Philosophy Now Forum

In March 2019, I went to the Palmyra, NY Temple for my endowment. This is an important ceremony for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On the trip back home, people in the van I was travelling in were watching the movie God’s Not Dead. While viewing this movie, I had an epiphany. I came to realize that there are four different types of people: rationally rational, rationally irrational, irrationally rational, and irrationally irrational.
The first word of each title/phrase denotes how people think or view the world, while the second word denotes how a person chooses to behave. A description of the four types of people are as follows:
Rationally rational: these are people who are very scientific or empirical in their worldview. These people tend not to be religious or spiritual in their beliefs. When it comes to how they conduct themselves, they are respectful and non-judgmental concerning those who choose to be religious.
Rationally irrational: these are people who are very scientific or empirical in their worldview. These people tend not to be religious or spiritual in their beliefs. When it comes to how they conduct themselves, they are judgmental concerning those who choose to be religious. These people may equate those who believe in God to those who believe in Santa Claus.
Irrationally rational: these are people who are very spiritual or religious in their worldview. When it comes to how they conduct themselves, they are respectful and non-judgmental concerning those who choose to not be religious, or to those who have differing religious beliefs.
Irrationally irrational: these are people who are very spiritual or religious in their worldview. When it comes to how they conduct themselves, they are disrespectful and judgmental concerning those who choose to not be religious, or to those who have differing religious beliefs. These are people who like to damn people to Hell for not believing in the “correct” church or belief system.
To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with being religious or non-religious. The problem arises when people become judgmental of those who are not like them. Not believing in a higher purpose or being is completely rational, why believing in God is completely irrational (as God goes beyond our senses). The point is that we must focus on how we interact with one another. With around eight billion people on Earth, not all people will or should believe in the same things one hundred percent of the time. We need religious and non-religious people of all kinds, as our differences tend to be far more interesting than our similarities. If you wish to help make our world a far better place, then please choose to be either a rationally rational or irrationally rational individual.
Thank you.
Andrew C. Kirkpatrick
8/22/24

I suppose you may identify me as rationally irrational. I disagree that there's nothing inherently wrong with being religious.

We need religious and non-religious people of all kinds, as our differences tend to be far more interesting than our similarities.

What does being "interesting" matter? Aren't there far more important things to consider?

I propose a new or improved typology:

Irrationally rational: these are people who are very scientific or empirical in their worldview. These people tend not to be religious or "spiritual" in their beliefs. Yet they do believe being religious or not is a choice...
Rationally rational: these are people who are very scientific or empirical in their worldview. These people tend not to be religious or "spiritual" in their beliefs. They do not believe being religious or not is a choice.
Irrationally irrational: these are people who are very "spiritual" or religious in their worldview. They believe being religious or not is a choice.
Rationally irrational: these are people who are very "spiritual" or religious in their worldview. They do not believe being religious or not is a choice.

"Does faith rest for the believer on an unevident decision, or does he regard it as the work of him who is the truth? Can he be satisfied that faith in revelation originates from an act of the will? Is he permitted to ascribe to himself faith as an achievement of his own will? Or does he thereby fall prey to the temptation of pride? Does the obedience to the God of revelation not require that one overcome the vice of pride and exercise the virtue of humility? Yet humility, which finds its completion as the virtue of obedience in not knowing itself to be virtue [virtue being by definition "an achievement of [one's] own will"], proves itself in attributing faith to the grace of God. If humility commands the believer to believe that faith rests on an act of the unfathomable will of God, the certainty of his faith must already be a sign of pride." (Heinrich Meier, "The Theologico-Political Problem".)

(If your faith exists by virtue of the will of God, and not of your own free will, the certainty of your faith implies that you have fathomed the will of God.)