My friend UnkleE and I have been having a wide-ranging discussion on several topics related to Christianity that ultimately come down to epistemology, or how Christians know God’s will. The discussion began in my last post, which critiqued a doctrine common to more moderate circles within Christianity. UnkleE had more to say on the subject than could reasonably fit within a comment, so he decided to do his own post in response, which is worth reading. We conversed a bit within that comment thread, where I said:
The President of the US and his spokespeople now regularly say things that are factually untrue. Yet plenty of his supporters are content to ignore reputable sources and only listen to the sources that they want to agree with. Where do you go from there?
It seems to me that the view you have of Christianity is similar. Why does the New Testament speak so much about false teachers, if it’s perfectly fine to get your beliefs from private revelation? If Paul and Hymenaeus have a disagreement, perhaps Paul is the one who’s wrong? Or maybe both of them are right, simultaneously? How can one use scripture to “teach, reprove, and correct” in such a system?
In the end, isn’t such a religion just anarchy? How can there be such a thing as “truth” when each person’s version is just as good as someone else’s? At least as an atheist, I can point to my understanding of reality and the physical world to try to reach a consensus with others. And if they can provide data that invalidates some position I hold, then I can change. But if I took my own random thoughts and feelings as revelation from the supreme creator of the universe, how could I ever be convinced of anything else?
Once again, this opened a big topic that was better suited to a full post, rather than a comment, so UnkleE offered his response here. And as my reply to that post grew and grew, I realized that I needed to offer it as a post as well. What follows will reference and borrow quotes from UnkleE’s latest post.
What Is the Gospel?
Under a section called “Another Gospel?” UnkleE gave this introduction:
Nate references Galations 1:6-9, which warns of accepting another gospel. But what does Paul mean by “gospel” (or “good news”)?
He then listed out 5 main points that he views as central to what the gospel is:
- Jesus, the “son of God”, lived and taught about the kingdom of God.
- He died to deal with human sin (how that happens is very much up for debate!).
- Jesus was resurrected and so conquered death.
- We need to change our thinking, turn away from behaviours that displease God, and seek forgiveness.
- Our new way of life should include loving God, loving neighbour, and even loving our enemies.
But it seems to me that the New Testament spends time referring to false doctrines that are ancillary to those 5 points. The entire book of Galatians has Paul accusing the Galatians of turning their backs on the gospel and trying to follow the Law of Moses, when it really just sounds like they were trying to follow both:
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
— Gal 5:2-6
To me, that sounds like something that we’d view as a matter of personal preference, today, certainly not something that would qualify as a “different gospel.” And look at 2 Cor 13:5-10:
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.
We don’t know the specifics of what Paul is criticizing here, but if these individuals were still present in the congregation to see Paul’s letter, then it’s likely they still held to the basic principles that UnkleE outlined above. What else could they be lacking that would make them “fail the test”?
In 2 John 7, it was considered heresy to question whether or not Christ had actually come in the flesh (like docetism, I guess):
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
To me, this seems kind of minor in many ways, though it was a huge deal back then. If someone still believed that Christ was the son of God and brought salvation in some way, should it have mattered if they didn’t fully understand how that happened? But 2 John shows that some early Christians had a huge problem with the doctrine.
2 Tim 2:16-19 talks about another form of false teaching:
But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
To me, this also seems like a minor quibble that runs outside the principles UnkleE laid out as the core of Christianity. Again, exactly what people believe about how/when the resurrection works, or even exactly what the writer means by “resurrection” here seems minor if an individual still believes Christ is the avenue for salvation, etc. Incidentally, there’s an interesting discussion of this passage here.
And if God is unchanging, it’s hard to overlook some of the judgments he supposedly handed out in the Old Testament, like killing Nadab and Abihu for not getting their sacrificial fire in the right way. Killing Achan and his entire family when he didn’t follow the command about not looting Jericho. Honestly, there are tons of OT examples, and I won’t take up any more space with going through them. But they each show how particular God was in seemingly minor things. Now, I agree that most of the New Testament argues that such legalism is no longer necessary. But I think the passages I listed above show that it still isn’t just free rein, especially if God’s character is unchanging (Psalm 102:25-27; Malachi 3:6; James 1:17).
The New Testament gives parameters about divorce and remarriage that are pretty strict. In Matthew 19:9, Jesus is speaking, and he says:
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.
That’s a rigorous standard that most Christians don’t really apply today, in that a large number of Christian marriages are actually adulterous, according to Jesus. Marriage and remarriage does not fall within the 5 precepts of the gospel that UnkleE laid out, but it still seems like it would be a big deal. After all, we’re told in 1 Cor 6:9-10 that adulterers can’t “inherit the kingdom of God.” What does that mean, exactly? I think it’s referring to salvation itself, and I think 1 Cor 5 bears that out. In that passage, Paul is telling the Corinthians to cast out the member among them who is sleeping with his father’s wife “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”
Apparently, this Christian was in danger of losing his salvation if he didn’t repent of his wrongdoing. And to go back to 1 Cor 6 for a minute, we see that far more than just adulterers would be in danger of the same fate:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
That’s quite a laundry list. Those sins might fall within the 4th and 5th points from UnkleE’s list, so does this include married couples who didn’t divorce their previous spouses for infidelity? For consistency’s sake, I would think that they would have to be included, yet very few churches make an issue of it.
In the end, I think when Paul uses terms like “the gospel,” he’s not always strictly speaking about the 5 basic points that UnkleE outlined. I think he’s also talking about any specific instructions that he (or other apostles) laid out in their epistles. Yes, passages like Romans 14 and 1 Cor 8-10 talk about issues that individual Christians may have differences of opinion over, but that’s because those were issues that no specific instruction had been given about. But today, there are so many issues, like divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, and women’s roles in the church that are considered minor by moderates today. And this is where the idea of authority comes into play. How do they justify their positions on these things?
Principles Not Rules
UnkleE goes on to argue that the New Testament focuses more on principles of how to live versus hard and fast rules. I do agree that it focuses more on principles than the Old Testament did, but I think the passages we’ve already looked at show that hard and fast rules still played a part.
UnkleE offers the following supporting points:
We serve God not according to a written set of rules, but guided by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:6, Romans 7:6). Note that he uses as his example in the latter case nothing less than one of the Ten Commandments!
But I don’t think these 2 passages really illustrate UnkleE’s point. He makes it sound as though Paul is saying that written sets of rules no longer apply, but that’s not at all what he’s saying. He’s specifically talking about the Old Law (the Mosaic Law) in those passages, and UnkleE and I already agree that Paul argues the Old Law (including the 10 Commandments) has served its purpose and is no longer binding to Christians. That doesn’t mean there’s no longer any kind of written law — what about all the teachings in the New Testament, including the gospel?!
We can legitimately hold different views on moral issues. Paul gives several examples, some of them significant issues in his day – the eating of meat that had been offered to pagan idols (1 Corinthians 10:23-30), and the keeping of rules about Sabbath days and “unclean” foods (Romans 14:1-23). But he says quite definitely (Romans 14:13): “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.”
But as we saw above, these passages are dealing with issues about which there was no direction given in the New Testament. They were true matters of personal conscience. Paul does not give permission to make these same kinds of judgments on things like divorce and remarriage. And while Paul says that they shouldn’t judge one another about these kinds of things, 1 Cor 5 talks about how they’re supposed to judge the actions of fellow Christians.
UnkleE’s third supporting point is:
Therefore, Paul’s conclusion on even important matters of behaviour is that we are free to decide (1 Corinthians 10:23), we should leave the judgment to God (Romans 14:4) and it is not rules but faith that will decide, for whatever is not done in faith is wrong (Romans 14:23) and all should be done to God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).
But again, all of the passages here come exclusively from 1 Cor 10 and Romans 14, which discuss issues that are merely matters of personal preference.
The Holy Spirit
This is really where my biggest concerns lie. UnkleE has this to say about it:
A key fact, which many christians as well as critics can forget, is that christians believe we have been “given” the Spirit of God. Again, I don’t pretend to fully understand how this works, but it is clearly taught in scripture. Each believer has the help of the Holy Spirit in following Jesus in our lives and – crucially for this discussion – in guiding us to truth.
The Spirit is God, which means he is above the Bible, not lesser!
This is exactly what I was trying to get at in my initial questions to UnkleE. If the guidance of the Holy Spirit can trump scripture, how can any position ever be tested? If a man is married, but strongly believes that God wants him to be with his next door neighbor, who’s to say he’s wrong? Sure, the Bible contradicts his feelings, but the Holy Spirit has authority over the Bible. Yes, common sense contradicts his desire, but “God’s ways are higher than man’s.”
UnkleE also says this:
This merits a longer discussion than I can give now (but will post on soon), but we are told that the Holy Spirit will guide us into truth (John 16:13), so we can even know God’s will for us (Romans 12:2). We see examples of the Spirit guiding the believers in Acts (e.g. Acts 11:1-18, 13:1-3, 16:6-10). But we do, I believe, need to ask (James 1:5, Matthew 7:7-8).
So far from being “random thoughts”, if we pray, and take the precautions that the Bible gives us, we can have faith that God guides us (not just me, but his whole church) through his Spirit into true understandings – not infallibly, but steadily over time.
But to me, such a system looks exactly like “random thoughts.” How could anyone tell the difference between his own thoughts and the Holy Spirit? How could Paul rail against false teachers and false gospels if guidance from the Holy Spirit carries more weight than scripture? If 1000 different Christians all believe God has given them personal revelations that happen to conflict, there’s no way to sort among them to separate the true revelation from all the false ones.
In effect, it seems to me that such a religion can end up saying everything, which basically means it says nothing.
One More Thing
I know this post is painfully long, but I wanted to add one more thing. In his closing, UnkleE makes this point:
I suggest we should always start with what the scriptures say and expert knowledge about what it means – what would this or that passage have said to the people of the day, what do the words actually mean and how do experts understand them? We must read more than one viewpoint.
Then we must pray, consider, wait if necessary, and see if we receive guidance, and see how the Spirit is working and leading the body of believers as a whole. Our own experience and thoughts (if we are allowing God to transform our thinking) will help us.
Isn’t this exactly what we, as atheists, do as well? I’m quite familiar with the Bible (more so than many believers that I know), and I try to pay attention to what Biblical scholars have to say. I consider more than one point of view. I don’t pray, but I used to. And I believe that I’m open to being wrong — I’m even open to guidance. And I would love for God to give me some kind of message, personally. Used to plead for it, in fact. What else is there for me to do?
Closing
Let me stress that I really appreciate UnkleE’s willingness to discuss these things with me. As he knows, I was raised within a very fundamentalist version of Christianity that believed in biblical inerrancy. UnkleE has a very different perspective, and it’s difficult for me to fully understand it. My arguments here are how I try to come to terms with his beliefs. If I’ve missed some obvious answer to some of my questions, it’s solely due to ignorance, not obstinacy.
Finding Truth 
Cool.
BTW, please call me ratamacue or ratamacue0. Thanks.
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Finally caught up with comments! Sorry I’ve been away for so long. I’ve had some job changes lately (all good), and it’s kept me much busier than normal.
Anyway, in catching up tonight, I was most interested in this discussion between Sirius and UnkleE. A couple of observations while I watch from the sidelines:
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G’day Sirius,
“With regards to your stance on inerrancy, I’m curious as to why you think it provides less certainty than your process for evaluating special revelation.”
I think the scriptures are generally a safer source of revelation than personal revelation, and most christians would agree. I think they are safer because they are objective, have been tested over time, can be examined historically etc. I don’t think believing they are inerrant changes things much because the main differences among christians are with interpretation, not the relative authority of scripture vs special revelation.
“While replication works for things like experiment, testimony, and observation, somehow divine revelation is this closed box which (if anyone is lucky) becomes more transparent after the fact.”
Obviously your brain thinks very differently to mine. I honestly can’t see where you got this from. Replication generally cannot work on experience or memory, because most events only happen once. We can compare two similar events, but that is all. Special revelation is little different in that respect, although since I believe all genuine revelation comes from God, we can compare the apparent revelations to two different people and see if they seem to come from a common source. So in that respect it is similar to observations by witnesses to a car accident, in that apparent revelations can be compared and tested – which the Bible tells us to do.
“It not only spawns faith, but it is the root from which all other beliefs about this deity flow.”
We are talking about christians, so the revelation of Jesus in the gospels and NT will always be of primary importance. And it is very objective and testable. Anyone who hasn’t based their belief substantially on that may be a theist but it is hard to see how they can be christian, because whatever definition we use, a christian must surely be someone who worships, follows or believe in Jesus.
“If what you’re saying is true, some Christians are making these decisions based on information they can’t know is mistaken according to a plan that doesn’t even rely on getting revelation right.”
You seem commonly to take a statement and take it to an extreme. (I’m not being rude or upset, just trying to point out why I keep thinking you misunderstand me.) This isn’t a binary situation, either we have perfect knowledge or we don’t get it right (in your words). I keep saying we don’t have certainty here, or virtually anywhere in life. But we do have probability about some things. So christians are likely to be just like other people. Some make decisions very rationally according to their belief system, some don’t. Superstitious people make decisions based on things both you and I would agree were not at all reliable. I think that some atheists make decisions on a very poor basis because they don’t believe in free will or objective morality and that can bias moral decisions. You may or may not agree.
I hope that clarifies things for you. I think you may have a caricature of christian revelation and decision-making in your head, that may be true for some, but isn’t true for me and most christians I know.
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Hi Nate, it’s good to see you back on your own blog! 🙂
I think that the key to so many of our discussions is the question of what we think God (if he exists) is aiming at. If we disagree on that, we’ll be judging God on totally different criteria. Now the criteria I use are (simply) these: I think God wanted to create life that was like “little gods”, with self awareness (consciousness), autonomy, free will, an ethical sense, rationality, appreciation of beauty, ability to love, etc – all characteristics I believe God also has, only better – so that we can live fulfilled lives now and could one day live with him. I don’t believe he ever aimed to tell us anywhere near everything (e.g about quantum physics or the trinity), but left us to work a lot of things out ourselves. Teachers and parents have somewhat similar goals, so we should be able to understand them.
With that in mind here’s my response to your comments ….
”There are other Christians (many I’m related to) who would disagree with you about which doctrines are vital to TrueChristianity©”
Yeah, I don’t doubt you. But they probably weren’t representative of most christians in the world. I certainly hope not! (Can I get an ‘amen’ to that? 🙂 ) In the circles I move in, what I am getting at would be described as “a salvation matter” – i.e. what is necessary, or at least very helpful, to achieve the aims I set out above. Other doctrines are important to some christians, but I suggest they aren’t important generally to meet God’s goals – especially as God wants us to learn some things ourselves.
”isn’t that an unfalsifiable system?”
I don’t find it so. The fact that I don’t learn much from some possible revelations doesn’t alter the fact that I learn a lot from some others. So the gold rises to the top and the dross gets forgotten. Since we are not fixated on the process but on the result, it generally works out. Of course there are many stumbles, but that’s true in all of christianity (e.g. Bible interpretation) and all of life.
”But most of the core tenets of Christianity do not have anything close to those levels of certainty, so I don’t think it’s fair to compare them as though they do.”
There are two levels to most christians’ beliefs – (1) what they would claim as objective evidence (of whatever type) and (2) what they would see as the supernatural conviction of the Holy Spirit. I tend to stress (1) here because that is what I mostly experience, and because it is of little value to you or anyone else to speak much about (2). But I believe it is real. So I think that the evidence, properly understood, points fairly strongly to God and Jesus. But other people don’t always look at all the evidence, and so they may have a lesser objective basis for their belief. But I think the Spirit of God will often make up that deficiency and give them increased strength of belief.
Now you can criticise that process, or you can wonder why you haven’t had that conviction (both valid responses), but all I can say is that I think we can have sufficient confidence in our belief to live it out. Two billion plus people cannot all be soft in the head!
”If someone claims to have information directly from the creator of the universe, I think they should have better than average levels of evidence.”
This comes back to my initial comments. I wonder why you think that? Why isn’t it possible that God, wishing to give us a lot of autonomy, holds himself back a little, perhaps like a parent teaching a child to ride a bicycle, but still gives us sufficient?
I kind of feel I have said all that before, but that’s still the way I see it.
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Hey UnkleE,
Here are some thoughts I had reading your latest response.
1. I think we disagree on how inerrancy functions in Christianity. At the outset, I’m curious as to why you think biblical revelation is safer than personal revelation, yet personal revelation can overrule parts of the bible. It sounds a little risky.
2. Experience and memory are a function of observation, that is, they’re a recollection of past observations of the senses. Replication can actually work to verify a lot of these things, like telling people the best way to build a house or whether going to an amusement park was fun. Even if someone claims a unicorn is running around in the backyard, someone else can go and see for themselves.
Where personal revelation draws its similarities is to the experience and memory that can’t be verified. While some of them don’t matter (like whether a person remembers what shirt he or she wore a week ago), the ones that make objective claims about reality do. To give the latter category the same weight as a verified idea doesn’t strike me as very wise. It would be like automatically believing unicorns exist after one person claims to have seen one.
3. I think you ignored my point regarding conversion testimony. It’s not just the belief in Jesus I was talking about; the conversion experience prompts Christians to make all sorts of decisions about other specific beliefs about the Christian deity. They decide whether to believe the bible is totally error free, what is sinful, whether and how it should be avoided, whether to go to church, what church to go to, and many other things. The point I made was that they hold all of these other things as important pillars of faith.
4. Me misunderstanding you isn’t the problem here; it’s why I restated your position and had you correct any errors beforehand. Rather, what I’m doing is making a conclusion based on the information you’ve given me. That you might disagree with it doesn’t mean I misunderstood you. All it means is that you might not agree with it.
Additionally, I’m not relying on some false binary. I’m relying on your description of your idea, which assumes reasonable certainty but can’t point to anything which helps other people check your math. I never said Christians must be completely wrong or right. Instead, I said that they’re taking a lot of shots in the dark. Because of their beliefs, Christians are probably going to be fine with this. It doesn’t mean that non-Christians have to be okay with it.
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”There are other Christians (many I’m related to) who would disagree with you about which doctrines are vital to TrueChristianity©”
No, you most certainly cannot get an ”amen”. And Nate was exactly this type of Christian until he lost faith. And who is to say such Christians are not the ”Right” Christians? What a condescending, sycophantic little Dipshit you are, Unklee.
Wanna bet? You most certainly are so why on earth would we think differently of the others? And there is no reason we should not include every other religion in this as well.
The term is compartmentalism, and this is why religious people are able to hold such ridiculous beliefs and still manage to function (relatively speaking) on a day to day basis.
Indoctrination does this to people and every single deconvert will attest to this fact.
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“Two billion plus people cannot all be soft in the head!”
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Yet Christians are 100% certain that all 1.6 billion are wrong in their beliefs. So, yes, two billion plus people CAN be “soft in the head” (wrong).
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It is my personal opinion that the current discussion with UnkleE will produce little satisfaction for those on the skeptic side of the issue. You are asking UnkleE for evidence for his positions. But UnkleE’s beliefs are not based on evidence, but on feelings. He feels the presence of his invisible friend Jesus within his body. This perceived presence provides him with great comfort, peace, and security. You need to figure out a way to convince UnkleE that his “friend” is nothing more than self-deception. How can you do that?
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Hi, Gary
How were you convinced?
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I was not an evangelical. As a Lutheran, I did not believe that God spoke to individuals “in their hearts”. I believed that God only spoke to humans through one means: the Bible. So once I discovered that the Bible was riddled with errors and contradictions, it was over for me.
William Lane Craig (an evangelical) said in his book, “The Son Rises”: “Even if there is zero evidence for the Resurrection, the simplest of Christians can know for sure that Christianity is true by the testimony of the Holy Spirit in his heart.”
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Gary,
Didn’t your conversations with DaGood (I think that was his name) make you think you might be wrong in your convictions?
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Can you explain a little more what testimony of the Holy Spirit in his heart means please, Gary?
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Hi Carmen. Yes, DaGoodS was very instrumental in my deconversion.
“Testimony of the Holy Spirit”: perceptions that “God” speaks to you in an inaudible voice inside your head; he moves you or leads you to do things; he performs miracles on your behalf; his perceived presence gives one comfort, security, and peace of mind.
I assert that this perception (feeling) is no different than the perception of a child who has invented an imaginary friend.
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Imagination can be a wonderful, joyous inspiration eh? I’ve just read two novels in the last few days and there are millions of others which attest to the power of imagination – stimulating, exciting stories spun by gifted authors. Where would we all be without the power of imagination? But most of us have come to recognize that the origins of the Bible stories are a result of the same thing – imagination – and realize that we are too mature (pragmatic?) for an imaginary ‘friend’. I think we are good without it. 🙂
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How do I know about the “testimony of the Holy Spirit”? I grew up evangelical. I left evangelicalism in my 20’s because I didn’t FEEL Jesus within me. I liked Lutheranism because I found it to be very objective rather than subjective. Evangelicalism is very subjective. Salvation in Lutheranism is based on an objective act, baptism, whereas in evangelicalism, it is based on a subjective act of belief.
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So in other words unklee’s belief in this is nothing but self-delusion, yes?
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In my opinion, yes. But what does it take to convince an adult that his invisible friend is imaginary?
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This is one for you deconverts. I was never that deluded or indoctrinated so for me it was simply a question of applying commonsense and doing research.
Unklee does not consider himself to be an evangelical but he certainly comes across as an apologist, and one who is steeped in indoctrination.
So, I would say … over to you!
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UnkleE IS an evangelical Protestant, whether he wants to call himself one or not. What is his highest authority?
The Catholic Magisterium? No
An inerrant Bible? No.
A particular Creed or Confession of Faith? No.
The highest authority for UnkleE is: his imaginary friend (himself). THAT is the definition of an evangelical.
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So we are back to square one?
Sounds very much like trying to win an argument with a liar. As they continually deny the truth there is nowhere to go.
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I do not believe that UnkleE is a liar or consciously being dishonest. I believe that he is 100% sincere in his belief. A child (or adult) who truly believes he has an invisible friend is delusional, not a liar.
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Oh, I don’t think he is a liar … I just said it was like arguing with one. But he is disingenuous for sure.
So how does one convince him he is delusional?
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unkleE asks the question: Why isn’t it possible that God, wishing to give us a lot of autonomy, holds himself back a little, perhaps like a parent teaching a child to ride a bicycle, but still gives us sufficient?
This is nothing but wishing thinking. There is nothing in the scriptures that validates this idea. So it’s back to the same old unkleE-style apologetics.
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Oh, I’m glad you took this one on, Nan.I was going to but bit my tongue!
I think devious is as good a word as any for his style of apologetics.
His approach and general demeanor is becoming more and more fundamental.
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UnkleE’s apologetic style appears devious to those of us who base our worldview on reason and science, but in UnkleE’s supernatural-based world view his behavior is an absolute necessity. If you are 100% certain that your invisible friend exists, “evidence” must conform to your perceived reality. If it does not, it must be FORCED to conform with your perceived reality. To us, this is devious behavior, to UnkleE and those who share his views, it is completely rational.
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