Rationality

Rationality is hard work. Many personal behaviors which seem irrational or simply crazy can be reasoned out with time and effort. Most people do not take the challenge. It is easier to simply pray to a god, throw salt over a shoulder or repeat dysfunctional behavior with an irrational expectation that someday a better result will magically occur.

Preaching rationality is not as effective as patiently teaching rationality. As long as the public education system of a society is inadequate, there will be little rationality in that society. Railing against religion, pointing out its gaping flaws of logic and posing a rational debate against its irrationality are useless when the audience is simply uneducated in science, math and basic logic. You might as well try to explain high cholesterol levels in red meat to a dog.

Those who are highly educated, rational and compassionate can teach rather than proselytize. The place to start a humanist revolution is in the schoolroom, not at the podium. Human-to-human transmission of knowledge is the cure for the disease of ignorance. Writing bestsellers reaches the effete who read the New York Times bestseller lists. Writing this blog simply reaches those with the time and disposition to read a blog about humanism.

I first learned this wisdom by being an out gay man in my life and work at a time when this was still risky business. I also learned that this is a long and hard road with small, incremental results. Humanist practice, spreading the word of rational living, is not easy. It is inherently counter-cultural in most places on this planet. In many ways, it is an irrational choice for a happy and prosperous human life. However, I will testify here that it proves itself as a rational choice with aging, because it brings a depth of personal confidence, happiness and peace which is unattainable through a life of conformity, magical thinking and materialism.