Barbara might describe herself this way. We would of course say that she’s “refusing to apply rationality” to the religious domain, but that’s not necessarily what she would say.
A religious person who admits that their belief is irrational is probably already in Caroline territory.
A religious person who admits that their belief is irrational is probably already in Caroline territory.
Not in my experience—they seem to maintain non-overlapping magisteria in their heads. You can do all sorts of things with compartmentalisation!
This is particularly difficult to alleviate if there’s money involved, whether coming to them or going from them. (New Age in a phrase: “dolphins and money, dolphins and money.”)
A religious person who admits that their belief is irrational is probably already in Caroline territory
Saying the words does not imply understanding them. Someone who admits to ‘irrationality’ might not see it as a complete surrender to random unreasonableness, but as something that is ‘non-nerdy’. Remember those ‘rationality go to hell’ posters? They imply the writer is stupid, but that is not how those writing it see them.
Likewise I had many a person label them self as rational or too rational. Or tried to explain the false dichotomy of rationality vs. emotions.
It is just words after all. And quite often after a heated debate it turns out that everyone has a different definition for the term debated. Not that pointing this out helps.
I did not manage to find them again yet. I saw big road signs with writings such as ‘reason go to hell’ on pictures of a certain region in the middle of the US. Maybe someone else has them on file.
“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has”—This is an actual photo, not the output of a church sign generator, taken by PZ Myers.
The quote is, in fact, from Martin Luther:
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but—more frequently than not—struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
Keep in mind that there are many ways on the internet to make fake church signs or similar. See e.g. the church sign generator so one needs to be careful about that sort of evidence. That said, there are examples that almost resemble this. One is reminded of Pastor Ray Mummert’s “We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture” when talking about the Dover trial. But even that’s not against rationality itself.
Barbara might describe herself this way. We would of course say that she’s “refusing to apply rationality” to the religious domain, but that’s not necessarily what she would say.
A religious person who admits that their belief is irrational is probably already in Caroline territory.
Not in my experience—they seem to maintain non-overlapping magisteria in their heads. You can do all sorts of things with compartmentalisation!
This is particularly difficult to alleviate if there’s money involved, whether coming to them or going from them. (New Age in a phrase: “dolphins and money, dolphins and money.”)
Saying the words does not imply understanding them. Someone who admits to ‘irrationality’ might not see it as a complete surrender to random unreasonableness, but as something that is ‘non-nerdy’. Remember those ‘rationality go to hell’ posters? They imply the writer is stupid, but that is not how those writing it see them.
Likewise I had many a person label them self as rational or too rational. Or tried to explain the false dichotomy of rationality vs. emotions.
It is just words after all. And quite often after a heated debate it turns out that everyone has a different definition for the term debated. Not that pointing this out helps.
I’m not sure what you are talking about here. Can you expand or cite examples?
I did not manage to find them again yet. I saw big road signs with writings such as ‘reason go to hell’ on pictures of a certain region in the middle of the US. Maybe someone else has them on file.
“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has”—This is an actual photo, not the output of a church sign generator, taken by PZ Myers.
The quote is, in fact, from Martin Luther:
Keep in mind that there are many ways on the internet to make fake church signs or similar. See e.g. the church sign generator so one needs to be careful about that sort of evidence. That said, there are examples that almost resemble this. One is reminded of Pastor Ray Mummert’s “We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture” when talking about the Dover trial. But even that’s not against rationality itself.