{"id":3146,"date":"2009-11-01T10:33:32","date_gmt":"2009-11-01T18:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=3146"},"modified":"2009-11-01T10:42:34","modified_gmt":"2009-11-01T18:42:34","slug":"rationality-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/rationality-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Rationality & culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

At ScienceBlogs<\/a>, where most of my readers are liberal, Katherine says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This is why I think rightism is absurd: because it seems to be so uncomfortable with letting others simply go about their lives in whatever way they themselves wish.<\/p>\n

I’m an atheist and a rational sort too. I think religion is inherently idiotic. At the same time, I would rather people came to the right answer through their own thought and rationality (if they possess them) and being exposed to the information rather than being forced to any extent into anything, which is the sort of attitude I got from your essay – institutionalized something-or-other and willful division of societies into groups.<\/p>\n

People also need to learn to deal with others in different groups.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I see where she is coming from, this is a common position. To a large extent, I would paraphrase E. O. Wilson and say that the life rational is a great idea, but the wrong species! These sorts of comments remind me of Richard Dawkins’ assertion that ‘There is something illogical about the fear of death’<\/a>. Great, I invite Dr. Dawkins to talk people out of their fear of death!<\/p>\n

And of course, people who say they’re laissez-faire really aren’t. If one found out that a neighbor was about to perform a clitoridectomy on their daughter in 30 minutes, I think reasoned discussion would give way to force. One might say that children “are different,” but there are plenty of things which we allow parents to do to their children, and things we do not, and how we decide which belongs in which set is contingent on our cultural outlook.<\/b><\/p>\n

Existence itself is not “rational.” Religious people have an “out,” they just push the reason for existence to gods (as I’ve tried to point out to religious people before, this awesome “can’t refute” answer is totally unpersuasive to the irreligious because the answer to the question is made-up). Rather, why live but not die? Because it is in our nature, and most of us have an aesthetic preference for life. Rationality is a tool which is distal to these ultimate conundrums, not the answer. The nature of cultures may be subjective, but that does not mean that we don’t have an attachment nonetheless. To be as one is is preferable to not being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At ScienceBlogs, where most of my readers are liberal, Katherine says: This is why I think rightism is absurd: because it seems to be so uncomfortable with letting others simply go about their lives in whatever way they themselves wish. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3146"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3149,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions\/3149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}