Rationalism?

[StAndAl0neCompl3x]

Thank you! The misuse of the word "rationalism" by the atheist community is one of the most annoying things to me. I am myself an atheist, but they're starting to get on my damn nerves.

[smontag71]

If someone comes on youtube expounding on philosophy but does not know how to pronounce "Leibniz" or "Dennett", then I would take what that person says with a big grain of salt.

[Malthus0]

1Rationalism can be indeed an ally to theist thinking. In fact what Hayek calls 'rational constructivism' is teleological in nature, a left over from theological arguments. This 'Cartesian' rationalism sees the rational mind as foundational to everything else. Anything not designed is just 'irrational' and nonsense. It is only a short jump to the idea that the universe was created by a such a mind.

[Malthus0]

2For example the Indian preacher(somewhere on youtube) who used a logical chain of reasoning to prove god in effect saying their must be a law giver for there to be laws.

It is wrong because it fails to see the spontaneous aspects of culture need no controlling mind. What disturbs me is that people like thunderf00t did not pick up on this and seem to share the Cartesian rationalism of their opponents.

[Malthus0]

3And it is just this type of unconstrained rationalist thinking that makes religions dangerous and is what they share with Atheist ideologies like Communism and Fascism. It breeds the need to remake society in the image of the revealed truth of god/Marxist-Leninism/National-­Socialism. If both sides were to adopt a more mellow evolutionary rationalism then they would be less conflict and more understanding.

[DoKtaTre]

"...Dawkins is so agressive when it comes to the religion issue is that being a rationalist, he sees that certain conclusions are necessitated by certain sets of facts"!?

yeah right. That's what he WANTS you to believe. After all, the more he bashes the religion issue, the more books he sells. He's an AUTHOR, that's all.

What's next, "Harry-Potter-ism"?

[manwaring]

Dictionary, look up "ad hominem"

then commit suicide.

[robby63]

I also agree and you have sent me away contemplating so many things.

I'm subbing and look forward to your other videos.

Robby

[RowanFortuneWood]

Entirely agree, the misuse of philosophical terminology and homogenisation of certain strands of thought can lead to many odd claims. People are sadly in the habit of making weak associative assumptions, particularly ones that validate their given movement's historical narrative. Part of the problem is a complete disinterest in any thinkers outside a person's immediate belief system.

[23discordians]

I agree almost completely with what you say in this video, and I'm going to try not to go off on another tangential rant.

They do all have very different views on these subjects, but at the same time they do identify themselves as figure-heads of a small group of popular atheist movements (I'm not sure about Hitchens?) prone to include things like "the promotion of rational thought" in their mission statements. It's little wonder people get confused.

p.s. You really should have more subs?

[manwaring]

Yes, I suppose it isn't surprising people get confused. I wonder how long the new atheist movement will be able to bind each other together solely on one issue.

But hey, entire religions have been counter intuitive, for example worshiping a zombie who rose from the dead as oppose to running away in terror.

[23discordians]

First up, I'm not sure why my "p.s." has a question mark at the end of it making it look like sarcasm, I guess I changed the wording but not the punctuation.

"worshiping a zombie"

Indeed, if reverential awe was the natural response to reanimated corpses George Romero would have had a very different career.

p.s. I have just watched a four horsemen video and I concur entirely with your desire for them to ditch Harris! But just think for a moment, it could have been Sue Blackmore.

[manwaring]

Oh, I didn't think it was sarcastic, but aint doing too badly for only 3 months of vlogging, mostly thanks to props from Rowan.

Yes, Blackmore is pretty damn scary, and probably the worst of the entire movement, even Dawkins and Dennett are tentative in their support of her. But both she and Dawkins live here, so I should probably watch my mouth, as I think she lives down the road.

[23discordians]

Ok, I just had a look at your channel page, for some reason I thought you had more videos. And now for a question completely unrelated to this video. How come you are not a professoranton subscriber? Have you seen any of his videos on science and dogma? Some of those videos would have fitted quite well with your scientism series, imo.

[manwaring]

He's one of those people that everybody keeps mentioning, and then I think "hey I'll watch his videos" then I never get around too it.

[LulieTanett]

Scary? I'd say she's more silly than scary.

No matter how much she denies the existence of free will, creativity, originality, etc., I still get to keep mine.

[XxxNuMbxxX0301]

I know that Hitchens is a great admirer of Spinoza.

[cubanoafuego]

I think that some of the most horrible misuses of the word are by far-right economic liberals. they equate rationality solely with self-interest, & the 'natural rights' theories which they use it to justify are, in my mind, the worst representation of atheism possible. They are also one which we see very often. No wonder religious people fear atheism lol. Dunno why I'm telling you this, I'm sure you're aware of it already :P

[manwaring]

Well, I'm not really trying to defend religious people, I've plenty of bad things to say about them as well. But I dislikethis colloquial way we throw around the term 'rational' when really if you dig down you find it's a lot more problematic than people make it out to be. I agree with you on far right economists.

But then again this is just one man's radically empiricist view.

[cubanoafuego]

yeah, trust me, i'm not defending religion either. i'm just saying it's not going to convince many if you argue that atheism involves not caring about anyone ever, looking out only for yourself, and saying things like 'to say "i love you", you must first say "i"'. and yeah i know 'rationality' is problematic, which is why i also tend towards empiricism. rationality on its own really doesn't tell us too much, it is fairly easy to think of self-evident truths.

[musekiteer]

// throw around the term 'rational' //

The definitions of Rationalism and rationality vary. Most of us have not studied formal philosophy. In fact, westerners are much more likely to have had some education in science than in philosophy. Problems arise because, like science, philosophy has adapted vernacular terms to specific purposes. So, we accidentally misuse terminology.

The other problem is, I think, lack of inclination -- or training -- toward precision of thinking.

[manwaring]

If a man says to me "This is an elephant" and I go "No it's a car" that is not my fault.

[musekiteer]

I agree.

However, my point was that the vernacular conflates "elephant" with "car" in this case. I suppose that it's tantamount to equivocation, but it not a rhetorical device.

On the other hand, I think that creationist equivocations on "theory" are deliberate (at their point of origin).

Btw, I also agree with you that rationality does not equate to atheism.

[pbrskater26]

Yeah, that and they dont understand how science works. You should hear Kirk Camorans deffenition of evolution, it shows that he has no consept of science!

[musekiteer]

// they dont understand how science works //

They erect strawman arguments (or parrot them) and then they huff and puff and blow down something that never existed.

[manwaring]

Well, my point was people should be more careful when they use 'philosophical' terms, because they can be very nuanced. This probably also applies to myself. Because you can end up making very silly comments, for example the time I got confused by Metaphysical Libertarianism, that's my fault not libertarians.

[musekiteer]

I was not disagreeing with you so much as musing upon the causes of the confusion.

If someone who appears to know philosophy makes the occasional gaffe, there is no hope.

There are good philosophy videos around YT, but like the science videos, the material is a little piecemeal. So, it is difficult to pick up the necessary learning without a huge amount of searching.

I think that this contributes to the problem. The upside is that we are online, so we can check before we "speak".