

Look Who's Irrational Now - ph0rque
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178219865054585.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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mhartl
This is basically right, though I'd reserve a special place for unlikely but
not paranormal beliefs like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Those don't
violate any physical laws, and there's nothing irrational about thinking they
_might_ exist. Enough supposedly long-extinct creatures have turned up in
hunter's traps and fishermen's nets that I wouldn't be shocked to find, say, a
relic population of prehistoric primates scraping out a living in the Pacific
Northwest.

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bcostlow
Because this:

[http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sf...](http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths/sft_short.cfm)

is so much more rational than belief in astrology.

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noodle
again, as i said the last time this article was posted, this is a huge ad
hominem fallacy. attacking the people that make an argument does not equate to
attacking the argument.

all humans are irrational. it doesn't make the irrationality of religion or
the loch ness monster any less irrational, just because someone else has some
irrationalities in their beliefs, too. this is not a zero sum game.

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byrneseyeview
I don't think that's the point of the article at all. It sounds like this
piece is talking about how Christianity sort of inoculates people: they _do_
believe in something crazy, but that crazy belief also requires them to _dis_
believe in lots of other crazy stuff.

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noodle
i suppose it could be read that way, although i took the slant based on the
title. like, a "look who's irrational now" playing on the fact that atheists
like to point at theists and say that they're irrational, but based on this
information they also believe in irrational things.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Well, yes. That is the point of the article. Atheists say that Christians are
obviously irrational, and Christians argue that atheists are more irrational
about some things than Christians are. I wonder what the average atheist would
make of this information, but I'm not surprised that most of the people
writing about it are theists.

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noodle
again, what i was saying in my initial post was that all humans are irrational
to some degree, which is why this boils down to a giant ad hom. just because a
person is irrational does not mean that arguments or ideas that come from that
person are necessarily irrational.

~~~
byrneseyeview
I missed the "Thus: GOD EXISTS!" line, apparently.

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noodle
when did i ever say that was the point? all i'm saying is that the tone of
this article is retaliatory, not explanatory or even-handed.

it cleanly sets up the argument that atheists believe in nutty things, so
their belief in atheism is also nutty too. christians don't believe in nutty
things therefore their belief in religion isn't nutty either. etc.. this is
because the 'negative' focus is on the atheists, with only positive focus on
the theists.

and no, i'm not an atheist.

