The Rational Believer

  Many psychological and physical problems. arise when we don’t prioritise certain knowledge over speculative knowledge. For instance, some people are constantly worried about the possibility of germs on their hands making them ill. This causes them to wash their hands constantly until they start to chaff and peel from constant washing -  an obsessive compulsive disorder. In this case the idea of “germs  leading to an illness are on my hand” is speculative and the idea that “there is no reason to think that there are any pathogenic germs on the hand ”, would be more certain since from the observable sensed reality there was nothing to indicate that their hands have been contaminated. Therefore to suspect that there are pathogenic germs present on the hands when there was no incident to place them there would be a case of speculative thinking overriding rational thinking.In this case it leads to anxiety and physical harm.  Similar to this are the ideas that paralyze u...

  Many psychological and physical problems. arise when we don’t prioritise certain knowledge over speculative knowledge. For instance, some people are constantly worried about the possibility of germs on their hands making them ill. This causes them to wash their hands constantly until they start to chaff and peel from constant washing -  an obsessive compulsive disorder. In this case the idea of “germs  leading to an illness are on my hand” is speculative and the idea that “there is no reason to think that there are any pathogenic germs on the hand ”, would be more certain since from the observable sensed reality there was nothing to indicate that. Therefore to suspect that there are pathogenic germs present on the hands when there was no incident to place them there would be a case of speculative thinking overriding rational thinking.In this case it leads to anxiety and physical harm.  Similar to this are the ideas that paralyze us from looking for rational solutio...