Atheist critiques of religion

[rug]

April 10, 2013
By yvonne

Atheist critiques of religion are mostly valid, insofar as they are true. I think the atheist critique does religions a great service – it’s like having an independent auditor to look at your work and check for shoddy bits. So how does Paganism measure up to the atheist yardstick?

Critique 1: “It’s all irrational”

Yes, of course it is. The emotions, spiritual experience, love, awe, wonder – these are not cognitive responses to the world, so are by definition not rational.

However, my religion has to be compatible with reason and experience. When it goes beyond the empirical evidence, those bits are marked “working hypothesis” and “conjecture”.

There are degrees of irrationality; not all “woo” is equally irrational. Just because I posit the possibility of earth energies as a working hypothesis to explain certain experiences that I have had, does not mean that I also believe in ley lines, homoeopathy, or other forms of “woo”. I’d quite like to believe in homoeopathy, but having examined the evidence against it, can only conclude that it doesn’t work.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/sermonsfromthemound/2013/04/atheist-critiques-of-religion/

[MellowDem]

1. Paganism chalks up poorly...

just like every other irrational belief system. Of course, atheists can believe in all sorts of non-deity "woo", and some do. The author is talking about skeptics/rationalists, all of whom are atheists, though not necessarily vice-versa.

There are not degrees of irrationality. Either something is based on rational thought or it is not.