Give me a reasonable believer over an uncompromising atheist any day

[GliderGuider]

29. Give me a reasonable person over an unreasonable person, no matter what they do or don't believe.

And I'm in complete agreement with the author's take on what comprises "reasonable":

By sincerity, I don't mean simply that people genuinely believe what they say. Rather, they are making a genuine effort to discover the truth and are able to question honestly the beliefs they were brought up with or have adopted in adult life. As some put it, they are fellow seekers.

By charity, I mean the effort to try to understand the views and arguments of those we disagree with in the most sympathetic form we can, being critical of their strongest versions, not their weakest ones or straw man caricatures.

By modesty I simply mean some real sense that we are all limited in our understanding and that no matter how sure we are, we could be mistaken. Even when others go very wrong indeed, we can recognise that there for either the grace of God or the luck of chance go I. This kind of modesty is not incompatible with having strongly held beliefs and certainly doesn't require agnosticism.

Although it's probably true that almost everyone claims the virtues of sincerity, charity and modesty for themselves, in practice many fall short. We should ask of those who claim to be part of the coalition of the reasonable: do they take any individuals or texts to be infallible sources of knowledge? If the answer is yes, they fail the test of sincerity. Do we see the principle of charity at work in how they actually criticise and discuss people of other faiths or none? And do they show any sign of genuinely being open to being wrong?

Is there something about the Internet that precludes this kind of reasonableness in so many cases? Ever since my earliest days on usenet I've noticed that when people encounter those who hold different views it seems much easier to set oneself up in opposition rather than in cooperation. I'm not sure why that is, but I know I've been just as guilty of it as anyone.

Twenty years of that sort of behaviour hasn't yielded any progress, though, and I've gotten pretty tired of being in snark mode. Maybe I'm getting old, maybe it's something else, but these days I'd rather trade thoughtful insights than combative innuendo. It seems more productive, somehow.

On edit: Just after I posted this I realized the answer to my own question, in a post down below. It's all about dopamine.