Skeptics doubt the existence of God. In my opinion, religious belief is founded upon a category error; the use of social intelligence to understand facts about physical universe. Why questions presuppose an intentional actor. If someone asks me why a t-shirt is lying on the floor, it is not a question of how it came to be there, but of why someone left it there. The how allows for a wind to have blown it there from a position where it might be drying, but the why looks for the reasons that someone left it there.
Likewise, religious questions assume an intentional actor, asking why questions. Science cannot answer why questions, because the questions bear assumptions that are not established. In this sense, skeptics' doubt about the existence of God are entirely valid. You must first establish the existence of agency before asking agency related questions.
But this tendency to ask about intentionality where none exists is typical of people who rely upon social rather than rational intelligence. The converse, among skeptics, is to rely upon rational intelligence rather than social intelligence. But this, too, has its hazards.
Social intelligence is what autistic and auspergers people lack, and it now seem to me that this is broader in the population than previously believed, and only problematic in people on the autistic spectrum. Those on the autistic spectrum, no matter how shallowly, are right about religions, but wrong about much else. I believe that any discussion of ethics must begin with social intelligence. Hume and Kant did not begin with this, and I think this led to a muddled theory of ethics during the Enlightenment. An is cannot be an ought unless the ought is an is--in other words, ethics must be foundational to personality, an inescapable assumption in all things, and this ought is a product of social intelligence. There is no "view from nowhere" in ethics--all ethical considerations are from a human perspective, and human beings are social animals. Rational intelligence is useless in establishing this foundation. Isolation is death, physically and psychologically. Society is life, and society requires compassion and cooperation. But rationality will not tell you this. A study of history and psychology might, but even that is open to interpretations, which can go horribly wrong under the influence of ideology. And oddly enough, much of religious ethics are rational, abstracting from human concerns and making an ideological supreme being the cornerstone of the entire system.
But to people who value rational over social intelligence, the idea of social interdependence may well be foreign concept. It's not that they can't think of it, but it is not the first thing they think of, and other ideas can get in the way. Libertarianism is one of those ideas. Libertarianism is attractive to people who see the world exclusively in rational terms because it promises them a world where they do not need to be concerned with others--a world where social intelligence is not required. I believe that Marxism operated in the same way, a one-size-fits-all system of ethics that bypassed social intuitions in favor of rational ideology. The same applies to Utilitarianism and a wide variety of other ethical systems, including the work of Peter Singer, which in my opinion would be disastrous in application (his suggestion that we send half of the wealth of the first world to the third world would be the equivalent of nuclear carpet bombing--look at what oil wealth has done to Saudi Arabia.)
Furthermore, this may go a long way to establishing why there is so much anger seeking a target on the internet in general (populated largely by nerds) and particularly among the skeptical community, who rely almost exclusively on rational intelligence. Much has been said about misogyny among these groups, and it's true, but this may be a symptom, not the root cause. The root cause is more likely to the accumulated rage of people who do not know how to conduct themselves with others, and who often fail in self-presentation, verbal self-defense, and reading social cues from others. And this would be nowhere more evident than in their dealings with the opposite sex. Hence their antagonism towards women, whose motivations and reasons would appear indecipherable to them. On average, women tend to specialize more in social intelligence while men focus on rational intelligence, although the split is more like 60/40 on both sides, rather than all or nothing. This is why autism is so much more prevalent in males.
In summary, words of advice to my rationalist fellows:
1. You are right about religion, but this doesn't make you smarter overall, just smarter in one particular way.
2. Ethics is a matter that begins in the heart, not in the head. If you start with rationality, you will go nowhere.
3. You have little core competence in subjects relating to social matters, including politics and sociology. Your theories on these subjects are very likely to be bunk. You will be attracted to easy answers based upon rational constructs, but human society is the most complex phenomenon in the natural world, and we have no comprehensive models for it. Never assume that you do.
4. You probably have anger management issues because you don't know how to express your anger, or many of your other feelings, in an effective manner, and this has left you at the mercy of those with better social intelligence. Begin with the understanding that tantrums just make you look like a loser, and try to learn compassion and discipline.
