Do you believe that the notion of reason is being shunned from our society?

Question

If so, in what way?

Answer 1

Not necessarily shunned by society as a whole, but it is being devalued by certain segments of society. A lot of fundamentalist Christians basically ignore reason when it is conflicts with a literal interpretation of the Bible. One way to see this would be to consider the following question: Imagine a group of people who have lived their whole lives so far without any knowledge of the Bible, nor of modern science. Now suppose that a group of scientists and a group of Fundamentalists show up and offer evidence for their beliefs. The scientists talk about evolution, the laws of physics, cosmology, etc., and the Christians talk about Adam & Eve and a serpent, a big flood and an ark full of aniimals, a guy walking on water and raising from the dead, and so on. Given the evidence for both sets of beliefs, which is set of beliefs is a reasonable person who has no previous bias one way or the other, most likely to believe?

My point is that reason is clearly on the side of science, so if science conflicts with a literal interpretation of the Bible, then the fundamentalist must chose faith over reason, and this is essentially what they do.

By the way, I am not an atheist and I do consider spirituality to be very important. I also believe that there are limits to reason and that beyond these limits we need faith. But knowing that reason has limits does not conflict with reason (in fact, you can use logic itself to prove that logic has limitations). The problem is that a lot of people push reason aside, even though they are dealing with areas in which reason ought to be our guided (history, anthropology, biology, physics...)

To embrace the mystery of life and to become a mystic concerning questions of ultimate origins and meaning is not unreasonable or unwise, but to reject reason in the realms of history and science just because reason inconveniently conflicts with whatever religion you happened to be raised in...well, that is neither reasonable nor wise.

Of course a lot of other people act unreasonably for all sorts of reasons, but this is nothing new. Ignorance, lack of self control, uncontrolled greed or anger, etc. but I focused on fundamentalists this is substantial subsection of society that either consciously chooses to ignore reason, or fools themselves into thinking that they are making rational claims. They will even argue with scientists, etc. and go thru all sorts of pseudo-logical contortions trying to show that their beliefs are rational. It is a rather amazing sort of conceptual blindness.

Once can find something similar in the political realm. For example, there is virtually unanimous agreements among all of the world’s climatologists that global warming is a serious issue, but this doesn’t stop millions of average citizens who know nothing about the scientific evidence from arguing that global warming is just a bunch of environmentalist hype. If hundreds of scientists unanimously tell you something, on what basis do you simply say it is all a bunch of baloney? The culprit here is political party loyalty. If someone you don’t like makes a claim, the instinctive response it to think that they are full of BS. This is a logical fallacy. Even the most evil and stupid people on earth can sometimes be right. One needs to consider the arguments and the evidence independently of who is making the claims. This simply does not happen in the global warming issue. The people who actually study climatology take global warming seriously because that is simply the most rational response to the evidence at hand.

Answer 2

Yes. I can really tell through the music that hits the scene.HAs no meaning really.
I mean if you goto a chat room and you try to speak in your own words and heart and everyone ignores you, if one person is interested in what you say and you try to talk your computer acts up and you find yourself of the internet. It's almost like the perverts get free run of the place and we get scorned. I got kicked off of aol for speaking philosophically told my mom i was saying something pervese or something.

Answer 3

i develop into in NYC many years in the past and that i might want to no longer get a bagel because i develop right into a vacationer, plus i develop into at a warm dogs stand. i imagine it develop into because of the bare guy in critical Park washing himself with Clorox wipes, my jaw dropped to my knees and stayed there some thing else of the day, that's what takes position once you placed united states of america contained in the city. Edit: the warm dogs with kraut develop into so strong.

Answer 4

reasoning?ha, i think that very rew people even know what that is anymore. everone is caught up in the pomp and circumstance, and they do things without purpose, for instant gratification. no one wants to work towards anything or understand things that are above them.

Answer 5

yes..partly because of the instantaneous of our world now, the first reaction being emotional - and that we are supposed to "feel" etc..instead of reasoning