Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a topic oft raised by members of the atheist community. We often like to promote ourselves as ‘the rational ones’, and we often see atheists telling members of the theist community that they need to apply critical thinking to their beliefs. How many atheists have actually studied critical thinking though? While I do try my best to introduce my own original work in each Answers in Reason article that I post, I thought a nice change of pace, and an informative and useful change of pace, would be to share various YouTube, Blog, and Podcast series or shows that may help people learn a little more about various topics such as critical thinking, ethics, epistemology, and various other subjects included in philosophy. As my first such share I introduce a YouTube channel called Wireless Philosophy, and their series on Critical Thinking. The videos themselves are reasonably short, but packed full of information. They are worth a watch, whether you are new to the topic of critical thinking or are already well-informed.
Hi, I’m Dave. As you can already tell, I’m one of the authors at AiR, as well as a member of the podcast. I’m also the Dave you see on our live streams on Twitch and YouTube. I am an atheist. I don’t use the ‘lack of belief’ definition though, and use the ‘belief God does not exist’ definition for me. I have always been an atheist, and have never been part of a religion.
While I do enjoy discussions around the existence of God, I try to post a wider range of content here. My focus is mainly on philosophy, as that is the topic I enjoy. I have a BA in Philosophy and Psychology, and am waiting on the results for my MA in Philosophy. Will find out in December whether I have been awarded the degree!
This is why my posts tend to focus more on the philosophy side of things. I try to post a wider range of topics than just those surrounding theism and atheism. You will also find articles discussing arguments from atheists that I find to be lacking, or poorly argued. This is mostly because I want to see the atheist community improve its arguments, and to see atheists give stronger and better arguments.
Hopefully you will enjoy some of my content, and I hope even more that it makes you look at certain arguments and ideas in a different way. Plus, hopefully some atheists that dismiss philosophy out of hand might actually see it’s more interesting than they first though. Philosophy is an awesome subject!
Dave writes, “..we often see atheists telling members of the theist community that they need to apply critical thinking to their beliefs.”
Yes, true of course. What we see far less often are atheists applying critical thinking to their own beliefs. That’s the process which determines whether someone is really a person of reason, or just another ideologist.
Atheists are often eager to challenge the qualifications of holy books to provide credible answers to the very largest of questions, as they should. It is however rare to find an atheist who is equally eager to apply this entirely valid challenge to their own chosen authority, human reason.
In my view, that’s when these subjects start to become interesting, when all chosen authorities of all parties have been challenged with equal rigor, and all found to lack proven qualifications.
I agree. I have noted that many of the atheist community will not second guess themselves.
I know some who have spent ages critically analysing any evidence for the existence of god, or any pseudoscientific claim and then have reached a point where suddenly they don’t fact check any more.
I understand that it can take a lot of work to get to a certain position, but sometimes you might have got there in a faulty way, or misunderstand certain aspects. Be the definitions of “objective” and “subjective” in relation to morals and morality, the definition of atheism, evidence for an alternative medical procedure that is showing promise or what.
We are people. We are fallible. It does frustrate me that those of us whom pride us on how sceptical, critical and rational we are can act so irrationally and uncritically. I have been guilty of it myself.
Sometimes when changing a mind, or having you mind changed, respect matters: https://www.answers-in-reason.com/misc/changing-mind-respect-matters/