Comment

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on July 25, 2012 at 7:20pm

Bp, you are welcome.

I muddled through. Interesting take. Never saw fractals used in that manner.

Comment by bpansky25 on July 25, 2012 at 7:18pm

Glen, thanks for that clarification.

Also, perhaps tonight I can move those blog posts over here to the nexus where you will be able to read it :)

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on July 25, 2012 at 2:59pm

bpansky25, I can not make out your blog because the color scheme is unfriendly. 

I agree with what you have written here except by clarification it can be argued that an extreme act is never rational. This in no way mitigates the innate capability of all humans to act in an irrational way. But when humans do are they acting rationally?

Comment by bpansky25 on July 25, 2012 at 2:42pm

"Faith and obedience are in the recipe for religious extremism."  "The sleep of reason produces monsters."

Seems fairly accurate.  The religions really do not provide goodness for people, they just perpetuate themselves.

I recently put up a blog post about dealing with the endless objections that religious people have to criticism against them.

Also, I'm not sure about the answer to "Do proponents of rationalism ever fall prey to its appeal and commit acts of extremism?"  I suspect that all humans have some of this capability.  What I'd like to point out is: 

-Pointing out problems inherent to religion, and

-pointing out problems with a few brands of that religion, and

-comparing religion to something else (like rationality)

are three seperate endeavours.  Though I do think that religion is defeated in all three cases.

Comment by Napoleon Bonaparte on July 25, 2012 at 1:28pm

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on July 25, 2012 at 12:20pm

It is the title of a painting by Goya.

So one man's rationalism is another's purge. I dont think so. But I guess it begs the question that we look beyond the superficial to define rationalism.

Comment by Napoleon Bonaparte on July 25, 2012 at 12:02pm

Do proponents of rationalism ever fall prey to its appeal and commit acts of extremism?

Who said the sleep of reason produces monsters ? Rationalism is the practice or principle of basing opinions and actions on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response. Rationalism may conflict with humanism, for example, if Atheist tyrants of the last century such as Stalin acted on the basis of rationalism. I think so.

Religious people think and say all sorts of nonsense and I am never surprised any more.

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on July 25, 2012 at 11:40am

I cant recall it recently. But that and related activity many times in my lifetime.

Your second question suggests we agree.

Comment by James Yount on July 25, 2012 at 10:28am

When is the last time anyone ever heard of a Christian shooting up an abortion clinic?  What's the percentage of violent religious nuts in civilized western societies vs. third world shit holes?

Comment by Glen Rosenberg on July 25, 2012 at 10:07am

James, I think that is part of the story.

I also think the greater culture will color personal ethics in accordance with the degree of indoctrination. Lip-service catholics will support abortion and gay rights and almost completely flout the ex cathedra pronouncements of the holy pooper. Fundies and real wacko indoctrinated wingnuts will shoot up an abortion clinic. The nut jobs have been duped. No, it is deeper than that. They have had their brains hi-jacked before the age of reason and the greater culture could make an impression to compete with anything approaching reason.

 

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page