But critical thinking is not just about mental skill. It also requires the adoption of certain moral values without which those skills we talked about before might be put to bad or unfair use. Some of these values include integrity, honesty, humility, and the ability to recognize when you've made some terrible logical blunder. Of course, when you simply re-affirm bad arguments, even though they have been shown to be fallacious, defending them is only going to require that you produce even worse arguments, rife with fallacy and dishonesty, so even if you don't believe in the values above, it would still be better to cut your losses and quit while you're ahead.
Anyway, in my critical thinking classes I usually assign a project that requires students to identify instances of certain informal logical fallacies as they occur in the real world, and the following is a two-minute sample based on the now infamous episode in which Bill O'Reilly thought he could "prove" the existence of God based on his own ignorance (just go to the second slide to see the logical analysis).
If he had just said "my bad, I made a mistake, that really was a bad argument" he probably would not have lost the respect of so many people...
I'm an atheist but, regardless of that, it's always good to call people out when they're not "making sense". Keeping in mind they're not making sense to *us*. They're making sense to themselves.
ReplyDeleteTake any emotion and you'll find a certain element of "reason" goes along with it. Eg. fall in love, and a certain part of you expects others to see the same wonderful things in that person you do. Or a beautiful sunset. What, how can you not think that's beautiful? What do you mean you have better sunsets and this one's crap?
I'm not saying Faith is anything like an emotion. I don't know, I've never had it. But I do believe that, unless atheists accept that Faith is as reasonable a human condition as falling in love, we will always be at odds with each other.
The more you push, the more you ridicule theists, the more extreme they will become. Yes, I know some of them are extreme anyway. But I put it to you that a murderer will murder, faith or no faith. A preacher of hate will do so, wearing a robe or not.
If you are a creature of reason, I challenge you to prove that religious faith is *a contributing factor* to violence and hate, and not just a vehicle like any other for violent people who hate.
I've never seen any reason to think that. In fact I see every reason to accept religious faith as an intrinsic part of humanity, same as music, art, love, bigotry, hate and every other thing we don't like to think comes perfectly naturally for us.
Using Faith as a scapegoat is not the answer. It is avoiding the question, just as surely as they you accuse of "not being reasonable".