My wife, Laurel, belongs to the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), so she receives their publication, Freethought Today. She correctly thought that I’d be interested in an essay by Robert Pierce in the June-July 2026 issue, “‘Reasonist’ is a better identifying term.”
I put the term to use last night in a post on my Salem Political Snark blog about a proposed data center here in Salem. I noted in “Data center proposed for Salem has both potential benefits and problems” that:
Like most things in life of this sort, a data center proposed to be built on 75 acres in Salem’s Mill Creek Corporate Center is more complex than avid proponents and opponents are willing to admit.
After talking about some of the potential benefits and problems, and how lots of people are instant supporters or detractors of the data center on the basis of incomplete information, I ended with a quotation from Pierce’s essay.
A reasonist is someone who embraces critical thinking, the scientific method and new knowledge. They are a person who maintains an open mind and is willing, and even excited, to change their opinions as new information arrives. They are people who gather information before forming an opinion, rather than filtering information to retain one.
I’d be pleased to be called a reasonist, even though it seems to me that labels often aren’t necessary to describe ourselves, since how we habitually behave is a more accurate picture of us than what others call us, or we call ourselves.
Meaning, if I don’t act reasonably most of the time, any claim I might make to being a reasonist rests on a flimsy foundation. Further, I’ve found that generous people typically don’t make a big deal out of their generosity. Same applies to other positive qualities. So in general I’m wary of becoming too attached to a certain way of describing myself.
Here’s the entire essay by Pierce. Enjoy.
In Alfie Kohn’s article, “Spiritual but not religious” from the Jan-Feb issue of Freethought Today, he writes, “many nonreligious people hesitate to call themselves atheists just because of the stigma and discrimination faced by anyone who does identify as such.” He also writes that some “think of atheists as prosaic joyless people who are determined to reduce life’s wonders to scientific equations.”
Kohn is absolutely correct and this is why I stopped referring to myself as an atheist years ago. Instead, I now loudly proclaim, “I’m a reasonist.” Generally, this leads to raised eyebrows and questions, and so allows me to engage.
The term “atheist,” meaning “without theism,” is an odd way to identify yourself, much the same as saying, “I’m a non-blonde.” The term fails to reveal who you are or what you believe. Instead, it boldly says what you are not. Additionally, the term carries centuries of prejudicial weight upon its brave shoulders. I learned many years ago that when the masses adopt a term or a symbol that you believe is inaccurate or untrue, you have only one choice: find a new term or symbol.
After rejecting “atheist” to describe myself, I tried out all the other popular ones — especially those utilized by my favorite group, FFRF. My quest began with “humanist,” but I immediately rejected it. As a biologist, it’s too homocentric; as if humans are the ultimate life-form simply because we have a rather large and clever brains. I believe our world is a spider web of interconnectedness, that all species depend on one another, and that our arrogant ignorance regarding this web-of-life reality is actually the problem. So, “humanist” is out for me.
Next, we have “freethinker,” a preferred term of FFRF. My blink-response to this word doesn’t conjure open-mindedness, but rather a vision of untethered thought. Is there a foundation? What does that tell someone about me? It’s vague and also untrue. I am not a complete freethinker as I have spent a lifetime organizing, weighing, and modifying information to arrive at my worldview. Being open-minded and intellectually nimble, while continually updating opinions, takes immense effort and training. The term “freethinking” does not express this very well.
Last is “agnostic,” everyone’s least favorite. It is less bold and confident than the “atheist,” but has some appeal. It lands with less accusation or repulsion than “atheist” and it is free of the centuries of imbedded prejudice, as previously mentioned. Once again, however, it does nothing to describe the bearer of the term. It proclaims, “I have no idea,” or worse, “I’m afraid to think about it.”
So, I became a “reasonist.” I suspect that most of you are, as well. A reasonist is someone who embraces critical thinking, the scientific method and new knowledge. They are a person who maintains an open mind and is willing, and even excited, to change their opinions as new information arrives. They are people who gather information before forming an opinion, rather than filtering information to retain one. A reasonist uses what we know to be true about our world to form the foundation of their philosophy.
It is not reasonable, but instead demands faith in magical thinking, to believe that angels can appear with prophecies, that people rise from the dead sprinkling miracles upon their believers, that golden tablets can be translated using magical seeing stones, or that a mumbled prayer will have desirable impact. None of that is reasonable. However, should any of these things be witnessed (I am hopefully awaiting the appearance of a scantily clad angel as I write), it would become reasonable to change our minds.
The dogma of the Church of Reason is not etched in stone, but rather is a moving target — continuously able to evolve. We see the world as a horizontal web-of-life, rather than a vertical pyramid of importance.
The evolution of the more accurate and descriptive term, “reasonist” begins here, but its roots are embedded in the very creation of our constitutional democracy. The term originates with the Enlightenment. Our nation’s Founding Fathers were reasonists, some such as Thomas Paine (author of “The Age of Reason”), painfully so. He was so convinced that religion was breathing its last gasps that he published this book (1795) against the advice of his friend Thomas Jefferson, who correctly believed that Paine’s thinking was dangerously ahead of the times. My experience has been that the true power of this term is that it opens doors to explanation and communication, rather than slamming them shut.
Dr. Robert Pierce is a veterinarian and an Idaho State Representative of FFRF.
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Pierce , Paine, Kohn . Anybody can. (btw this is only a comment and it doesn’t have to make sense ) Just read the main text and ignore the critics.
Many scientists are believers in God, so I don’t think science is the monopoly of atheism.
The author writes
“It is not reasonable, but instead demands faith in magical thinking, to believe that angels can appear with prophecies, that people rise from the dead sprinkling miracles upon their believers, that golden tablets can be translated using magical seeing stones, or that a mumbled prayer will have desirable impact. None of that is reasonable. However, should any of these things be witnessed (I am hopefully awaiting the appearance of a scantily clad angel as I write), it would become reasonable to change our minds.”
That’s a very reasonable statement, and such events, when they enter a person’s life reliably, naturally encourage belief, and they rightly, as rational thinkers, change their beliefs.
Rational thinking is most certainly not exclusive to atheists. It’s an overreach, but entirely understandable, that people who have a certain philosophy believe they are the clear thinkers.
There is a deeper truth to this, however.
God is an experience and cannot be reduced in any accurate and transferable way to thinking.
So, yes. I guess it is entirely accurate to associate atheism with Reasoning, as the basis for their views of all things supernatural, including God.
That leaves Beyond Thought for those who hold a personal relationship with such experience.
Yes, that’s right.
Of course any scientist would agree that all scientific truths didn’t begin as reasonable at all. They only became that way after pioneers were willing to face their own inner compulsion to consider an aspect of reality others weren’t and make the real effort to conduct the experiment. So maybe Divine Scientist is a better term for believers. Surely the scientist philosophy is broad enough to cover the sincere members of all camps…
…If they are willing to put forth the effort to discover what today they don’t know, set up their own inner lab, conduct the experiments, have the capacity for falsifiability, and learn and adapt from what and where experience and rigor lead. Gee I guess critical thinking iS involved in spirituality after all!
“We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.”
Niels Bohr
Everyone takes comfort in believing they’re rational and reasonable.
Someone with your name wrote books about how RSSB is right about everything. Whoever this person was, he wrote his encomiums for theism in the same style and with the same assurance, the same appeals to reasonableness and rationality, as you now write about atheism.
It makes me a bit uncomfortable when people invoke reasonableness and rationality. The authors of the Federalist Papers felt the same way. That’s why they contended that people can be counted on to conflate their own narrow interests with justice and the common good. Hence, the wisdom of a Constitution that balances powers and opinions against each other.
In other words, or as I take it anyway, none of us can honestly assure ourselves we have an absolute grasp of reasonableness. And this can be tested by asking if our “reasonable” view, by strange coincidence, supports our own selfish interests. I find it almost always does. Try it and see.
Brian, I saw the master(s) this weekend and right in the very middle and front of the three book tables a short stack of “Life Is Fair” with their shiny and way too thick covers. That book will outlive us all.
Gurinder’s great retribution tour. I wouldn’t go 20 miles to see him (them ) and didn’t . So what does that mean to a reasonable person? I make no claims. I knew in advance who was going to think he was wonderful or not. But I was surprised to talk to some that went who were very disappointed. I always do the right thing whether it’s reasonable or not.
https://www.quora.com/?qv_src=email
It is quite natural that a narcissist might get even more uncontrollable if they are losing their power over you. Losing control is a huge ego blow, so rather than accept that the relationship is ending, they typically look for a way to assert back on the situation.
Among these, for example, there are some behaviors that might pop up:
1. They try to tell the story as if you are at fault.
All of a sudden, you’re the one doing to them exactly what they had been doing. They may say you are selfish or you’re a mentally ill person. It is not infrequent that they accuse you the role of the narcissist. Though, in reality, self-reflection is a sign of mental maturity – In fact, your worrying that you may have made some mistake by reacting is actually evidence of self-awareness and self-reflection.
2. They shut you out completely.
Once you start asserting yourself, the person seems to become deaf. They don’t think much of your boundaries – to them, you are the wrong one who deserves their actions, no matter what. It’s a matter of the explosive rage or weeks of silent treatment, the narcissistic person believes that you are responsible for it.
3. They are very much taken aback by your reaction that you are angry or upset or hurt by their behavior
One of the oddest things that you can come across is that the narcissist is not angry at their behavior – it’s anger that their behavior is finally being confronted by you. This is when you can expect that they are going to be focusing on what you did to upset them and use that to show that you are really the problem, right from the very beginning, through to now, that you were wrong and that you were causing problems all the time.
4. They abandon you, or they make you believe that they do.
A narcissist who is not willing to be any more manipulated, will quite suddenly leave the relationship. It’s very likely that even at that point when he gets you back, this time he has been thinking of a punishment or you were just rejected and to save the narcissist’s ego from rejection.
5. They launch the so-called defamation campaigns.
They will tell their friends, family or whomever they think they can convince that it is you who have been the abusive one. There is manipulation of facts, omission of the whole story, they create a scenario in which they end up as the ones getting abused.
6. They try to hurt you one more time.
I think the main objective is quite simple: you lose the peace of mind. Narcissists who still have control over you can cause harm to your career, your relationships, or even your mental health.
Never liked the term ‘atheist ’; it tries to ‘pigeonhole’ a person too much. ‘Reasonist’ does seem to work better, though I’ll still stick with the naturalist approach, which to me covers everything, including that which is yet to be discovered or realised. Sort of reasonable, I guess, but still a ‘pigeonhole ’.
After all, (when all labels and searching drop away), the thing that we all seem to be searching for, whether that is through science, religion, all our various beliefs, God, the source of life and the universe – forever expressed in such countless ways – is ‘meaning’.
We dress our musings up in all manner of ways, trying desperately to disparage what others believe and strive toward, all in order to protect our chosen (or conditioned) beliefs and make them appear more real and solid. Beliefs that in effect have become part of the illusion of posing as ‘who I am’ – while in the unconscious background, the search for meaning still drives us on.
Reasonist, sure. I like. I guess.
I mean, we’ve already got the everyday word “rationalist”. Which says everything this new word seeks to say, with no loss of nuance. Not sure why we’d need a new word, then.
On the other hand, no harm either, in expanding the vocabulary describing a rational reasonable way of thinking and of life, even if it means adding contrived synonyms. Like I said: I …like, more or less.
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As for reason-ist (or rationalist) vis-à-vis atheist:
Well, as I see it, the issue is simple. It’s a question of context.
Rationalist (or, if you like, reason-ist) is a broader term. And atheist is one subset of that broader term.
That is: a rationalist (or reasonist) approach applied specifically to the God question returns the Atheist answer.
So it’s a question of …context, is all.
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As for identity: Well, again, surely it’s a matter of context?
If I’m in a situation where the God question is very often forefront, then sure, the atheist identity may end up being primary.
More broadly, a rationalist (or, if you like, reason-ist) identity may serve in a broader context.
On the other hand, and importantly: Even rationalist (or reason-ist) wouldn’t be my core identity. It’s merely a tool one uses, when apposite. If I’m engaged in something where the context is wholly tangential: like playing or listening to a piece of music, or …well, just running, just working out, just having sex (just the doing of all of these, not the planning and structuring of it): well, then there’s no need, at that time, to end up being even a rationalist (or reason-ist).
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TLDR:
(a) We’ve already got “rationalist”. But having another synonymous word won’t hurt, “reasonist” is fine.
(b) Atheist or rationalist/reason-ist? Depends on the context.
Actually, it occurs to me, what we might actually have use for is a new word that describes someone that isn’t a rationalist.
(So that “theist” would be a subset of that word, call it “a-rationalist” for now, the same as “atheist” is a subset of “rationalist”, or of “reasonist” if you like.)
As far as I can think up, we don’t really have any such word. Fantasist? Sure, but that’ll describe only one subset of a-rationalists, that are themselves victims of hallucination and fantasy. Delusional? Well, I guess, I mean that’s broader than “fantasist”, but still a way narrower subset of what I mean.
We could simply say “a-rationalist”, I suppose (or, if you like, a-reasonist). On the other hand, that sounds clunky, and if we’re looking for a word de novo as it were, then I’d prefer something more …catchy?
My vote, so far, will go for these three:
1. A-rationalist. (And we can drop the hyphen, and simply go with “arationalist”, after the word’s actually caught on.) Because it’s the most direct straightforward description of what we’re trying to convey.
2. A-reasonist. (Because it works exactly as well as “a-rationalist”, carries the exact same nuance. And both are new words anyway, so why not?)
3. Fantasist. Because that’s snappy, and the likeliest of these three to catch on. …But we’d need to redefine the term to make it broader — much like the term “atheist” itself has evolved today from the ‘harder’ definition of what it used to mean it times long past.
Well I’ve had enough of this hooray for my school of thought mentality. I never read any of his books but if you say Brian is a flip flopper maybe he should enter politics like Gurinder did.
Hi Ron
It’s actually a good thing to be a hypocrite at some point. That just means you are not yet what you want to be. You may not be honest with yourself yet about it. Surely you are familiar with that moment with the man in the mirror as we all are.
Flip flopping or growing?
The Satsangi who brought me to the Path said real growth is like a spiral.
It can look like you are going entirely backwards with very limited growth in insight, but only, in time to circle back. And not to the same place, but with a higher level of understanding the real truth behind what you had recently accused of being false.
We’ve all been there and I think a real hypocrite, struggling with it, is a good thing.
I’m more concerned about those so wedded and welded to one view that they are stuck. They can’t handle their own hypocrisy.
I say, embrace it!
Say it with me!!
“I’m a ducking idiot, but it’s not stopping me from trying. I don’t need to defend anything. I’m trying to do what is right. That might be simmering completely different tomorrow! Don’t take my advice, make up your own mind! And change it as often as possible! ”
If you see the spiral in action, then you encourage them to move entirely in the opposite direction from where you are. Bravo! It’s part of the way back forward again.
I, too, am a me,her of FFRF, but I’m not in favor of the invented term “reasonist.” No human brain vibrates to the tune of reason alone. None – we all have biases and faulty colorations that permeate our synapses. None of get to be Spock. “Atheist” works just fine as an umbrella term that the individual can fill it with whatever they want.