I keep running into this and I’ve been rolling my eyes so hard that I’m surprised they haven’t rolled right out of my head. I just keep seeing it in a lot of atheist videos I watch, where the atheist will criticize the religious for doing a thing, then turn right around and do that exact same thing with their own political beliefs.
It’s like they can’t look in the mirror, right?
I was watching a video recently by London Storm, who is a relatively decent newish YouTuber, but he was evaluating a video by Michael Knowles, who is a complete religious asshole. Now this isn’t the most egregious example of this, by far, but Knowles just makes an assertion about some religious topic and London Storm just makes a similar assertion about a political subject and I’m just sitting there saying “you know you’re both doing the same thing, right?”
This is really, really common. Now I’ve talked about how Matt Dillahunty does this all the time. Most of his political views are entirely emotional, he can’t provide any independent, objective evidence that any of it is true, he just really likes the idea and that, apparently, is all that matters. Yet he criticizes the religious, rightfully so, for doing that, but he can’t look at his own positions and acknowledge that he’s doing the same thing. Just because you like it, that doesn’t make it true.
This is where I see so many people who are completely blinded to their own problems, criticizing the irrationality of others and embracing irrationality of their own. You’d think that these people would be able to recognize it in themselves if they were exercising a single, rational, evidence-based standard, but they’re not. “It’s good enough for me, but not for thee!”
I think it’s all crap. I think everything needs to be supported. I think you need to be able to back up your claims with more than fee-fees and faith, and on both sides, on all sides, it’s not being done.
Now I am not perfect and don’t pretend to be, but I recognize when I start going down a path based on emotion and I do my best to stop myself. I don’t hold any positions purely on faith or feelings. I can justify everything and I don’t hold any positions that I can’t justify up front. I’ve already thought about it critically and come up with evidence. You may disagree with the evidence or the interpretation, but that’s where we have intelligent discussions. I never, ever say that it’s true, so there. I try my best to understand the actual reality in which I live.
Yet a lot of these people do not. They don’t care. It’s what makes them hypocrites. Just because you really want it to be true, that doesn’t make it true and that goes for everyone. There are no exceptions. The rules go for everyone. It’s time people grew up and dealt with that, or at least not pretending otherwise when they turn a blind eye to their own irrationality. Nobody cares what you want to be true. That goes for the religious and the political. All of them need to grow the hell up.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
re: I recognize when I start going down a path based on emotion and I do my best to stop myself. I don’t hold any positions purely on faith or feelings. I can justify everything, and I don’t hold any positions that I can’t justify up front. I’ve already thought about it critically and come up with evidence.✔
re: I try my best to understand the actual reality in which I live. ✔
re: Yet a lot of these people do not. They don’t care. It’s what makes them hypocrites. Just because you really want it to be true, that doesn’t make it true and that goes for everyone. There are no exceptions. The rules go for everyone. ✔
re: Nobody cares what you want to be true. That goes for the religious and the political. ✔
I’ve had plenty of religious say to me something like: “Alright then, but our made-up world, beats your reality.” They simply do what feels good and that is that for them.
re: Now I’ve talked about how Matt Dillahunty does this all the time. Most of his political views are entirely emotional, he can’t provide any independent, objective evidence that any of it is true, he just really likes the idea and that, apparently, is all that matters. ✔
Apparently, it is. Here you see how faith and feelings function often regardless of subject matter. Matt may demand logic, reason and demonstrable evidence when it comes to religion but abandon that paradigm when he likes the feelings from political “religion.” Faith and feelings were functioning as religion but now they are functioning as politics (re: cross or addiction transfer).
Life stresses come and before he was using religion to self-medicate but now politics. That cross or addiction transfer can be very tricky to track. Maybe Matt’s religious days never left him, they just morphed. I bet it is part of being human (being irrational in some areas).
The uphill road to rationality passes so close to the feelings nuthouse it often detours or ends there. Often, people simply cannot endure his own littleness unless they can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level: world religion, politics, et.al.
I certainly don’t know but maybe people create the reality they need in order to discover themselves❓💖 I know it is mental but the neurotic opts out of life because they are having trouble maintaining their illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions ❓💖 It may be that it is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never really ours (religious faith, political faith, et.al.).
The great lesson of Freudian psychology: repression (of reality) is normal self-protection. Stupid, but normative. People literally drive themselves into a blind obliviousness with social games, psychological tricks, personal preoccupations so far removed from the reality of their situation that they are forms of madness, but madness all the same.
I’ve had the same thing. Your made up crap could be better than reality in your head, but reality actually exists and all the wishes and dreams in the world won’t change that.
These people are real idiots.
Matt really does have problems when it comes to particular social issues. We’ve known for years that he cannot have an intelligent conversation about slavery. He’s just not capable. Same goes for most of the left-wing hot-button issues. He’s running on pure fee-fees and faith and he doesn’t know how to handle himself intellectually. As a debater against religion, he’s fine. Not great, but fine. As anything else, he really sucks.
re: reality actually exists and all the wishes and dreams in the world won’t change that.✔ Absolutely. Having an incorrect map of reality doesn’t help you navigate reality. You want that map as correct as possible, even when it makes you “sad”.
Re: Matt Dillahunty
It’s true, being more open-minded and willing to consider different perspectives, even if they go against his personal opinion. For example, Matt seems just too skeptical of capitalism and its effects on the environment and human well-being and favors too much social and economic justice -whatever that even means. Being more open-minded and willing to consider different perspectives could help him avoid confirmation bias and straw man fallacies.
There’s a difference between being skeptical and being stupid and he’s crossed the line. He is doing exactly what the religious are doing, just with politics and social issues, but he’s too blinded by his own faith to see it, just like the religious are. I see this among atheists on the far left all the time. They don’t understand what they’re doing wrong and they don’t care.
re: He is doing exactly what the religious are doing,✔ just with politics and social issues, but he’s too blinded by his own faith to see it,✔ just like the religious are. I see this among atheists on the far left all the time.✔ They don’t understand what they’re doing wrong and they don’t care.✔
Yes, they never r-e-a-l-l-y left the functioning (the function) of “religion” it just resurfaced through another vector. You can claw your way out of a box but fall right into a similar functioning box. A lot of addictions function just like that. The underlying causes and triggers put you right back into the same function, just a different form.
I agree, which is why I’m writing another post about exactly that. They are looking for things they want to be true without caring if they are. It’s just that, once you recognize that someone is doing something rationally indefensible, that ought to be discarded for everything. The methodology is flawed. Never mind that it feels good, your feelings mean nothing, but a lot of people can’t handle that. It’s bad when other people do it, but not when you do.
These people really do have rational problems, don’t they?
re: don’t they? They certainly do but sometimes I do it too. I mean, I understand that. I can see it clearly in them and then I catch myself too.
re: Never mind that it feels good,✔ your feelings mean nothing, ✔ but a lot of people can’t handle that.✔
re: Once you recognize that someone is doing something rationally indefensible,✔ that ought to be discarded for everything.✔ The methodology is flawed.✔
It’s flawed, it’s hypocritical; it is specious! But reality is one hard road; however, it is the only REAL road, but it is so, so hard at times. Hard but always worth it. Nevertheless, there is a correlation between how hard life seems to us and how easy we expected it to be. Life is brutal many times. . . but faith doesn’t stop the horrible things.
We shouldn’t forget/ break from the truth/reality. The rest, just “beautiful” lies. Reality has a cruel way of reminding one and it stops for no one and simply marches on, dragging everyone with it. Increasing the strength of our minds is probably the only way to reduce the difficulty of life.
How do you teach the religious, the politically religious, et.al. to strengthen their minds? Thinking something does not make it true. Wanting something does not make it real. Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
The religious: “Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. Oh-la-la, oh-la-la.” I don’t know, maybe few can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.
Whether reality is a hard road or not doesn’t matter. It is what it is. We have no choice but to deal with it. It’s not going to go away no matter what we do. There has to be a place where people just accept the reality they live in and learn how to handle it, but far too many people out there seem utterly incapable. Yes, sometimes people might slip into magical thinking. I try hard not to because I am so cognizant of it, but sometimes, mistakes are made. That’s not what I’m talking about though. These are people who have ZERO interest in reality whatsoever. The religious do it all the time and more and more, I’m seeing modern atheists doing it because they really want the same things that the religious do. A magical happy land in their heads where everyone thinks the way they do and everyone follows their beliefs to the letter.
That’s just not reality though. The sooner these idiots get the hell over themselves, the better. I just don’t think that’s ever going to happen.
re: These are people who have ZERO interest in reality whatsoever.
Yeah, well, you can’t have that. You have to have a modicum of interest in reality, or you are a danger to yourself and others.
re: I’m seeing modern atheists doing it because they really want the same things that the religious do. A magical happy land✔ in their heads where everyone thinks the way they do, and everyone follows their beliefs to the letter.
Yeah, that is totally crazy. That is not productive and it’s impossible to make progress in the absence of goodwill (re: people insisting on living in a magical happy land in their heads.)
Everyone grows but not everyone becomes mature. Magical happy lands are like cyanide, they kill all attempts at dialogue. Reality! Once you can accept it, dialogue and decisions should get more productive.
Yes, reality is cold and unforgiving, and people spend their lives trying to stay warm and “loved.” But those magical happy lands are hanging by a fragile string, and yet, if we let go of false hope, false comfort, there is reality. Deception (atheist or theist) creates an atrocious reality. I guess lots of people don’t believe that knowing the truth is a real asset in life. People manipulate, drive you into the ocean of emotions and then prove that they are untrustworthy. So many are caught in that crazy cycle.
Oh, also re: These are people who have ZERO interest in reality whatsoever.
. . . .Well, they may have if they could get comfortable enough but like everyone, they are full of fears. Religions, politics (you may die but you will live on through The Reich, et.al.) appear to be terror management of some sort. —They are bad, unjustified answers that amount to defense mechanisms against fear of meaninglessness, death, __what-have-you-FEARS__? The “comfort” comes with an entire host of unintended consequences, but people still grab for them.
It may be it is not even the religion, the political system, et.al. they want but the function of self-soothing. The function of terror management
The way of the world (of religions, political systems, et.al.) is often to force people into unacceptable choices. Accept irrationality (no matter what form it takes) in exchange for “safety.” Decry it and become a target (cancel culture, et.al.).
Humans procure psychological equanimity by being valued in the eyes of higher powers: at first our parents, and, as we mature, Gods, political systems, the culture at large. Prime example of a central principle of human life: we combat mortality by striving for significance.
Religions, political systems, cultural conceptions of reality keep a lid on mortal dread, acknowledging the legitimacy of beliefs contrary to our own unleashes the very terror those beliefs serve to quell (their function). That is why so many theists have no interest in open, honest dialogue. So, we must parry the threat by derogating and dehumanizing those with alternative views of life, by forcing them to adopt our beliefs and co-opting aspects of their cultures into our own, or by obliterating them entirely.
Fears are driving all this crap-o-la.
I’m not concerned with their fears. I might be the weird one here, but I only care what’s actually true. People who want to reject reality and substitute their own are the ones with the problems. We need to have higher standards for humanity. Will most of them comply? No. So what? It doesn’t matter how they feel about things, it matters what is actually true and I get really tired of having to keep saying that to people who are terrified to actually be alive. We don’t allow people to be outspoken racists because they’re too stupid to know otherwise, we hold them to higher standards and when the racist fucks come out, they get shouted down from everywhere, as they should be. That ought to be how everything works. If your beliefs to not coincide with reality, then you have no business holding them.
Yet humans are idiots, aren’t they? I’m really sick of the stupidity.
re: We don’t allow people to be outspoken racists because they’re too stupid to know otherwise, we hold them to higher standards and when the racists come out, they get shouted down from everywhere, as they should be. That ought to be how everything works. If your beliefs do not coincide with reality, then you have no business holding them.
Yes, spot on; but society is going to have to target outspoken religious and political views (substitute religions), et.al. Almost everybody has gotten to that place with racists BUT religions and their various soft substitutes, it seems we are still hundreds of years away!
People are constantly telling us to stop attacking people’s faiths (beliefs that do not coincide with reality). I don’t know, you can hit a critical mass and it could happen quickly but as you always say: “Don’t hold your breath.”
Sorry, there is one and only one standard that we need. Reality. I don’t care how anyone feels. I care if their positions demonstrably coincide with actual reality. Stop screeching at me and just prove that you have a clue what you’re doing!
I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.
They’re not interested in productive, they just want that dopamine shot in the noggin, which is what is driving the majority of problems worldwide. They all just want to believe, whether what they believe is true or not. They need to care though, whether they like it or not. Reality exists no matter how anyone feels about it.
Humanity needs to grow the hell up and people need to stop making excuses for the immaturity.
re: Humanity needs to grow the hell up and people need to stop making excuses for their immaturity.
It’s true and the outspoken racists✔ example is a good one.
It’s the outspoken racists and sexists that are screaming that everyone else are racists and sexists. These people are idiots.
re: Those that are screaming.
Psychological projection is such an often-used defense mechanism, and it is so often unconsciously occurring that it is hard for racists and sexists to acknowledge and deal with their emotions directly. Much easier to project out than do the inner work. Example: “You’re going to hell❗” vs. “Wow, I wonder if any of this is really true❓”
They don’t care if it’s true. They just want to believe it. They can’t get it through their heads that their desires don’t impact factual reality.
These people are really, really dumb.
Exactly✔ That’s all they have. Claims. Empty sentiments and blind faith. They must realize that nobody outside of their in-group cares about mere words.
I’m really tired of claims and people who can’t be introspective. I’m tired of people who don’t care about your feelings, but sure demand that you care about theirs. I don’t care about anyone’s feelings. I care about the demonstrable facts and it is really hard to find people who are remotely concerned about that at all.