The religion of logic

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Most atheists insist atheism isn't a religion. Maybe it isn't, but it seems like most atheists are hyper logical. At least the ones I meet online and in real life. Nothing wrong with valuing logic, but it can be tiring talking to those people.

Whenever I say something to an atheist I ask myself if it's logical or scientifically proven. If it isn't I have to think of how to reword something to make it sound logical or not say it at all. At first I thought it wasn't too exhausting. I realized that wasn't true because I spend hours every day thinking about how to make my thoughts sound logical to atheists. By the time I talk to atheists I can think of a million logical sounding things to say.

I think people have to make a conscious effort to be logical. To me that feels like following a religion. A lot of religious people like to feel superior to people because they think they know the absolute truth. They want to convert a lot of people because they think they know the absolute truth. A lot of atheists and skeptics are the exact same. They open up a bunch of organizations devoted to debunking everything that doesn't fit their definition of what is logical.

I'm not even sure if all of this pretending is worth it. I'm way happier when I can just be in the moment, enjoy life and feel spiritual. I've just been deeply hurt by some tactless atheists.

Well, I see being illogical as a privilege others can afford, but I can’t.

There is no law that says that you have to join a debating club to be on the internet. You can believe what you want, and not worry about justifying it to others . But if you want the cerebral calithesthenics then go for it.

There's always more to it than logic, that is there has to be - logic in and of itself is vacuous, it's like a filter or sieve that does nothing if nothing's put into it and does something to the extent of sorting out the qualities of what's put through it. Logic on its own cannot account for the collection of data, quality of data, nor the collection criteria. For analogy you won't get far with a hammer unless you have something to hammer. If you have nails and wood what you build will be limited to the scope of what you can conceive of and what's within your budget (energy, supplies, $$, etc..) and all of those are limitations that are somewhat distinct from whether or not you have a hammer. Hence the idea of a religion of logic seems a bit impossible because dogmas and creeds have nothing to stick to; they can perhaps stick to hasty conclusions some people have made, they may have used logic to arrive at those conclusions, but it's really still a religion of their conclusions rather than a religion of logic.

That said atheists are people who prefer to keep things pragmatic, keep their thoughts and examinations close to the ground (ie. sorting out material reality from superstition), and generally only claim a disbelief in the deities of theologies and dogmatic creeds. Such cultural groupings and beliefs hang at a very specific layer of analysis and find most of their differences and division when dealing with the low-hanging fruit. I tend to think a lot of the sorts of differences, ie. between atheists and theists, dissolve with higher level conversation and analysis much like in US politics you find Democrats and Republicans having much more in common than they might have thought once they get above the particulars.


Cliff's Notes if anyone needs them: 1) you can't have a religion of logic because logic has no content of its own 2) atheism can often be classified as a superficial pragmatism and most sweeping differences of beliefs that are hotly debated are just that - disagreements over the contents of the superficial.