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kleinbl00  ·  1746 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The magical thinking of guys who love logic

The "new rationalists" have two fundamental problems that make them unconvincing and insufferable to everyone else:

1) They don't know how to debate

2) They don't know how to think.

As to the former, classical rhetoric takes the form of ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos - "believe me because I am a morally upstanding person of character and this argument is just and ethical." Pathos - "believe me because think of the children!" Logos - "believe me because here are 99 facts that support my position. The "new rationalists" use all three, but claim they're only using logic. Ethos - "My facts are the best because they are facts and everyone believes my facts." Pathos - "You are a doodyhead because you dispute my facts when we all know that my facts are the purest of facts." Logos - "I have some facts." While they might think they're deploying only logic, they generally hide behind facts to make ethical or emotional arguments and then when they're called on their ethical or emotional plays they say "but I haz factz!" at which point people ignore them because they're fucking dumb and they're all butt-hurt because no one will argue with them on their terms. Exhibit A: Ben Fucking Shapiro.

As to the latter, "atheism" is in opposition to theism. That's just etymology. Thing about theism, though, is it is "a belief in god or gods." Atheism then should be "no belief in god or gods" but for the neoatheism movement it's become "a belief in no god or gods." It's a minor semantic difference with major philosophical implications; whereas agnostics acknowledge that they either haven't considered the implications of religion or haven't formed strong opinions, neoatheists have formed very strong opinions and a legitimate belief system that is every bit as pinned to dogma and inherited knowledge as Mormonism or Catholicism. Their god is "no god", their bible is Sam Harris, their church is /r/atheism.

In the end, people who want to be told what to believe have been told what to believe and now they're telling everyone else what to believe. They wear "rationalism" like a cloak but they don't practice it.

    This is my attempt to break the spell, I guess. Repeat after me: calling something logic doesn’t make it so. Calling someone rational doesn’t make it so. Opinions from Youtube men are not facts. Getting mad about philosophers you haven’t read isn’t reason. Insulting your girlfriend because she questions your sudden political shift isn’t logic. For a group of people who claim to hate the supposed redefinition of words when it comes to gender and race; for a group of people who are very mad about the postmodern tendency to say nothing means anything (or at least this is an aspect of postmodernism they seem to have gleaned from their favorite subreddits), the new young reactionaries are remarkably devil-may-care about certain words when they seem to lend credibility and strength to their opinions.

Just because others have thought through the arguments doesn't mean they don't need to be made anymore. A^2 plus B^2 might very well equal C^2 but unless you can show someone else you won't convince them it's true.