From: atdhb@acad2.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Why I am an atheist (long!)
Date: 30 Aug 92 01:02:38 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska

In article <dabrowsk.714864834@liveboard10>, dabrowsk@parc.xerox.com (Jarek Dabrowski) writes:

> Fine. If "have faith" implies "cease to think". Could you prove this
> assertion? 


Jean Piaget, a foremost psychologist and learning theorist,
described learning as "disequilibrium," a state of mind created
by the influx of new information that conflicts with our existing
"schemata" or mental pictures.  Our reaction to the new data
determines whether we learn or not. We can simply reject the new
data (declare it doesn't exist) or change it to fit our existing
schema (declare it's been misinterpreted) or we can accept the
new data and change our schema to fit the new reality (decide our
previous schema was wrong or inadequate and must be updated). 
This latter choice is called learning, and I don't think we'd be
going too far afield to equate learning with thinking.

An example of Piagetian "adaptation" (learning):  We read in the
newspaper that a breeder in Argentina has developed a two-limbed
dog; the front legs are gone altogether and only the back legs
remain.  Now, two-legged dogs do not fit into our schema for
dogs, which might include such characteristics as fur, teeth, a
bark (which may or may not be worse than its bite) affection,
loyalty, man's best friend, chasing tennis balls, two eyes, two
ears and yes, four legs.  So we react to the news of a two-legged
dog in one of the three ways listed above:  We reject the data
outright (the story was a lie and the photograph retouched); we
assimilate the data by changing it (this new animal exists, all
right, but it's not a dog) or we accept the new data by changing
our dog schema to accept two-legged dogs.  Only in the last
instance, known as accommodation, have we actually learned
anything about dogs.

When you choose to sit on the Rock of Faith, you are firmly
anchored and can no longer experience disequilibrium in things
that challenge your religion.  You can no longer accommodate new
data, for that would require you to change your schema, which has
been set in stone and is immutable.  You must therefore either
reject the data outright (like the Flat-Earth Society) or you
must assimilate the data by changing it (like the Institute for
Creation Research).  You have ceased to learn, and the mind that
cannot learn cannot think.

When you embrace thinking and learning, the whoozy, dizzying
feeling of intellectual disequilibrium is a delight and an
adventure.  But when you're locked into your schemata--when
you've got everything invested in your belief
system--disequilibrium is frightening and disturbing and you'll
do anything, short of adaptation and learning, to relieve it.

If new, compelling evidence of the existence of supernatural
entities were to explode across tomorrow's front page, most
atheists would delight in wrestling with the new data.  They
would doubt, they would challenge, they would question, they
would withhold judgment, they would scurry to the libraries and
they would talk and listen.  In short, they would, as
freethinkers, revel in the mental wobbling brought on by the new
data.  And in the end, if the evidence were irrefutable after
reasonable, rational examination, then the atheists would
accommodate the new data, adjust their schema in relation to
supernatural entities, and go on, now "converted" to the new
idea.  (They might even become devout religionists, though
religion would have to be redefined in light of real evidence.) 

There is a constant flood of data pouring down the pike that
refutes the schemata of the religionists.  Do they revel in it? 
No, they are afraid of disequilibrium.  They reject the data,
they bastardize it, they misrepresent it to each other, they deny
it exists.  In short, they do not learn; they do not think.

There is a real and basic difference between atheists and
religionists, and they cannot be compared in most contexts.  They
are two different animals, or apples and oranges, but not two
sides of the same coin.  

All of which leads us to this perfectly valid syllogism:

People who can't think are idiots.
Religionists are people who can't think.
Therefore, religionists are idiots.

If you'd like further proof that religionists can't think, read
this:

> As by atheism. Intellectual evolution always slows down when barriers of 
> dogmatism are set in wrong places. Religion AND atheism can stimulate or
> hinder thinking; actually, the original reason why I decided to believe
> in God was that this option gave me more intellectual freedom.
> 

This paragraph is chock full of idiocy.  In the first place, it
includes the idiotic word "always."  It goes on to imply that
there is a "right" place for dogmatic barriers.  It assumes that
religion and atheism stand on comparable intellectual grounds. 
And it ends in an absurdity.


Don't be an idiot.
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism