re theism and fanatism was islamic genocide in article bb b ca i dbstu rz tu bs de i dbstu rz tu bs de benedikt rosenau writes in article qv q fn horus ap mchp sni de frank d s uucp frank o dwyer writes theism is strongly correlated with irrational belief in absolutes irrational belief in absolutes is strongly correlated with fanatism correlation is not causation and a belief that absolutes exist is not the same thing as a belief in absolutes any more than belief in a shortest route from thurles to clonmel is the same thing as a knowledge of the irish roadsystem correlation is not necessarily causation however as you might have noticed the above allows to conclude that the correlation between religion and fanatism is based on common features of religious belief sorry for the long quotes but i dont see where to cut huh are you barking mad hardly theism is not as strongly correlated with fanaticism as you say plus you could find stronger correlations if you were actually interested in the truth instead of being as you seeming are a bigot theism is correlated with fanaticism i have neither said that all fanatism is caused by theism nor that all theism leads to fanatism the point is theism increases the chance of becoming a fanatic one could of course argue that would be fanatics tend towards theism for example but i just have to loook at the times in history when theism was the dominant ideology to invalidate that conclusion that that is the basic mechanism behind it imo the influence of stalin or for that matter ayn rand invalidates your assumption that theism is the factor to be considered gullibility blind obedience to authority lack of scepticism and so on are all more reliable indicators and the really dangerous people the sources of fanaticism are often none of these things they are cynical manipulators of the gullible who know precisely what they are doing now some brands of theism and more precisely some theists do tend to fanaticism i grant you to tar all theists with this brush is bigotry not a reasoned argument and it reads to me like a warm up for censorship and restriction of religious freedom ever read animal farm define irrational belief e g is it rational to believe that reason is always useful irrational belief is belief that is not based upon reason the latter has been discussed for a long time with charley wingate one point is that the beliefs violate reason often and another that a process that does not lend itself to rational analysis does not contain reliable information well there is a glaring paradox here an argument that reason is useful based on reason would be circular and argument not based on reason would be irrational which is it the first part of the second statement contains no information because you don t say what the beliefs are if the beliefs are strong theism and or strong atheism then your statement is not in general true the second part of your sentence is patently false counterexample an axiomatic datum does not lend itself to rational analysis but is assumed to contain reliable information regardless of what process is used to obtain it compared the evidence theists have for their claims to the strength of their demands makes the whole thing not only irrational but antirational i can t agree with this until you are specific which theism to say that all theism is necessarily antirational requires a proof which i suspect you do not have the affinity to fanatism is easily seen it has to be true because i believe it is nothing more than a work hypothesis however the beliefs say they are more than a work hypothesis i don t understand this can you formalise your argument frank o dwyer i m not hatching that odwyer sse ie from hens by evelyn conlon
