Forum:How is Rationalism Contrary to Theism?

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Hello 'Rationalists', I like to proceed from an experiential view of being. I experience and within that experience I have identified forms which I describe as sensible. That is within my experience there are consistent conditions of varying character which it has been possible to 'sense'.

At a radical level the separations may have included things like sameness/differentness or self/other and all the sense data deriving from what I now describe as a body: However, they've gone on to rather shaky distinctions like Atheistic/Theistic or Rational/Irrational.

Rationalism, it seems to me, at least as a name, has come to us from the Pythagoreans who were, by all accounts Theists. They tried to describe the world in terms of ratios of pairs of whole numbers and Mathematics has, for some time now, departed from that view - embracing the irrational.

It seems to me that some of the people offering theistic interpretations of phenomenal nature have been among the greatest thinkers of their time, consequently the glib and poorly considered treatment given to ALL non-mechanistic ideas that is fashionable among people calling themselves 'rational' and 'scientific' is likely to blind such people to possibilities and cripple their ability to receive valid data that conforms to their prejudice of the irrational.

It seems to me that some self styled defenders of the 'scientific view' are prepared to take absurd positions to avoid admitting inconvenient presences, such as their own consciousness, in order to forestall arguments they imagine some religious protagonist may bring to bear.

Science has proved itself, this is the age of miracle and wonder and the wonders are the product of science.

It is time science allowed itself to think about mind and being without being afraid the church will take advantage. The battles of the enlightenment have been won, perhaps you can stop punching corpses now.^{— Unsigned, by: Radical Theist / talk / contribs}

I am not a rationalist, but this appears to mostly be a straw man. Outside of a few overheated popular polemics, I am unaware of any general fear of the church within psychology, cognitive science, or neuroscience. The position you describe is eliminative materialism, which is still a minority position in philosophy of mind. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

"It seems to me that some self styled defenders of the 'scientific view' are prepared to take absurd positions to avoid admitting inconvenient presences, such as their own consciousness, in order to forestall arguments they imagine some religious protagonist may bring to bear." This has happened before, it's called scientism, and if it is an "absurd position," it's not very "rational" per se, is it?

You won't find a shortage of people on this website that respect contributors to science, logic, or mathematics despite their religious beliefs. And to say that the battles of the enlightenment have been won - I'd suggest you check up the status of evolution in the United States right now. 173.32.30.79 (talk) 04:06, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

you must be an evilutionist ! repent and embrace Baby Jebus ! Hamster (talk) 04:16, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

It is because rationalism - as the word is presently used in these discussions - is explicitly not about undemonstrable and unrepeatable personal feelings and beliefs. You may have personally experienced many things, but that does not mean that that are meaningful to anybody else.

A far as the "original meaning" of a word - these things change. To take a far more recent example than yours take "Humanism". It has not always been synonymous with "secular humanism".

In so far as thiests being "among the greatest thinkers of their time" - well duh. The majority of people throughout history have been theists so it's hardly surprising that the greatest thinkers were amongst them. For example Isaac Newton was both a theist and an alchemist, though I'm sure you wouldn't present that as s defence of alchemy!

Finally "consciousness" is quite a tough question actually. But I'm not sure why it would prove the existence of God one way or the other. --Weirdstuff (talk) 06:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

"It seems to me that some of the people offering theistic interpretations of phenomenal nature have been among the greatest thinkers of their time". Many of these "greatest thinkers" are now only taught for their historical contributions, even if none of their explanations still hold up. For example, Aristotle and anything regarding physics.

"It seems to me that some self styled defenders of the 'scientific view' are prepared to take absurd positions to avoid admitting inconvenient presences, such as their own consciousness, in order to forestall arguments they imagine some religious protagonist may bring to bear." I don't fully understand this, but (ignoring that this reeks of argument from ignorance) see Non-materialist neuroscience.

The rest is barely coherent and sound to me like a word salad. --The Hellhole! ^{g͘͡r̸̀a̸̶̡n̶̶͜ţ̡ ̀҉̴̨͡m̀͘͜͢e͡ ̸͟҉̷̢ỳ̸̡̀͞ơ̡̢̡ų̧r̴̀͡͝ ̡҉҉̧̛s̵̕͏̡ǫ̀́͢ų́l̵̕҉}|^{G̕͡a̵͘͜z̴͞e͏̴̧͞ ͏̀͠͞u͜͢ņţ̛ơ̶͜ ̶̢̛̀t̴͢h̢̛͠҉è̸̛ ̨́a̸͟b̴̧̀̕͡ý̨͠s͡s͟͠͝} 20:55, 13 October 2013 (UTC)