these are the constructs of 'atheism' within the blog post...

theidiot wrote:No, what Dawkins and all are 'hot on' is sacredizing rationality, critical thinking, skepticism. They have no clue how to make individuals as such, in fact they don't even posses the qualities they expound. Most of these new atheist suffer a great deal of confirmation bias. Their own views of religion are fueled by resentful delusions.

They are asserting that governing one's life by rational thought and critical thinking is the best system and will result in the most stable, most intelligent, best-educated and most egalitarian societies. That is what they are doing: asserting a stance, the same way that Democrats assert a stance (government should be of and by the people), Taoists assert a stance (living in harmony with the flow of the universe will result in more happiness than constantly trying to swim upstream)...etc.

And the problem with that is...?

theidiot wrote:What I mean by sacredizing, is that they get everyone shouting how much they value rationalism and scientific thinking. Then they get around to believing that by getting people to value it, that this magically makes them more rational and better critical thinkers than those who don't go around calling themselves rationalist. Their solution to irrationality is to get people to go around and wear a badge announcing how rational they are.

Um...no? No, wait, that's not what I meant to say. FUCK NO. Right, that's it, then.

HOW do you come to this? Here's what you essentially said:

If I believe that critical thinking and rational skepticism are the best avenues not only for the individual, but society as a whole, and I come forward with this ideology, I am really only getting people to think they're rational thinkers, not become rational thinkers.

No. I am stating that this is how we should govern our lives, in my opinion, and if you want to learn more about what it means to be a critical thinker, then you can read up on that and learn about it.

theidiot wrote:It's utter stupidity. If you foster the value as rationalism as such, it doesn't get people to critically think, its get them to call their delusions rational.

No, stating that one shouldn't assert that they believe this is the best system because simply making this assertion doesn't magically make people capable of critical thinking is...well, demonstrating a lack of critical thinking, actually.

Should I not state that, in my opinion, "don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to you" is the principle by which we should govern our lives because simply stating this doesn't mean that people will automatically adopt this philosophy and understand bow to apply it to everyday life?

theidiot wrote:Even the creationist value critical thinking. It's why they want to place stickers on science text books, asking students to think critically about the ToE.

I get it now. You don't understand what critical thinking is.

theidiot wrote:When any of these New Atheist dimwits, and their supporters figures out a cure for the basic irrationality of human life, that plagues their own thinking as well, let me know. Or I'm just going to put the whole lot of them, in league with tea party folks, and creationist.

Yes, the cure is to teach critical thinking.

theidiot wrote:
Even the creationist value critical thinking. It's why they want to place stickers on science text books, asking students to think critically about the ToE.

That's hilarious.

They don't want anybody to think critically about the ToE. They don't even want them to know what 'critical thinking' IS.

Creotards define 'critical thinking' as the intellectual process of reconciling facts, evidence and/or reality with scripture. In any and all cases where facts, evidence and/or reality do not conform with scripture, the first step is to twist, distort and/or intentionally misinterpret them until they can create the illusion that they conform to scripture... or, at least enough of an illusion that they can satisfy (deceive/bamboozle) their stupid, gullible and ignorant constituency. If they are not able to accomplish that, then facts, evidence and/or reality are either rejected or ignored.