"The next time someone tries to tell me that being Christian is the embodiment of logic and reasoning, I don't know what I will do," a young woman on IRC commented. Well here is a really crazy notion for her to consider: engage the person in a critical analysis on that issue.
Her comment was in response to something I had said earlier in a conversation with someone else; namely, that an in-depth study of logic and critical thinking ironically led me from atheism to Christian theism: "The unexpected thing was the fact that a commitment to reason and critical thinking eventually landed me in the Christian camp," I had said.
But for all practical purposes it is impossible to engage her on that issue because she has a vitriolic aversion to anything that even resembles "religion talk." What I find very disappointing is the sheer ubiquity of this attitude among those who identify themselves as atheists. It is alarming, the number of atheists I encounter that exhibit it. They will take time out of their day to hurl such gratuitous invective, but to engage the issues critically is somehow not worth their time. It is very disheartening to observe such priority in their values, where they have time to invest in supercilious rhetoric but not critical analysis. Such intellectual irresponsibility was part of the reason I ended up rejecting atheism, and the atheists I interact with today continually demonstrate that my conclusive observation is still relevant and accurate.
In the words of English philosopher Herbert Spencer:
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation."
