It occurs to me that the word Rationalist has been usurped by grown men and women with the intellectual rigor of an easily aroused adolescent teenager. Millennials in particular tout “Rationalism” as some sort of morally superior ideology which values Science™ as the ultimate good.

The simple fact is “Rationalists” are not rational but dogmatic. If you have been following me for some time, you would know that Atheism is a Protestant meme. Secularism is even more so and both of these supposedly irreligious ideologies are deeply religious and heavily influenced by the Christian faith.

One particular problem with “rationalism” is that it eschews the idea of believing in a deity of any kind. The common criticisms by Dawkins involve things like “It’s not rational to believe in something you cannot see, or can provide no evidence for”. Of course the universal equality of man has no evidence to support it, nevertheless you can be sure rationalists believe this Lysenkoism.

Now religion itself is not evil but certain religions definitely are. To the wise it is not surprising at all that religion acts as a social unifier. Religion allows large groups to function cohesively. It has been argued that religious group identity is adaptively beneficial because it redefines and reinforces networks of altruism in times of increased environmental stress, increasing the overall fitness of group members. [1] Religion also tends to create an in-group and usually that in-group happens to also be racially similar. This is no surprise since diversity in ethnicity and religion strongly reduces social cohesion affecting civic life. You can find some good insights into the benefits of religion here.

Dawkins himself admits that there is an evolutionary advantage to believing in religion. The reasoning behind it is simple – certain inalienable human Truths exist in the world and all religions to some degree or the other enforce them. Humans are at the end of the day creatures riddled with various hormonal fluctuations and are not truly rational nor can ever be. All humans accept certain metaphysics and build their values and societies based on these metaphysics. For the Semitic cultures it is the Mosaic distinction, and for the pagan ones it is a variety of things among them polytheism and ancestral worship. This as I’ve mentioned earlier leads to Worship Assymetry which puts Hindus at a grave disadvantage. Thus it is important to note that a change in metaphysics, when using rational thought, changes the outcome. There are many trivial examples to choose from, but understanding the Mosaic distinction is probably the most important one for Hindus.

Rationalists behave as if believing in religion is horrible among other things. Often times you find them part of the “I fucking love science” club which is a juvenile dog whistle tactic employed against the religious. Of course there are tangible biological differences between races [2] and there are IQ differences between sexes and this is all supported by hard scientific evidence and data. Yet the club does not believe such heretical lies and mistruths for it does not concur with their predetermined religious beliefs of equality and diversity and whatever other unscientific nonsense the Protestant meme morphs into next.

There do however exist a number of rationalists who truly are “rational” and understand these observations and arrive at conclusions based both on evidence as well as on tradition. I mention tradition because, human wisdom is finite. All that you will experience has been experienced by your ancestors before you. Human intricacy has not changed, only technology has. Tradition and ritual help us in staying sane and connecting to our roots. In fact, contemplating about one’s genetic origin (i.e one’s ancestors) increases intellectual performance.[3]

Thus I propose Reasonism, a Reasonist being one who applies the knowledge of observable reality and combines it with traditional knowledge gleaned from their ancestors. In this sense Reasonism is an astika Hindu faith since it accepts the epistemic authority of the Veda s and the broader Hindu tradition. Reasonism understands the value of rituals, traditions, culture and religion in creating and enforcing a harmonious society.

It would be heartening to find more and more Reasonists and less rationalists in this world. The gods know how much violence will be committed on the native traditions of the Hindus under the guise of “rationality” in the near future. Fact is, it has already begun.

[1] lifted verbatim from here.

[2] Race isn’t real up until you need a bone marrow transplant.

[3] This hypothesis is supported by good evidence, which is probably why it is such a core Hindu belief.