and emotionalism among women. Well we wont go there!

What we’ve learned from decades of research in the psychology of decision making, probability theory and cognitive neuroscience is that what we call rational thinking is inevitably networked through with the brain’s emotion-processing centres in normally functioning human beings. Much of our purportedly rational thinking in everyday and more esoteric matters can be shown to be serially deficient, for example, in deductive logic. This should make us a tad cautious about attributing rationality or irrationality too readily when it comes to beliefs about the traditional metaphysical undecidables, and alert to the twin temptations of confirmation bias - seeking out only what confirms beliefs we already have - and self-manipulation in putting ourselves deliberately in circumstances where we are more likely to believe A than B regardless of the evidence.

What this realisation can do, though, for the purpose of affording us some compensation for our cognitive finitude, is to justify both a bias towards rational projects with an intentional methodological defeasibility - those of science or much philosophy are prototypical - and profound suspicion of any which claim invincibility and make themselves immune to critical examination and argument. It’s inevitable that we will have some personal commitment to our beliefs, but automatic hostility to their being questioned will always suggest that we have either forgotten or do not even know on what grounds we hold them. The ‘feeling of knowing’ and the ‘feeling of certainty’ are both notoriously common and notoriously unreliable, and how we navigate our social relations with that in mind is an individual acquirement and challenge.

Dave Frampton,

very nicely expressed, and our socially conditioned biases ought to give us pause as you say. Yet the problem with scientific method is precisely that it is devoid (or thinks it is) of the contextual elements that are inalienable from our social being; life is not a lab. Our social lives do not admit of controlled laboratory solutions, nor are they objectively above realist problematics. I agree completely that common opinion should be subjected to far greater scrutiny than it commonly is. But then, its object isn't generally to make a veridical breakthrough. Actual life is far more messy and truth is dependent upon the context. This is a point that analytic philosophy and the empirical sciences would do well to consider; that the irrational social context frames the objectivity. There is no objectivity per se. Thus modern science is the "witting" pawn (it is too savvy to be unwitting) of the prevailing system, and to that extent irrational.
However, I agree with your main point; we should not cherish our opinions, but treat them with disdain and welcome criticism.

MaNiK_JoSiAh,

While not questioning your intelligence, firm belief in the improbable and certainly unprovable certainly brings into question your ability for rational object decision making.

I have been a part of several teams of engineering design teams, and by no personal design of my own I have found them to be devoid of belief in the supernatural.

To most of my colleagues Christianity, Islam, etc are irrelevant and are seldom even mentioned.

Firesnake, Not quite sure what your post was about, but you clearly resent having secular beliefs called a 'religion' though the similarities to a religion are strikingly obvious.

Apparently you suffer from the very disease I mentioned; the belief that your Atheistic beliefs are superior to previous religious systems. They surely aren't, nor are they less bigoted or biased. Your main distortion is that you cannot see your belief system as a belief system.

If your high priest is Richard Dawkins then so be it.

Emotionality of Belief.

Why is it that some who say they believe in God are so emotional about it? Why is it so hard to even discuss someone's faith in the supernatural? [Meredith].

A fair query Meredith.

Meredith, similarly, when one shares a factual account or experience in their life, and it is met with ridicule, condescension, disrespect or disbelief, terming another person's "factual account" or "experience" as "emotional or emotionally based", how would you feel within that context?

Casting aside religion, and focussing on a person's belief and experiences within a relationship with God, is to many people, the most sacred, special and loving relationship one can have.

Having a person challenge or undermine a person's relationship with God (their God)is a wound to their heart, particularly in view of the fact, that I for one example, know without a doubt, that God has featured fully in my life giving me love and support on every occasion I have prayed for His/Her love and support.

Many people who have a relationship with God, and received, through prayer, love and support from God, would be hurt, when a person challenges, ridicules, blashphemes or writes off people who believe in God as 'emotional' in their beliefs.

Similarly, if you have children, when a person insults or wounds your child or loved one's heart, mocking or bullying your child, do you feel 'emotional' Meredith?

Have you ever believed in God Meredith or experienced God in your life at all?

'Experienced' as opposed to just 'believing' in God?

Until you have experienced God in your life, how are you able to pose those questions regarding 'emotionality' when not having experienced? the subject you refer to: the emotionality of belief?

"Forgive them Father(God), for they know not what they are doing" [this from Jesus Christ our Saviour].