Guest post: Not a destination you ever arrive at
Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on Buhbye.
Of course secularism (i.e. separation of church and state) does not imply atheism, and atheism does not imply critical thinking. I still think the consistent application of critical thinking leads to “atheism”, but that doesn’t mean atheism leads to critical thinking. Atheism is just a specific conclusion. There is no shortage of people who arrived at this conclusion for reasons that have nothing to do with critical thinking, whether it’s in protest of the historical crimes of the church, a reaction to the horrific misogyny, homophobia, or general nastiness of the Bible, being offended by self-appointed representatives of God telling others what to do, a fallout with their religious community, or even feeling “betrayed by God” because of a personal tragedy.
As I may have mentioned earlier, one of my personal favorite entries from my old blog (R.I.P.) was called (the Norwegian equivalent of) “The Right Conclusion for the Wrong Reason”. In it I argued that just because someone happens to reach a correct conclusion doesn’t necessarily mean they arrived at it through sound reasoning and that “skeptics” should be critical of bad reasons, even when they are used to support a conclusion we agree with. The blog post was written out of frustration about Bill Maher receiving the Richard Dawkins award for promoting “science” and “critical thinking”. It was probably one of my least popular posts ever.
Speaking of “skeptics”, at least they claim to care more about epistemology, careful thinking, methodological rigor etc. than specific conclusions (like “atheism”), but of course we have seen what that amounts to in practice (Science-Based Medicine, anyone?). When I was a student back in the 1990s we were still required to take an introductory course in philosophy. According to the (almost certainly grossly oversimplified and caricatured) portrayal of ancient Greece presented to us, there were people (the good guys) who called themselves “philosophers” and saw themselves as seeking wisdom, and there were other people (the bad guys) who called themselves “sophists” and saw themselves has having wisdom (and hence being able to teach it to others for money).
Even if this portrayal is a caricature, I think something similar goes for critical thinking and Movement Skepticism™. Thinking critically is a goal you’re perpetually striving towards, not a destination you ever arrive at. Perhaps more importantly critical thinking is something you do (or try to), a Movement Skeptic™ is something you are, i.e. an “identity”, a tribal affiliation, a brand name etc. Whenever I come across an online source that has “skeptic”, “reason”, “rationality” etc. in its name these days, if anything it makes me trust it less rather than more. Like claiming to have wisdom, claiming “reason” for yourself, is a red flag and a warning sign that this person is even more heavily invested in their ideologically motivated conclusions than the average person, and hence more motivated to defend them to the death.
Great post as usual.
This is something I noticed a long time ago. I tried to read some of the books by atheists like Penn Jillette and Bill Maher, but they weren’t worth reading. And another, I don’t remember who, that informed everyone that, yes, atheists are atheists because they don’t want to follow the rules. That isn’t why I became an atheist, and I never understood it anyway. If you believe there are rules, and gods, but you decide not to follow them, what are you gaining? It’s like knowing Mom will punish you for stealing a cookie, but you steal it anyway, pretending that there are no rules doesn’t help. You still get punished.
I’m beginning to have the same problem you are with reason, skeptic, etc. Those words have meant something to me, but they are losing their meaning almost as rapidly as the word ‘woman’. And by the actions of the same people…though there are plenty of Christian Nationalists who also consider themselves to be skeptics using reason to arrive at a logical conclusion.
Years ago, when internet atheism was just revving up, it seemed that there was one faction that had (like me) considered the evidence for god and adopted atheism as a rational conclusion, and another which were atheists simply because they rejected all forms of authority, gods included. I called them “Catheists” (conclusion-atheists) and “Ratheists” (reaction-atheists). We may have worked toward a common purpose, but — but there really were two groups, and they didn’t get along very well. To me, Catheist that I am, the Ratheists all seemed like disagreeable, authoritarian types (I shan’t name names but you might be thinking of some of them…) who were more interested in getting attention and squashing rivals than in, say, science, history, and the veracity of religious beliefs.
Interesting. I’m not sure the two can be separated that sharply though. Yes atheism is partly epistemic, but religion is not like believing in elves and fairies and magical powers. Religion makes huge claims on us, including telling us what to do, including telling us to do bad things. Its claims to authority are far more dangerous than the claims of hobbits and similar.
Same. I tried reading “Every Day’s An Atheist Holiday”, but couldn’t get over the time I wasted watching “Bullshit!” where every dumb arsed Libertarian talking point was treated as a Great Revealed Truth From On High and was afraid to repeat the error.
This is kind of the reverse edge of the Stopped Clock sword–it is so damned tempting to laud someone who is stating the correct time of day, that you overlook the fact that in literally every other second, they are dead wrong, and for the same reason they happen to be correct at that moment. (We’re not totally immune to that, here–every once in awhile, a right-wing socio-religious conservative gets credit for opposing trans nonsense, even though their actual reason for doing so is much closer to “you should accept the gender that comes with your sex”, rather than the GCF position that you should accept your sex, and recognize gender as a steaming pile of bs.