Commentary on The Church of Rationality
by Travis Hardin
Note: The Church of Rationality has reappeared at Blogspot.com. The multi-interested fellow there may or may not be the same person from the old site. The older site that our commentary addressed was taken down. The “new” man seems to be in accord with our commentary.
Brother Mark sent us his link and I’m happy to post it.
Very few in this religious country -- the US -- escape the social pressure to conform to a belief in the supernatural. Those few who have escaped that system have done so mainly on their own. Nearly independently they have arrived at rational explanations about this world and about human behavior, although good teachers and good books help.
When a person decides he or she will hold rational beliefs, he sooner or later encounters people with almost identical beliefs. Now there are no atheist missionaries knocking on doors with pre-packaged beliefs to sell. When these widely scattered island thinkers arrive at their own beliefs and then encounter others with almost identical beliefs, it is proof of the consistency and efficacy of rational thinking.
It is a comforting confirmation to stumble upon people like Brother Mark, a teacher now living is South Korea, who has written a small philosophy book and has put it online as The Church of Rationality (taken down 2009). He has a great mind, a great Web site -- and a great church!
May I suggest that in a few areas Brother Mark differs from most other humanist thinkers and the reason may lie in emotional attachment to some traditions. Emotion is not a bad word to this humanist unless they are emotions that block the ability to think.
Brother Mark’s belief in reincarnation is not consistent with naturalism, which logically holds that this natural world is all there is. Reincarnation is something in the supernatural realm, the same as Heaven, and it, like Heaven, is an impossibility.
In another area, his disapproval of homosexuality shows (1) a lack of familiarity with homosexual people, (2) of scientific knowledge, and (3) of principles of freedom. The prejudice is deeply rooted in us all. I was in my 40’s before I dropped my prejudices, and I’m still learning 20 years later.
HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE. I can take Brother Mark to two gay men I know who say that at their adolescent sexual awakening, they awoke to an attraction to other boys, with the same strength as a man is usually attracted to women. What principle demands they deny what is as central to them as to other people?
If sex is only for having children, to cite the naturalist-sounding disapproval of homosexuality, then are we ordered to stop having sex when we’ve had our last child? Or when our children leave home? Or when we’re infertile? Or before we’re married? That’s not going to happen. The argument is weak.
SCIENTIFIC VIEW. For a summary of the scientific view I turn to Scientific American for February/ March 2006. In “Do Gays Have a Choice,” psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein summarizes the reality as follows:
“If a person’s genes place him or her toward one end of what I call the Sexual Orientation Continuum, he or she almost certainly can never become homosexual. If the genes place the person at the other end of the curve, he or she almost certainly cannot become straight -- or at least not a happy straight. But if an individual is somewhere in between, environment can be a major influence, especially when the person is young. Because society strongly favors the straight life, in the vast majority of cases the shift will be toward heterosexuality ... If perple were raised in a truly orientation-neutral culture, what sexual orientation would they express? Although it is unlikely that half of us would end up gay, without societal pressures is it clear that a much larger proportion of the population would express homosexuality than we see now.”
Dr. Epstein also reminds us that Alfred Kinsey’s survey in the late 1940’s revealed, as Kinsey put it, that people “do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual ... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.” Ten national organizations, including the APA and the American Academy of Pediatrics agree that “sexual orientation falls along a continuum.” The label straight and gay do not capture the complexities, according to Dr. Epstein.
PRINCIPLE OF FREEDOM. The principle of freedom is behind the saying, “What consenting adults do in private is nobody’s business.” If that principle is followed, then the cause and course of bi-or homosexuality are irrelevant.
----------
|
