More than 6,000 United Methodist congregations have now received permission to leave the denomination amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ people.
Can we please move beyond this 2010 New Atheism view that every religious leader/person is stupid and unable to critically think?
Why? They clearly choose not to apply that ability to a big part of their lives. In this specific case under discussion, their entire career requires not applying any critical thinking. Their paycheck depends on their ability to convince other people of things that are not and can never be supported by any actual evidence.
It’s the reason that crowd is so susceptible, as a trend, to con men, malicious misinformation, and developing entire belief systems off a Facebook meme that pairs one politician’s face with a fake quote or a quote from a totally different politician. They’re trained, often from birth, that evidence is not necessary in the process of deciding what you want to believe; in fact, that evidence is often the bad guy (in that it opposes “faith”).
So, no. We’ll drop the characterization if and only if it stops being relevant to our day-to-day lives in America. It’s not the atheists who are saying they think I should get the death penalty (DeSantis’s preacher), that I should be shot in the back of the head (Texas Baptist Church), that God should kill me slowly (Pure Words Baptist Church), and that I should be hunted with dogs (governor of SC).
you honestly believe EVERY SINGLE RELIGIOUS PERSON EVER has no critical thinking skills?
I honestly believe the ones that matter certainly don’t. The ones who are paying the church’s bills and showing up to their pep rallies every week are very clearly not spending any time thinking about it.
The LGBTQIA+ pastors that started a socialist christian church in Kentucky?
Who? Let me know when they start affecting actual government policy, or even just going on TV and saying “We condemn those other Christians who say gay people should be shot in the back of the head.” That’s what we’ve been demanding from Muslims since 2001, why are you special?
MLK? Malcom X? Johann Bernoulli, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
Blah blah blah, fallacious appeal to authority, blah blah blah. Name-dropping is not “critical thinking”, and you really shouldn’t have included a literal, straight-up alchemist in that list if you were trying to use it to make a point.
all of whom are some of the most important mathematicians in history and were religious, all couldn’t think for themselves?
MLK and Malcom X were mathematicians? TIL.
Immanuel Kant, famous influential philosopher, no critical thinking.
So what I’m hearing you say here is: “If smart people believe in magic sky fairy, magic sky fairy must be logical to believe in,” which is about the level of discourse I’d expect from someone unfamiliar with the concept of critical thinking. Thanks for being an object lesson.
Please disengage, this is simply not productive. I understand you may have been tangibly hurt by religious folks who have persecuted you or your loved ones. I have suffered real harm from this as well. But making sweeping statements about broad categories of people is generally not a great take and being confrontational with a moderator asking for some civility in a thread and appealing to humanity is not a good look.
That requires at least a mediocre amount of critical thinking skills and those are taboo in religious organizations, so doubt it.
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Probably not. Atheistic fundamentalists are still fundamentalists. Their thinking is just as flawed
Why? They clearly choose not to apply that ability to a big part of their lives. In this specific case under discussion, their entire career requires not applying any critical thinking. Their paycheck depends on their ability to convince other people of things that are not and can never be supported by any actual evidence.
It’s the reason that crowd is so susceptible, as a trend, to con men, malicious misinformation, and developing entire belief systems off a Facebook meme that pairs one politician’s face with a fake quote or a quote from a totally different politician. They’re trained, often from birth, that evidence is not necessary in the process of deciding what you want to believe; in fact, that evidence is often the bad guy (in that it opposes “faith”).
So, no. We’ll drop the characterization if and only if it stops being relevant to our day-to-day lives in America. It’s not the atheists who are saying they think I should get the death penalty (DeSantis’s preacher), that I should be shot in the back of the head (Texas Baptist Church), that God should kill me slowly (Pure Words Baptist Church), and that I should be hunted with dogs (governor of SC).
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I honestly believe the ones that matter certainly don’t. The ones who are paying the church’s bills and showing up to their pep rallies every week are very clearly not spending any time thinking about it.
Who? Let me know when they start affecting actual government policy, or even just going on TV and saying “We condemn those other Christians who say gay people should be shot in the back of the head.” That’s what we’ve been demanding from Muslims since 2001, why are you special?
Blah blah blah, fallacious appeal to authority, blah blah blah. Name-dropping is not “critical thinking”, and you really shouldn’t have included a literal, straight-up alchemist in that list if you were trying to use it to make a point.
MLK and Malcom X were mathematicians? TIL.
So what I’m hearing you say here is: “If smart people believe in magic sky fairy, magic sky fairy must be logical to believe in,” which is about the level of discourse I’d expect from someone unfamiliar with the concept of critical thinking. Thanks for being an object lesson.
Please disengage, this is simply not productive. I understand you may have been tangibly hurt by religious folks who have persecuted you or your loved ones. I have suffered real harm from this as well. But making sweeping statements about broad categories of people is generally not a great take and being confrontational with a moderator asking for some civility in a thread and appealing to humanity is not a good look.
They’re responding to the mods energy.