The Word Fool

A fool is someone who either makes assumptions or clings to their preferences even after realizing the logical truths that disprove their worldview.  It would be dishonest and stupid to think that an irrational person could not be a fool, and all other accusations using the word are undeserved, having to do with misperceptions, slander, or irrelevant things.  Any non-rationalist is a fool other than extremely young children or those suffering from mental health conditions that prevent them from ever getting past the immediate self-evidence of logical axioms and their own existence (these two groups being the only exceptions because, though they might not be rationalists, they lack the same opportunity to align with reason that literally everyone else has whether they think they do or not).  Since most people are non-rationalists, most people are fools.

Jesus calls certain people fools in Matthew 23:17, rebuking the Pharisees who cared more for the gold in Yahweh's temple than the temple itself.  Various chapters of Proverbs repeatedly calls some people fools for selfish or philosophically apathetic beliefs and behaviors.  Psalm 14:1 says that "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"  In ignorance of these passages or out of assumption or preference-based commitment to superficial kindness, typical Christians are likely to condemn using the word fool in practice despite the numerous examples of their own religious text directly calling certain people fools.  Whether or not Christianity is true, therefore, it is objectively true that some people are fools for their beliefs, actions, and motivations, no matter how much this might rightly make some people feel inferior to others or uncomfortable.

When it comes to the idea behind Psalm 14:1, it is even true that atheists are foolish if Christianity is false.  Even if it was not possible to demonstrate the existence of an uncaused cause with logic independent of sensory experiences or social prompting, it would still be irrational, or foolish, to believe in the nonexistence of logically possible deities because there would be no way to logically prove that no deities at all exist. Unless a concept contradicts itself or logical axioms/truths, it is possible that it is true even if it is impossible for a human to prove or disprove its veracity. The only forms of theism that contradict themselves are those holding that God created, can change, or is not governed by the necessary truths of reason. An example would be a deity who can exist and not exist simultaneously or make it so that a necessary truth is not true.

The word fool, though, is something many people, Christian or not, seem to be very reluctant to actually use when addressing others.  They might make arbitrary exceptions, calling the word fool "cruel" or "uncalled for" despite it being neither in some situations, only to turn around and call people fools who probably do not even qualify as fools in the first place.  Fool is an insult, yes, but if someone is irrational--and anyone who unrepentantly believes that their preferences are how other people should live or that their sensory perceptions are by necessity accurate, among many other things, is irrational--then they are a fool.  People just tend to be either eager to falsely call someone a fool or to not even accurately use the term that all of this goes unrecognized except by perhaps a few rationalists.

Insults like the word fool that are not by nature erroneous and thus stupid (like calling men "girls" for not having random personality traits fallaciously associated with male bodies or calling women "whores" when they are not literal prostitutes).  They are correct, fitting charges for specific people at specific points in their lives.  The Bible affirms this.  Christians have no excuse for being stupid enough to think that the word is always degrading, abusive, or slanderous.  Outside the context of Biblical Christianity, it is still true that every hypocrite, emotionalist, egoist, and every other people who believes in assumptions or thinks their perceptions and preferences dictate or triumph over truth are fools.  Regarding non-rationalists (besides the two exceptions already mentioned) as anything other than intellectual insects with the capacity for improvement is itself misguided.