Happy New Year/decade (ok, Dr Plait, I will give in … I’ll even give in to Erik Larsen’s demands we say “twenty-ten” if I get a flying car out of it). As well as New Year’s Day, today is Friday. It’s also a day off work. 
So I figured I might as well do a Friday Filosophy post. The subject matter for this one is rationality/skepticism/atheism – and what the mix should or needs to be for a vocal rationalist…
Atheism
It might well be confirmation bias – from following a bunch of atheists on Twitter, but atheism certainly seems to be getting very vocal lately – alongside skepticism and critical, rational thinking. I’ve been moved to consider what the aims should be (I saw something on Twitter – possibly from Daniel Loxton - regarding this: whether skeptics should be ‘pushing’ atheism. I didn’t check it out at the time, and sadly either didn’t click “read later” or something went wrong; in any case I don’t have it. My vague recollection however is that the argument was that indeed (and even of course) skeptics should be promoting atheism.
I’m not so sure though.
The way I look at it, it comes down to your aims. I have no particular, specific desire to divest anyone of their faith. What I do want is for more people to begin questioning skeptically any claims made to them, and thinking critically about things.
“But”, I hear you cry, “if a person truly examines their faith critically and skeptically, they will find it wanting, and will as a matter of course turn from faith to atheism”. That may well be true (in fact I would agree that turning away from religious faith would pretty much have to follow a critical examination of said faith – if a person does in fact engage in an honest and skeptical examination). I don’t see that as being my goal though. To me, the critical thinking itself is the … umm … critical thing.
While atheism probably is an inevitable by-product of rational thought, focusing on it as an end in itself is (a) rather narrow, and (b) threatening/challenging to anyone of religious faith, and I would argue that we don’t really want either of those: our goals should be wider than just “stripping people’s faith from them”; and if that’s the way our aims are seen, then no-one of faith is going to pay any attention to our more general exhortations to approach life critically and skeptically.
Rationalism
Thus I would suggest that we need to model, encourage, and teach the philosophy, approach, and tools of critical, rational thinking. Perhaps in this generalist (?) approach the term ‘skeptic’ is more hindrance than help, as well, co-opted as it has been by AGW deniers, and as linked to atheism as it seems to be. The term of course has a proper meaning, and should not go away, but I wonder if it is perceived as threatening and negative or even destructive – by some of the people who really need to start changing the way they think. Perhaps more focus on “critical thinking skills” might allow us to get the attention of more people than “skepticism” or “atheism”.
Hey, if we’re not coming from an overtly atheist angle, but rather critical thinking and logic, it might be a better ‘in’ to demolish the “teach the controversy” crap; not as “evolutionists” (ugh! 
) but simply as logical rational people pointing out how we need to think. … I dunno. Maybe not. This is all a bit stream of consciousness really 
But I do wonder if simply pointing out the logical idiocy in crockoducks and godly bananas (extreme examples as they are) could be more useful than saying things like: “There’s no God and this is why …”
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some education writer – whose name presently escapes me tho he was a great influence- stated that the aim of education was to provide children with efficient 'crap-detectors' I guess that's critical thinking – tho rationalism can go too far and then we lose poetry and various other arts.
Humans are intrinsically irrational – that is the delight of it all. You dont see any irrational insects – not even dear wee doggies are anything but super-rational in their choices.
And as for having belief in God – well what sort of God? – the current noisy atheists (as opposed to the quiet ones)seem to be headbutting against the Creator god concept – but it is possible to have a belief in a god which is not also a creator (remember all those lovely old SF stories where people evolved into God-ness)
Now I started this comment intending to say something about my belief in True Love but I sidetracked myself – So some other time
But no – that’s my original point again: we should focus on critical thinking, rather than joining in Richard Dawkins’ recent atheism-almost-to-the-exclusion-of-all-else trip.
While personally I don’t think that religion can stand up to a critical or logical gaze, I don’t think that we should be attacking religion (or religious people). Rather we should be encouraging rationality. If someone turns their new rational gaze on their religion and renounces it, fine. If they choose to wall that aspect of their life off from their rationality and thus maintain their faith, well, fine – as long as they’re not ramming it down the throat of anyone else, or persecuting anyone else on the basis of their belief.
… in other words, exactly what I would say about any social, philosophical, or political group. (Health/medicine is different.)
That probably doesn’t show in the blog post. I’ve re-read it and it looks a little like “how can we be covert and sneaky about turning people away from religion” … which isn’t what I meant at all. What I meant is what we’re discussing here in the comments – so thanks for that
And you meant homeopathy. Its relevance to you obviously hadn’t been potentised sufficiently for you to remember it. More dilution (drinking?) and succussion (head-banging?) must be needed.
Personally, I don't believe in true love. What a load if rubbish. I selected my mate by finding a match to logical and rational set of criteria.
That said, while I don't believe in god (except when outside in a thunderstorm), I think religion is a largely a positive influece and an impotartant part of many peoples culture and way of life. If athiests want to think their logical thought makes them superior yay for them. Does it really matter if some people wake up in the mornings thinking the world is only 6000 years old while actually, we totally know they're wrong?
I'm tired and I can't remember my point. I think it was something about evangelist athiests being just as annoying as evangelist everyone else. (I don't mean you Raf. I did read your blog and it wasn't evangelist at all)
Evangelists of any sort can be a trial, indeed. I can sympathise though – and probably slide a bit close to evangelising about critical thinking and evidence etc. I guess my point is that promoting rationality and skepticism isn't as personal a challenge as "your religion is wrong and this is why" (even though that may well be my underlying thought)
People can make rational and logical decisions and still come to different conclusions from your rational and logical decisions, not because they are wrong or stupid but because they have been given different data to start from. We can't all be scientists and gather the cold hard facts for ourselves and somewhere along the line everyone is trusting in some things someone else has told them is the truth.
I guess what I'm trying to say (maybe) is that religion and critical thinking are not always mutually exclusive.
By which I think I'm saying I agree with your point if not your underlying thought
Absolutely we have to trust in others for information. I would suggest though, that if the information supplied by those others doesn't hold up to even the most basic logical examination, it's worthy of your suspicion.
I totally agree also that religious belief (or belief in unscientific treatments for various ailments, for another example) doesn't mean that person is irrational or stupid. The only problem arises when we/they are unable to examine those ideas in an objective way (or as objective as is possible; we're only human after all
) when given new, changed, or different information. That's what I think we need to deal with – by teaching children how to think critically.
By which I think I'm saying that in the spirit of my original post I'm going to slide over your comment about religion and critical thinking
In regards to unscientific medicine I'm all with you, I don't like to hear about people coming to harm through misleading information, religious or not.
But in regards to religion I think that most people have no need to pick apart their beliefs. I'm all for teaching children critical thinking (my son sure as hell doesn't go to church) but I'm also all for teaching religious tolerance.
By all means stand up for what you believe in when it counts, the anti-vaxors and the alternative medicine hippies with the water (why can't I think of the word?), but when you start attacking religion in general you are alienating some of the very people you might otherwise convince. I'm not in the least religious and I still get fired up over the occasional BA comment.
I know I'm mildly ranting. Blame lack of sleep and/or aliens and the goverment. Or just assume I'm always this argumentitive
But I think your blog is great without involving something as irrelevant and inflammitory as religion.
However in the spirit of religious tolerance I will still love you even if you do join BA's cult of evangilist athiests
And mater – I don't see why rationality and poetry (or any other art) should be set against each other. See this lovely Venn diagram and accompanying 'rant' for a nice discussion about that.
[...] point (again) is simply that I think we need to get people to start thinking. About everything. Related [...]