Maria Walters: Rational. Compassionate. Not an asshole.
Read what she has to say about hypocrisy and self-righteousness in skepticism.
For my part, I’d like to say that I know *fundamental christians* whom I judge to be good critical thinkers. Now, I am totally baffled that they are able to maintain that particular faith, but I can’t say that it is “selective rationalism” because we don’t discuss it at length.
There are at least two issues here, but I would like to discuss the specific case of Hal Bidlack, whose name in a tweet prompted responses which let to Maria’s post.
What Maria notes about Hal Bidlack is that he has expressed a belief which, by his own admission, was not arrived at through reason. This is not hypocritical. What is hypocritical is to label him an enemy of skepticism, yet blow off Penn Jillette‘s years of AGW denial – something he admitted was not founded on reason and I believe currently stands at “I don’t know”. These are not sacred cows. These are areas these particular skeptics choose not to overanalyze.
We are not obligated to apply reason to every aspect of our lives.
We are obligated to admit when we do not apply reason. We are obligated to refrain from arguing about what we have not reasoned. We are obligated to ensure that holding onto that belief is not harmful to others (by not acting on it). We are not obligated to force ourselves to follow every argument to its conclusion just because most of our friends do.
A truly rational person understands that critical evaluation of a claim or belief carries the risk that the conclusion will be unpleasant. Not all truths are pretty.
Some of us would rather know the truth, regardless of how unpleasant it is. Others find so much comfort in a belief which may or may not be accurate that giving it up is not worth the risk. Why don’t they have the right to hang onto them without being called a hypocrite?
Just sayin’.
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Agree that we can be polite when challenging skeptical believers. We can also accept believers as bonafide skeptics. What I don’t think we should shy away from is challenging them or anyone else who holds views that are largely unsupported by evidence. Indeed we should be constantly skeptical of all the positions we hold.