wade-w

Sabine:

The real point here is that your suggestions are at best tangential to the original topic. The debate is not really about whether one should always be rational. Rather, it is about whether one should claim to be rational, when in fact one is not being rational at all.

Godwin's Law is from the old usenet days, and says that if a thread goes on long enough, someone will eventually mention Hitler, and at that point the thread is ready for closing. Sorry, it was a feeble attempt at geek humor.

Sabine Grant

Salut Wade... and I thought Godwinmay may have been some sort of apologist who may have demonstrated that reason is what supports faith !
I think the point I was trying to make is that despite of the absence of reason behind faith, the person who calls himself Rational BAC may be a rational individual. It appears that for most freethinkers reason is the ultimate value. It was more so on my part an attempt to say " ok... so what if faith is not the product of reason...and should reason be indeed the ultimate value?"
In other words is it because faith is not supported by reason that freethinkers dismiss any value to it?
I will assume that what is being questionned in the OP is the the non rational aspect of BAC's or any believer's faith..... but not the ability a believer has to be a rational person in his every day life.

If reason is the only criterion to evaluate the validity of any thought process in the mind of a freethinker, I felt it was important to question that criterion itself. And of course that is based on my personal experience that I do not use reason as the only criterion to evaluate the productivity of thoughts.
Where do you suggest I could start a thread on that topic?

AJ113

I read that statement as self-contradictory.

RBAC may prefer to consider himself as rational, and indeed you may prefer to concede that possibility to him, but the fact is that he has admitted that his faith is irrational. This, IMO, disqualifies him from making any claims about being a rational individual.

Rational BAC

--Not going to get in this one because Sabine is doing a much better job than I could.

--Besides --getting Verizon's high speed cable taken out today and Roadrunner put in. So not sure when will be back on---since I have to input it myself and I am seriously lousy at that sort of thing.

--Just a quicky though---

I don't see how AJ gets from point A to point B as far as thinking that since I have admitted to irrationality in my core belief system--------I have somehow turned into an irrational individual in all ways.

Expliquez ça !!!---AJ

You are starting to worry me.--AJ-----

----- I wonder sometimes how I made it to age of 60 (with a 20 year career as a very competent and sometimes downright brilliant refrigeration technician) as irrational as I seem to be to you. The way you consider my intelligence, I wonder if I should even be walking around?

Rational BAC

Well ---nobody has showed up yet. And I did on the road service work for 20 years, so I know how that goes. It could be that no damned body will show up today to do anything. I do know that I will need to shut this sucker 'puter down and let the modem cool off before any tech gets here to take it away. So plan to get off-line pretty soon.

Anyway---will go a little farther with this.

The strange thing is--

-------that I was a very competent technician when I used the rational left side of my brain.

--It was the "brilliant" side of my technical work that always surprised me and everybody else I worked with. And it was not left brained at all or even rational. But it worked. I was called on sometimes to diagnose something that had had a zillion recalls, something that nobody could seem to fix. Some kind of problem where A plus B should equal C---but for some damned reason or other it didn't. And that is why nobody could fix it. Except for me (and a few others who could also think outside the box) And, of course you have a SERIOUSLY irate customer screaming in your ear all the time you were trying to work on the job.

Anyway--------have no idea how it worked, but it would. Something in the right side of my brain would cut through all the crap that the left side of my brain was completely stumped on. And I knew what was wrong. Don't know how I knew, but I did. And I was almost always right.

It was funny to see the other techs Whoops Tech here got to go

Rational BAC

Verizon tech and their modem gone. Time Warner and their Roadrunner 3 month rate special not here yet.


So am back on my old $5 a month limited aol dial up for a while and for the first time in a year. Gawd is it slooow too. Oh well, it is so easy to get spoiled you know. And really not half bad. Just need a little patience, I guess. As long as I can wing ding a special rate from the 2 high speed competitors in this area, will keep high speed. But no way would I pay regular price for it.

So where were we before we were so woodly intewupted?

Oh yes. It is all clear to me now.-------------

---------It was funny to see the other techs look at you with absolute amazement. "How did you do that?" "Nobody could fix that one!!!" I would just smile a happy little smile, because I really couldn't explain it either---------in any kind of rational way.

And I was far from the best at that. There were a few techs who would absolutely astound ME how they could figure what was really wrong with something seemingly using no seeming rationality at all. We would call them "natural mechanics". Only they knew how they did it. And I doubt that they really did.

(Got to watch my time on this dial-up aol. It is very limited. And I don't want to go over.)

Later---

Sabine Grant

Really ? without having any personal knowledge of whom BAC is in his daily life and how he makes his choices, you can actualy evaluate the level of overall rationality of an individual whose sole contact you have with is thru cyber means ? oh come on... coming from someone who demands a rational thought process....you just lost any credibility with me.

Sabine Grant

Bonjour grand- pere ! Of course you are not an irrational individual in all ways. And even if you were, only a person who has had a close relationship with you, observing your habits, choices, lifestyle, your interaction with daily life events and people could make an evaluation on your ability to be rational. There is one French expression from the south of France which applies to a one way communication situation... are you ready ? " Il faut laisser le taureau pisser". It refers to how bulls tend to block roads in Camargue to relieve their blatters... and the only thing to do is to let the beast do his thing. Once the blatter empty, both the bull and patient driver can move on.

To go back to the topic..... I have no problems personaly with you using the term rational. Whether you be a theist or non theist or anything else, as long as your choices do not consist in hurting your neighbor, you fit my definition of a rational person.

Biff the unclean

So Sabine how is it that you are able to judge AJ113, and me, and etc. etc. by what we write here but AJ113 is not allowed to?

Since Rational BAC not only writes in a self-contradictory way and even boosts that his beliefs are irrational what reading comprehension problem do you suffer from that you don't see that he is irrational?
Or are you just trying to control AJ113 so that you can knock another thread off topic?

Sabine Grant

Biff.... if you have any further warmonging intent to pursue with me, feel free to take it to my PM. The personal conflic you believe you have with me and your perpetual assumptions on my account are what is derailing this thread as well as the other. I am sure moderators will support the resolution of your conflicts with me on private PM. Thanks!