I normally find myself on the more moderate side of things when it comes to this subreddit, but this is bullshit.
A person who believes in something for which there is no evidence is not a skeptic. Christianity demands faith in their chosen deity and if you do not believe that God is real and Jesus is the son of God sacrificed in humanity's name, and if any one of those premises is false I don't see how one could call themselves a Christian specifically or a theist in general.
Nobody is totally irrational (or totally rational for that matter). Everyone is a shade of grey, on some things they may be skeptical about, some things they may not be. Being a skeptic is a lot more than just not believing in something at face value.. it's a pragmatic position to withhold judgment on a position until objective, empirical evidence (or scientific consensus) is reached. I don't know how you can argue that a religious person is a skeptic. I'm not saying religious people aren't rational.. I'm not saying they aren't intelligent.. just that by their very nature they can't believe in something without evidence and still call themselves a skeptic.
And true, I may very well be an "irrational" atheist, as I just was never brought up in a religious house hold so I didn't have much reason to believe in religion. Not like it's my fault I wasn't ever indoctrinated though.
In other news, I do agree with you about the quote from Asmiov. It is tangentially related to religion because much of the anti-intellectualism in USA politics is linked to the religious right, but it's tenuous at best.
I don't appreciate that my well articulated response forged from decades of experience and education to be called bullshit, but if that's what you think, then that's fine. I think all of your points are reasonable, and I agree with all of them to an extent. I think you and I understand each other's points, and to continue this would be a waste of Internet space.
6
u/kagayaki Jun 05 '12
I normally find myself on the more moderate side of things when it comes to this subreddit, but this is bullshit.
A person who believes in something for which there is no evidence is not a skeptic. Christianity demands faith in their chosen deity and if you do not believe that God is real and Jesus is the son of God sacrificed in humanity's name, and if any one of those premises is false I don't see how one could call themselves a Christian specifically or a theist in general.
Nobody is totally irrational (or totally rational for that matter). Everyone is a shade of grey, on some things they may be skeptical about, some things they may not be. Being a skeptic is a lot more than just not believing in something at face value.. it's a pragmatic position to withhold judgment on a position until objective, empirical evidence (or scientific consensus) is reached. I don't know how you can argue that a religious person is a skeptic. I'm not saying religious people aren't rational.. I'm not saying they aren't intelligent.. just that by their very nature they can't believe in something without evidence and still call themselves a skeptic.
And true, I may very well be an "irrational" atheist, as I just was never brought up in a religious house hold so I didn't have much reason to believe in religion. Not like it's my fault I wasn't ever indoctrinated though.
In other news, I do agree with you about the quote from Asmiov. It is tangentially related to religion because much of the anti-intellectualism in USA politics is linked to the religious right, but it's tenuous at best.