studiojimi wrote on Wed, 09 January 2008 06:24 |
you really think we can agree on what is rational?
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How about...
1) using sound logic (i.e. without fallacies of any kind) to build an argument that is internally consistent.
2) using same sound logic to insure relevance to the discussion
3) readiness to act upon the conclusions reached and not to act against them.
There's actually also:
4) readiness to verify the premises (implicit and explicit)
but I wouldn't want to cause people who are squeamish about item 4 to throw out the other three as well (as they usually do).
The point is that anyone in their right mind will accept that drawing the wrong conclusion from the right premises potentially causes evil. So does not following correctly drawn conclusions. For instance:
God exists -> (fallacious reasoning) -> I must take an airplane and fly it into a tower block.Suppose for a while that the premise is true. It is then logically impossible to get from the premise to the conclusion using correct logic. This should convince believers that it is morally imperative to use solid logic. Clearly, flying an airplane into a building after having first concluded that it is not a correct thing to do would be, apart from immoral, also quite silly.
A secular example would be:
Patient has bacterial infection -> (fallacious reasoning) -> I must treat with distilled water.Rational behaviour would have been to prescribe antibiotics. Irrational behaviour is morally wrong here because the patient dies while correct reasoning (and subsequent action) would have saved his life. Logic holds equally in a universe with or without God. Anyone endowed with a sense of morality, believer or not, will see that sound logic is morally imperative, with belief only relating to what premises one considers true*.
Given that item 4 relates only to whether one accepts revelation as a source of knowledge or not, I can't imagine how there could be disagreement with the first three items. That should already be enough common ground as far as a definition of "rational" is concerned.
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*note to fellow skeptics: unclosed gap in reasoning left in intentionally