Instead, a person claiming to have been atheist but then having switched to becoming religious by reason alone would be an extreme outlier. Also rational arguments typically are for "a god", often also with skepticism and rejection rather than approvalnot god XYZ (likr it waseven if provided by religion XYZ), so by reason alone a person would not "real"be bound to any single faith) or religion. Even for adults, it's much more common to grow in faith as a result of a personal crisis and possibly being indoctrinated on a close personal level by friends or a counsellor leading the person in crisis to religion, rather than rational teaching.
Instead, a person claiming to have been atheist but then having switched to becoming religious by reason alone would be an extreme outlier, often also with skepticism and rejection rather than approval (likr it was not "real" faith). Even for adults, it's much more common to grow in faith as a result of a personal crisis and possibly being indoctrinated on a close personal level, rather than rational teaching.
Instead, a person claiming to have been atheist but then having switched to becoming religious by reason alone would be an extreme outlier. Also rational arguments typically are for "a god", not god XYZ (even if provided by religion XYZ), so by reason alone a person would not be bound to any single faith or religion. Even for adults, it's much more common to grow in faith as a result of a personal crisis and possibly being indoctrinated on a close personal level by friends or a counsellor leading the person in crisis to religion, rather than rational teaching.
Steven Pinker as an example defines rationality as "the use of knowledge to attain goals." It is valued for it's proven benefits to humans in society for science and law, as an example. Using rationality, we can examine events like a new global virus pandemic, we can find measures to reduce negative impacts, develop vaccines and so on. In law, it helps determine responsibility, and make judgements that are not discriminating.
More generally said, rationalism is the attitude that whatever your goals are, using knowledge and reason will be the safest way to achieve them (if you can afford the time and cost). It's successes in science are overwhelming and have no alternative.
Rationality does not only have benefits:
- It takes effort (time, money) to train humans to use reason and exercise it
- It is slow for decision making
- It is not immediately comforting or persuasive politically
Rationality does not have an exact opposite even though there is the word irrationality.
Second, why do we believe that rationality is superior to ‘irrationality’ in justifying a belief.
As to faith, beliefs and religion, things are not as obvious as described in the question. Most humans are members of the religion of their parents, and they typically get indoctrinated and enrolled into their religion before their training in rational thought is complete (before children can defend themselves). As such, most religious people arrived at their faith not through reason, and only some try to justify their faith later through reason.
So society does not expect humans to logically choose faith, most religions do not first teach all alternatives and then ask children to make a rational (or other) choice.
Instead, a person claiming to have been atheist but then having switched to becoming religious by reason alone would be an extreme outlier, often also with skepticism and typically regarded as a weirdorejection rather than approval (likr it was not "real" faith). Even for adults, it's much more common to grow in faith as a result of a personal crisis and possibly being indoctrinated on a close personal level, rather than rational teaching.
So people who go through some crisis like losing a loved one are "forgiven" (for lack of a better word) for choosing faith irrationally to find solace.
In more general matters than faith, reliability shows rationality to statistically lead to attain goals more often than any alternative, and so humans who so not use rationality are choosing a non-optimal method with respect to chances of success. Unless they can justify what else they optimize for, their behavior seems like a thinking flaw.
And third of all, why do most of us deny mystical revelations/feelings etc as justifications for beliefs?
I am not sure that this is happening. But there are reasons to be cautious. Cults use various known psychological techniques to cause "mystical feelings" or beliefs. And thus victimize and exploit gullible people. Also, in most jobs people are expected to behave rationally for the benefit of the company, and a person acting according to mystical feelings rather than reason would be seen as sabotaging their company and violating the terms of their employment. So as a society, I think we expect people to keep their mystical feelings confined to their private lifes, and to reject obvious attempts by cults to recruit them through psychological tricks. That leaves a bit, but not much, personal freedom to indulge in some magical thinking.
Still, not all humans do recognize in their lives anything that they identify as divine spirituality, and thus have no obvious way to understand people who claim to have such feelings, other than remembering maybe childhood feelings like believing santa claus will bring gifts (one of the tricks to indoctrinate children with religion).
Steven Pinker as an example defines rationality as "the use of knowledge to attain goals." It is valued for it's proven benefits to humans in society for science and law, as an example. Using rationality, we can examine events like a new global virus pandemic, we can find measures to reduce negative impacts, develop vaccines and so on. In law, it helps determine responsibility, and make judgements that are not discriminating.
More generally said, rationalism is the attitude that whatever your goals are, using knowledge and reason will be the safest way to achieve them (if you can afford the time and cost). It's successes in science are overwhelming and have no alternative.
Rationality does not only have benefits:
- It takes effort (time, money) to train humans to use reason and exercise it
- It is slow for decision making
- It is not immediately comforting or persuasive politically
Rationality does not have an exact opposite even though there is the word irrationality.
Second, why do we believe that rationality is superior to ‘irrationality’ in justifying a belief.
As to faith, beliefs and religion, things are not as obvious as described in the question. Most humans are members of the religion of their parents, and they typically get indoctrinated and enrolled into their religion before their training in rational thought is complete (before children can defend themselves). As such, most religious people arrived at their faith not through reason, and only some try to justify their faith later through reason.
So society does not expect humans to logically choose faith, most religions do not first teach all alternatives and then ask children to make a rational (or other) choice.
Instead, a person claiming to have been atheist but then having switched to becoming religious by reason alone would be an extreme outlier, and typically regarded as a weirdo. Even for adults, it's much more common to grow in faith as a result of a personal crisis and possibly being indoctrinated on a close personal level, rather than rational teaching.
So people who go through some crisis like losing a loved one are "forgiven" (for lack of a better word) for choosing faith irrationally to find solace.
In more general matters than faith, reliability shows rationality to statistically lead to attain goals more often than any alternative, and so humans who so not use rationality are choosing a non-optimal method with respect to chances of success. Unless they can justify what else they optimize for, their behavior seems like a thinking flaw.
And third of all, why do most of us deny mystical revelations/feelings etc as justifications for beliefs?
I am not sure that this is happening. But there are reasons to be cautious. Cults use various known psychological techniques to cause "mystical feelings" or beliefs. And thus victimize and exploit gullible people. Also, in most jobs people are expected to behave rationally for the benefit of the company, and a person acting according to mystical feelings rather than reason would be seen as sabotaging their company and violating the terms of their employment. So as a society, I think we expect people to keep their mystical feelings confined to their private lifes, and to reject obvious attempts by cults to recruit them through psychological tricks. That leaves a bit, but not much, personal freedom to indulge in some magical thinking.
Still, not all humans do recognize in their lives anything that they identify as divine spirituality, and thus have no obvious way to understand people who claim to have such feelings, other than remembering maybe childhood feelings like believing santa claus will bring gifts (one of the tricks to indoctrinate children with religion).
Steven Pinker as an example defines rationality as "the use of knowledge to attain goals." It is valued for it's proven benefits to humans in society for science and law, as an example. Using rationality, we can examine events like a new global virus pandemic, we can find measures to reduce negative impacts, develop vaccines and so on. In law, it helps determine responsibility, and make judgements that are not discriminating.
More generally said, rationalism is the attitude that whatever your goals are, using knowledge and reason will be the safest way to achieve them (if you can afford the time and cost). It's successes in science are overwhelming and have no alternative.
Rationality does not only have benefits:
- It takes effort (time, money) to train humans to use reason and exercise it
- It is slow for decision making
- It is not immediately comforting or persuasive politically
Rationality does not have an exact opposite even though there is the word irrationality.
Second, why do we believe that rationality is superior to ‘irrationality’ in justifying a belief.
As to faith, beliefs and religion, things are not as obvious as described in the question. Most humans are members of the religion of their parents, and they typically get indoctrinated and enrolled into their religion before their training in rational thought is complete (before children can defend themselves). As such, most religious people arrived at their faith not through reason, and only some try to justify their faith later through reason.
So society does not expect humans to logically choose faith, most religions do not first teach all alternatives and then ask children to make a rational (or other) choice.
Instead, a person claiming to have been atheist but then having switched to becoming religious by reason alone would be an extreme outlier, often also with skepticism and rejection rather than approval (likr it was not "real" faith). Even for adults, it's much more common to grow in faith as a result of a personal crisis and possibly being indoctrinated on a close personal level, rather than rational teaching.
So people who go through some crisis like losing a loved one are "forgiven" (for lack of a better word) for choosing faith irrationally to find solace.
In more general matters than faith, reliability shows rationality to statistically lead to attain goals more often than any alternative, and so humans who so not use rationality are choosing a non-optimal method with respect to chances of success. Unless they can justify what else they optimize for, their behavior seems like a thinking flaw.
And third of all, why do most of us deny mystical revelations/feelings etc as justifications for beliefs?
I am not sure that this is happening. But there are reasons to be cautious. Cults use various known psychological techniques to cause "mystical feelings" or beliefs. And thus victimize and exploit gullible people. Also, in most jobs people are expected to behave rationally for the benefit of the company, and a person acting according to mystical feelings rather than reason would be seen as sabotaging their company and violating the terms of their employment. So as a society, I think we expect people to keep their mystical feelings confined to their private lifes, and to reject obvious attempts by cults to recruit them through psychological tricks. That leaves a bit, but not much, personal freedom to indulge in some magical thinking.
Still, not all humans do recognize in their lives anything that they identify as divine spirituality, and thus have no obvious way to understand people who claim to have such feelings, other than remembering maybe childhood feelings like believing santa claus will bring gifts (one of the tricks to indoctrinate children with religion).
Steven Pinker as an example defines rationality as "the use of knowledge to attain goals." It is valued for it's proven benefits to humans in society for science and law, as an example. Using rationality, we can examine events like a new global virus pandemic, we can find measures to reduce negative impacts, develop vaccines and so on. In law, it helps determine responsibility, and make judgements that are not discriminating.
More generally said, rationalism is the attitude that whatever your goals are, using knowledge and reason will be the safest way to achieve them (if you can afford the time and cost). It's successes in science are overwhelming and have no alternative.
Rationality does not only have benefits:
- It takes effort (time, money) to train humans to use reason and exercise it
- It is slow for decision making
- It is not immediately comforting or persuasive politically
Rationality does not have an exact opposite even though there is the word irrationality.
Second, why do we believe that rationality is superior to ‘irrationality’ in justifying a belief.
As to faith, beliefs and religion, things are not as obvious as described in the question. Most humans are members of the religion of their parents, and they typically get indoctrinated and enrolled into their religion before their training in rational thought is complete (before children can defend themselves). As such, most religious people arrived at their faith not through reason, and only some try to justify their faith later through reason.
So society does not expect humans to logically choose faith, most religions do not first teach all alternatives and then ask children to make a rational (or other) choice.
Instead, a person claiming to have been atheist but then having switched to becoming religious by reason alone would be an extreme outlier, and typically regarded as a weirdo. Even for adults, it's much more common to grow in faith as a result of a personal crisis and possibly being indoctrinated on a close personal level, rather than rational teaching.
So people who go through some crisis like losing a loved one are "forgiven" (for lack of a better word) for choosing faith irrationally to find solace.
In more general matters than faith, reliability shows rationality to statistically lead to attain goals more often than any alternative, and so humans who so not use rationality are choosing a non-optimal method with respect to chances of success. Unless they can justify what else they optimize for, their behavior seems like a thinking flaw.
And third of all, why do most of us deny mystical revelations/feelings etc as justifications for beliefs?
I am not sure that this is happening. But there are reasons to be cautious. Cults use various known psychological techniques to cause "mystical feelings" or beliefs. And thus victimize and exploit gullible people. Also, in most jobs people are expected to behave rationally for the benefit of the company, and a person acting according to mystical feelings rather than reason would be seen as sabotaging their company and violating the terms of their employment. So as a society, I think we expect people to keep their mystical feelings confined to their private lifes, and to reject obvious attempts by cults to recruit them through psychological tricks. That leaves a bit, but not much, personal freedom to indulge in some magical thinking.
Still, not all humans do recognize in their lives anything that they identify as divine spirituality, and thus have no obvious way to understand people who claim to have such feelings, other than remembering maybe childhood feelings like believing santa claus will bring gifts (one of the tricks to indoctrinate children with religion).