I was thinking about the recent murders at the air force base in Florida. My understanding is that a Saudi national, a pilot and in their armed forces, was the murderer. Air force pilots are at, or close to, the top of the rational people list in my experience. You have to be in order to have the skills necessary to fly a modern fighter jet. Yet, in some part of his mind, the Muslin religion was able to discard all critical thinking and allow only religious emotions to rule.
Is liberalism like religion? Emotionally based? Powerful enough to overcome rationality?
It would seem so given the current political environment.
Yet an essential part of being human is having emotions. I work to balance emotions with rationality. It is an ongoing struggle. When religion overwhelms rationality, critical thinking is no longer important. Could the same be said of liberalism? I consider it a rational question.
What are your thoughts?
2 replies on “Rationality, Religion, and Liberals”
I’m not sure “rational” is the word you want to use for this kind of case. You certainly have to be intelligent, or able to learn, to fly a jet or do a number of other complex actions. You may need to be rational in the “If A then B” sense but you also run into the “Garbage in, garbage out” issues of “The USA is an evil satan destroying the world, thus we need to do anything, including suicide, to stop it.” This was rational against the Nazis and Imperial Japanese but only because there was truth in the “destroying the world” input.
If you want to consider this rational: the more shootings we have, the more the leftists try to disarm and No Gun Zone the country. This makes shootings more successful (how rational is it to have a guard on a military base not armed?) Thus, If Shootings Then disarmament rationally means commit more shootings until they can take over by force.
Liberalism and progressivism as used by the left of left today is neither liberal nor progressive. It is a return to the worst 8th century anti-liberal regressivism possible. Rationality faded from the scene along time ago. The talking points of the day and the *sacred* thoughts of the *other* replaced it. Even their emotions are mere shadow copies of an endless circle of shadow copies.