you

March 29th, 2023

Not you, obviously. Or me.

└ Tags: , ,

Discussion (33)¬

  1. Dr John the Wipper says:
    March 29, 2023 at 2:19 pm

    Well, I ‘d say they both present excellent examples!

  2. Crookedhead says:
    March 29, 2023 at 4:27 pm

    What if that’s me?

  3. henry ford says:
    March 29, 2023 at 4:59 pm

    Ooh, wonderful author. I can use this for all my Brexiteer relatives ( I have no Brexiteer friends that I know of …)

  4. M27Holts says:
    March 29, 2023 at 8:21 pm

    Occams Razor is the best defence I reckon…

  5. Tebirkes says:
    March 29, 2023 at 10:00 pm

    I don’t think eurationalia pays as well as its opposite.

  6. paradoctor says:
    March 29, 2023 at 11:26 pm

    This sentence ingeniously rationalizes its stupid opinions.

  7. Laripu says:
    March 30, 2023 at 12:24 am

    I can vouch for the premise of the cartoon. I have known some very intelligent people who had extreme right-wing opinions, including support for Donald Trump. Their rationalizations were very clever. Wrong, of course, but clever nonetheless.

  8. Caliban27 says:
    March 30, 2023 at 3:14 am

    I guess that dysrationalia would be at the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Of course, neither term is, in any possible way, applicable to me.

  9. Donn says:
    March 30, 2023 at 9:28 am

    Well, of course. It’s no secret that where thinking intersects with opinions on whatever matter, the thinking is mostly applied after the fact as rationalization. The wronger the opinion, the more challenge to the intellect. QED.

  10. M27Holts says:
    March 30, 2023 at 11:51 am

    Opinions are like arseholes…Everybody has them…

  11. Shaughn says:
    March 30, 2023 at 1:41 pm

    Dysrationalia is my way to cope with my cognitive dissonance. The former cures the latter so I end up in perfect mental health. Nothing wrong with that, eh?

  12. Mr Paul Seed says:
    March 30, 2023 at 2:44 pm

    This quotation for Bertrand Russell seems relevant here:

    Faith vs. Reason (1954)
    “The important thing is not what you believe, but how you believe it. If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called “education”. This last is peculiarly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defenselessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the schools of every civilized country.”
    — Bertrand Russell, Human Society In Ethics And Politics (1954), Part. II: The Conflict of Passions, Ch. VII, Will Religious Faith Cure Our Troubles?, p. 220
    ━━
    First published in 1954, Human Society in Ethics and Politics is Bertrand Russell’s last full account of his ethical and political positions relating to both politics and religion. Ethics, he argues, are necessary to humankind on account of the conflict between our intelligence and impulse – if one were without the other, there would be no place for ethics. Our impulses and desires are equally social and solitary. Politics and ethics are the means by which we as a society and as individuals become socially purposeful and moral codes inculcate our rules of action.

  13. M27Holts says:
    March 30, 2023 at 9:29 pm

    Aye. It’s a while since I read any of Russells works. But his assertion of “dastardly” evil religious minds polluting the virgin minds of defenceless children is particularly powerful. I would lock up such people who violate (rape) young minds…we would need a lot of new prisons…hmmm

  14. Rrr says:
    March 30, 2023 at 10:17 pm

    Cloisters?
    Been tried.
    Monks deserting, no more Trappist beer.

  15. Shaughn says:
    March 31, 2023 at 7:47 am

    Wolves, chimpansees, dolphins have no place for ethics, yet they are intelligent and impulsive and social. Human ethics is about exploiting guilt and preventing to be exploited. And that has to do with remembering the past and foreseeing future – a faculty dolphins, chimpansees and wolves probably don’t suffer from. At least much less.

  16. Donn says:
    March 31, 2023 at 8:41 am

    For Jesus and Mo, though … what ingenious strategies? I mean, do the religious among us exert any visible effort to make their beliefs appear rational?

    I’d be a little surprised if they do. It seems to me that if Christian story turned out to be visible, undeniable, objective truth – it would be the most severe possible blow to the institution, the worst thing that could happen to the church.

    Faith is an essential ingredient, and it must be preposterous to mean anything. Trying to make religion plausible is a sort of underhanded way to undermine it.

  17. suffolk blue says:
    March 31, 2023 at 9:09 am

    One of greatest ploys of religion is to claim that faith is a virtue. The sillier the stuff you believe, the more virtuous you are.

  18. Mr Paul Seed says:
    March 31, 2023 at 10:29 am

    An oldie but goodie: https://www.jesusandmo.net/comic/abuse2/

  19. Author says:
    March 31, 2023 at 11:53 am

    Donn, see the tags: Christian apologetics and Islamic scholarship.

  20. Donn says:
    March 31, 2023 at 4:19 pm

    OK, that kind of quack fest isn’t entirely news to me, but … it’s a lot like philosophy, isn’t it? Mountains of philosophical treatises have been written in the last several millennia, and as far as I can see to no purpose whatever if you aren’t a philospher yourself. It makes sense that these people would be reluctant to acknowledge the “must be preposterous” element, but in fact I see that some kind of do — maybe the presuppositional apologists, though I can’t say for sure, and then there’s Immanuel Kant’s `famous suggestion that we must “deny knowledge in order to make room for faith”.’

  21. Choirboy says:
    March 31, 2023 at 6:09 pm

    I notice another place of worship has killed 37 of its congregation in the act of praying in India when the temple floor collapsed and plunged them into a filthy well. A similar thing happened in November apparently, with 136 taking the plunge.
    It seems there’s also a constant danger when the Muslim hordes regularly trample each other to death worshipping the prophet en masse.
    I always wonder at the rationalisation that must go on in the minds of those who keep turning up.

  22. M27Holts says:
    March 31, 2023 at 8:30 pm

    Well, well, well…

  23. Donn says:
    March 31, 2023 at 9:24 pm

    It’s a jackpot ending. Die at a Rama worship event, immediate moksha and release from the cycle of rebirth. Ticket punched and you’re out of here.

  24. Laripu says:
    March 31, 2023 at 11:24 pm

    Humpy Trumpy wanted a wall,
    he loudly exclaimed on the National Mall.
    The barbed-wire walls of a prison won’t fail:
    They’ll keep Trumpy’s fat wrinkled ass in a jail.

    He’s indicted.
    And now the benighted
    MAGA believers
    believe the deceiver
    who wants them to riot
    and cannot deny it.
    He just lies
    and they buy it,
    right?

    May the wheels of justice
    grind exceedingly fine,
    and may Donald John Trump
    serve serious time.

  25. M27Holts says:
    April 1, 2023 at 7:34 am

    Trump won’t go to gaol. Both sets of lawers will ride the gravy train and then he gets free with x,y or z legal loophole.

  26. M27Holts says:
    April 1, 2023 at 8:11 am

    I’ll bet Trump had to strap a plank to his bum to stop himself falling in…

  27. Choirboy says:
    April 1, 2023 at 4:25 pm

    Apparently he’s very upset because he’s been indicated.

  28. postdoggerel says:
    April 2, 2023 at 6:05 am

    though the bastard’s been indicted
    no amount of wrong’s been righted,
    and when it has been righted, mate,
    he’ll suffer what is his of fate.
    or what’s been indicated, of late.

  29. M27Holts says:
    April 3, 2023 at 9:48 am

    After lockdown one, I was in a pub in Whitney, and had a long conversation wirh an anti-vaxxer, he claimed to be an expert bio-chemist , but had some very strange unsupported claims that the covid scare and vaccine development was sanctioned by big-pharma just to make them lots of filthy lucre…as conspiracy theories goes his arguments were quite skilfully constructed and seemingly scientific, but I could easily cross check his main arguments on my phone…it was all bollox…

  30. M27Holts says:
    April 5, 2023 at 7:12 am

    I could only watch an laugh at the pro-Trump morons. No wonder they don’t understand evolution. They would all need to remove their socks to count anything above their IQ…

  31. M27Holts says:
    April 5, 2023 at 7:14 am

    And to think that these ignorant spunk-wombles are allowed to own assault rifles….

  32. postdoggerel says:
    April 5, 2023 at 8:57 am

    I could only observe and chuckle at the individuals who support Trump. It’s no surprise that they don’t comprehend the concept of evolution. To count anything higher than their IQ, they would have to take off their socks.

    These clueless creatures with rifles in hand,
    Make me wonder, where’s the law of the land?
    Fookin spunk-wombles !
    yours truly,
    chatM27

  33. Gus says:
    April 5, 2023 at 5:32 pm

    Neurobiology it’s still in the Dark Ages and we already know it for a fact that “reason” and “rationality” are more desiderata than cognitive realities. Emotions (i.e. the amygdala) always speak louder. The so-called “sceptics” would be surprised if they knew how much their emotions permeate and shape their oh so logical thoughts. Case in hand Christopher Hitchens, first fanatical Catholic, then fanatical Marxist, lastly fanatical sceptic (and neocon, whoops). What’s the common denominator? Fanaticism, ie emotionality.

Comment¬

NOTE: This comments section is provided as a friendly place for readers of J&M to talk, to exchange jokes and ideas, to engage in profound philosophical discussion, and to ridicule the sincerely held beliefs of millions. As such, comments of a racist, sexist or homophobic nature will not be tolerated.

If you are posting for the first time, or you change your username and/or email, your comment will be held in moderation until approval. When your first comment is approved, subsequent comments will be published automatically.