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).
The issue is the framing of “organized religion” when what you really mean is “Christianity”. This has been the problem with new atheism for a long time: take valid criticisms of Christianity, along with the trauma and experiences in Christian churches, and then try to paint all religion with that same brush. And you can’t do that.
You’re angry at Christianity and its hegemony in American life. I get it and I share many of those fears and frustrations. You mentioned things happening in FL. I’m in FL, and as a queer person it’s fucking terrifying here. But the momentum behind that push isn’t coming from synagogues or mosques, or from Hindus or Buddhists or Taoists. It’s an explicit white Christian supremacist movement.
Christianity’s dogma, style of worship, mindsets, etc don’t map to other faiths. And even inside of Christianity there’s people who are trying to push back. But saying that things like this are characteristic of all religions shows a complete lack of understanding of faiths outside of Christianity.
I think 75% of the population literally try not to have critical thinking in one major aspect of their life that literally says don’t think, have faith.
It’s a part of religion to not think, to follow and obey. It’s sweet you want to defend them in other avenues, but cognitive dissonance is also causing a lot of sorrow and pain while religious people on majority are standing back and following their leaders, even the progressive ones, aren’t willing to progress fast enough. They’re still following something that’s usually mostly historically been oppressive and regressive to maintain power over the masses.
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.
I mean. They’re doubling down on stupid i think it’s fair to call them out on it. In order to follow most organized religion, you are taught to kill critical thinking and have faith. It’s literally a part of the whole thing
You’re in a thread that literally is about churches not going along with homophobic takes. People keep saying “religious people should stand up against the bigots” and because they are in the example, you have bigots splitting off. And then turn around and insult the intelligence of said religious people still.
Who really is the person showing a lack of critical thinking skills? I’d argue the one whose take lacks any nuance.
It’s about one small group. And one that couldn’t stop being taken over by assholes and has a schism because the more conversative left.
Among those who say they were raised exclusively by Protestants, roughly eight-in-ten now identify with Protestantism, including 80% of those raised by two Protestant parents and 75% of those raised by a single parent who was Protestant. Most who were raised exclusively by Protestants but who no longer identify as such are now religious “nones,” with smaller numbers now identifying with Catholicism or other religions.
I have done a lot of research and could have a nuanced discussion. I don’t think claiming people who have negative options are “2010 Atheists” is the bit of a bigot in this case. I think religion has enough people carrying water who were just raised in it and don’t think critically.
