I don't agree and I think I know more about my beliefs, opinions and how I came to them than you do.
That discussion lasted forever. During it I repeatedly asked for an explanation, a rationale, for a number of assertions you made. If you had used a rational, analytical process to come up with any of what you asserted, you would have have eventually demonstrated it by coughing up at least one rationale. If you had performed an analytical process to reach a conclusion, you would have made arguments based on that rationale rather than diverting or fussing at me . You would have identified flaws in my assertions and presented a rationale for your judgment. Explanations flow freely from anyone who is in the habit of systematically developing rationales. They also flow freely from anyone who has developed a knack for retroactively constructing rationalizations, maybe even more freely given that rationalizations are often used to justify something iffy. <g> No one who used such a technique could have hidden it for more than a few posts let alone the duration of our marathon discussion.
If personal animosity isn't 'gut' what is?
I have no animosity towards you. I find you an interesting source. Neither probing for input nor making arguments to counter your positions implies animosity. It's an intellectual endeavor, neither a quarrel nor a contest.
You're absolutely wrong. One can reflect on human nature as one has learned of it over a lifetime and realize that a particular set of rules for living work very well.
Indeed, one can. I certainly do. I never suggested otherwise. (That's how I went from being a socialist to a libertarian and capitalist, via half a lifetime of studying and considering what can be workable and robust in the real world.) The distinction is whether you started with a clean sheet of paper or not.
"That something you believe is may be reasonable doesn't mean that you arrived at it through reason."
It doesn't mean it wasn't either.
Of course it doesn't. Quite the contrary. That statement of mine follows a series of statements describing how reasonable beliefs and opinions can be reached either by a reasoned analytical sequence starting with a premise and ending with a conclusion or by a rationalization of a bottom line reached via another path. IOW, I had just finished writing that it could arrived at 1) by reason or 2) otherwise. So why you would perceive a need to comment that it could be reached otherwise? What's the point of asserting a non-disagreement as though it were a disagreement?
It doesn't mean it wasn't either.
And then emphasize it by repeating the same comment...
What differentiates the two approaches is where you start, whether you 1) start with a premise and analyze your way to a bottom line or 2) start with the bottom line and either 2a) rationalize it in retrospect or 2b) just let it stand on its own.
I suspect that you think I'm ranking the approaches but I'm not. As I wrote before, people are entitled to their beliefs and opinions, however come by. Pointing out the use of one style or another is not a criticism. One is no more legitimate than another. I do think it's important, though, when we strongly hold beliefs or opinions to recognize how we came up with them.
you've said that I can have reached some of my beliefs about life actions by reason.
What I wrote was: "they can be arrived at either via faith or reason," passive voice, meaning that one can, not necessarily you or I. We all develop habits and skills and tend to operate from our strengths and predilections. We tend not to be good at what we don't practice or where we lack the tools. I, for example, never got the faith gene, either that or I beat the viability out of it at a very early age. And I don't have much confidence in my gut. I never developed it.
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