive for the same reason. You might even argue against discrimination and prejudices against religious groups, although I am not quite sure if an argument in that direction is absolutely water proof. Anyhow, even if you just go by ridicule and converting, you can kind of identify at least some of the people who do not have agnostic awareness by the way they talk and act. And remember that numbers do not make right. For an agnostic, some indigenous belief system held by some people on the Easter Islands may just as well be the truth as may be Catholicism, atheism, the religious views of the ancient Greeks or the Mayas. I don't have statistics, but I have a hunch that a lot of people would be removed from the list of potential agnostics just by these few crude pointers, which are by no means exhaustive.
But if people who are not agnostically aware by implication irrational, then it bodes rather ill for the rationality of humanity.
Personally, I think that we are talking more about the depth of critical analysis rather than rationality per se. A person of any belief system can be highly rational, even towards their own belief system without automatically becoming agnostically aware. That awareness only comes along when you analyze the very root of your belief system, which is, in my opinion, not something that you are required to do normally, and which is thus not mandatory for rational thinking.
Also note that few belief systems describe themselves as "this may be the truth". Usually, claims go along the lines of "this and this is the truth".
Yours,
Deathworks
Author
Topic: Analytic Thinking can Undermine (religious) Belief (Read 20078 times)