# Has scepticism harmed your religious faith? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2005, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121 "2005-03-25T00:52:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/81 "2005-04-03T18:01:54Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#): > > . What most people practice as faith is adherence to their own concept of orthodoxy, the idea that the answers are unchanging and have already been worked out and provided for you. Anyone who tells you the book they read has all the answers has not worked their brain hard enough to ask very many questions. > > The reason science has developed such a strong track record in the search for truth in a short time compared to the length of existence of most religions is its ultimate open-mindedness. At one time the searches for spiritual and physical truth were synonymous. It seems to me that starting with Galileo, in the Western cultural continuum at least, the dichotomy between science and religion is that science, ultimately, is willing to abandon long-held beliefs in light of new evidence. Or at least, is more readily and quickly open to the notion. > Not that science is without its people who cling to outdated or false beliefs, but that the scientific world as a whole is more willing to admit, in the long run, that something they espoused enthusiastically was completely wrong in the end. You’re right. There are many people who cling to beliefs that don’t stand up to examination or reason, like God wrote this book. It is a phenomenon that mystifies me and yet having been there I see it as a common occurance among humans in lots of areas. We use denial a lot when accepting the evidence seems to require too much drastic change in our lives or it drastically alters the image we have of our world that we find comfortable. I have only a very basic understanding of science but in looking at the history of science it seems that the thing we accept today as “fact” is likely to be shown incorrect in the future or at least that our understanding was only the pinpoint of the iceberg of knowledge that we are yet unable to percieve. It’s possible that people need to go through the stage of external doctrine {some form of organized religion} in order to get to the point where they trust their internal doctrine enough to let it go on its own. I think skepticism is a good part of that process. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/82 "2005-04-03T21:52:56Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > I’m curious. I’ve seen on SDMBs the idea that an omnipotent being would know exactly what to do to make unbelievers convert to true believers, and somehow the fact that this omnipotent being doesn’t do that thing is evidence of the nonexistance of an omnipotent being. IS that the basic concept? PLease explain. Skepticism is a process, not a conclusion. My point was that the same process of skepticism used with regard to some things isn’t used for others. We appear to be wired that way, some more than others. As for your question, it depends on your deity. If your deity requires belief, with eternal punishment the result of non-belief, then it would be jolly nice of him to provide evidence, or at least refrain from providing what seems to be refutation of his words. It is not so vital for a live and let live deity, but it would be nice if at least once, in all these conversations, he said something verifiable. Not to mention that what he wants depends on the person or background. So we have two hypotheses - one a deity acting oddly, and the second people honestly believing they talked to god but really had an internal experience. The second seems to fit the evidence much better. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/83 "2005-04-04T03:33:14Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Well, God didn’t seem to have any problem providing proof during the Exodus. Not only that, Moses got into trouble doing something that could be interpreted as another explanation for a miracle. So I’ve always been confused by this argument. Well, perhaps God has different plans for me, than the plans He had for Moses. He is certainly aware that I am hardly the type to lead my people out of anywhere. I don’t think I have any people. But it wasn’t an argument. I mentioned, I believe that I think “convincing” people of matters of faith is blasphemy. > [@](#): > > But no matter. The new “evidence” of God from Religous dopers is just like yours. God should be able to figure out, without your help, that telling you or anyone with this experience something verifiable would be cool. Since you aren’t trying to tell anyone what they should do, it doesn’t matter - but since this thead is about skepticism, I just want to point out that though believers claim they are skeptical, I haven’t seen a lot of it. Well, more precisely, the thread is about the effect of skepticism on one’s faith. If one has no faith, one cannot reasonably any effect upon it from skepticism. I think I show skepticism often, here, on other matters. (Where I think it has relevance.) I tried to set up a controlled experiment on remote viewing, with an independent skeptical judge. I often mention skeptical opinions about the “evidence” for creationism. I just do not apply the same intellectual tools to all areas of my life. I am not skeptical in my relationships with God, or young children. I’m not skeptical about your belief in your views of life. I might become skeptical about the applicability of your interpretations of how those views apply to others. > [@](#): > > Man with deed in his hand: Sure I’m skeptical. The man wanted to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, and I went over to see that it was really there. How much more skeptical can I be? I own no estate, real or otherwise. I certainly offer none for sale, or even as a gift. ## Tris Both the Moral Majority and Fleet’s Enemas come from Lynchburg, VA. It’s a fact, not an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/84 "2005-04-04T05:48:12Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > Well, perhaps God has different plans for me, than the plans He had for Moses. He is certainly aware that I am hardly the type to lead my people out of anywhere. I don’t think I have any people. But it wasn’t an argument. I mentioned, I believe that I think “convincing” people of matters of faith is blasphemy. Even if God does it? Even Jesus? And no one is asking you to be a prophet. If God talks to people in the percentage he talks to Dopers, we’d be up to our asses in prophets if you all were supposed to be ones. > [@](#): > > Well, more precisely, the thread is about the effect of skepticism on one’s faith. If one has no faith, one cannot reasonably any effect upon it from skepticism. I just do not apply the same intellectual tools to all areas of my life. I am not skeptical in my relationships with God, or young children. I’m not skeptical about your belief in your views of life. I might become skeptical about the applicability of your interpretations of how those views apply to others. Is this a “you skeptics don’t believe in love” bit? Knowing that love for ones children is evolutionarily advantageous doesn’t diminish it a bit. But when my daughter was quite young, a “Daddy I love you” from her unexpectedly told me I’d better hold onto my wallet. But I’m not surprised at your answer. You and most people in the US put examinations of your religous beliefs in a different bucket from examination of other beliefs. John Prine said that it’s not hard to get along with somebody else’s troubles, and it’s not hard to be skeptical of someone else’s beliefs. > [@](#): > > I own no estate, real or otherwise. I certainly offer none for sale, or even as a gift. Uh - whoosh? ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/85 "2005-04-04T10:06:39Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Even if God does it? Even Jesus? And no one is asking you to be a prophet. If God talks to people in the percentage he talks to Dopers, we’d be up to our asses in prophets if you all were supposed to be ones. You’re the one who brought Moses into the argument. No, the acts of God, by definition cannot be blasphemy. > [@](#): > > Is this a “you skeptics don’t believe in love” bit? Knowing that love for ones children is evolutionarily advantageous doesn’t diminish it a bit. I don’t know what part of what I said implied that I doubt your ability to love. In fact, I don’t know how you get to the point that I have any opinion at all about your beliefs. In fact I specifically said I don’t. > [@](#): > > But I’m not surprised at your answer. You and most people in the US put examinations of your religous beliefs in a different bucket from examination of other beliefs. Yes. That is, speaking for myself. As for most of the people in the US, I have no data that would pass skeptical analysis. > [@](#): > > Uh - whoosh? Hey, you are the guy with the real estate sales analogy. I was just declining to play that one too. You seem to hold the opinion that skepticism is the only appropriate orientation to have in all human endeavors. I don’t hold that opinion. If that isn’t your opinion, then I find your point of view impenetrable. ## Tris “There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero ~ ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/86 "2005-04-04T16:46:33Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > You’re the one who brought Moses into the argument. No, the acts of God, by definition cannot be blasphemy. Okay, I’ve clearly lost you. You, and many others, claim that the reason God does not give evidence of his existence is that he wants us to believe by faith, and providing such evidence will somehow reduce the quality of the experience. This assertion is not borne out by the Bible, specifically the Moses story I mentioned. The point is not Moses believing - he had chatted with God and had seen plenty of miracles already. Getting water from the rock was done to prove to the Israelites that God was there. When Moses struck the rock with his staff instead of waving his staff over it, a skeptic in the audience might have said that the act of hitting the rock brought forth the water. God was angry at Moses leaving this possibility open. It is clear to me that this whole “God wants us to believe on faith bit” is used as an excuse for thwe absence of any evidence in the real world. It is a rather lame argument, especially for those faiths for which the penalty for not believing is great. > [@](#): > > Hey, you are the guy with the real estate sales analogy. I was just declining to play that one too. You’ve never heard about the sharp New Yorker selling the naive rube the Brooklyn Bridge? The point of the joke is that not all who claim to be skeptical are. [quote[ You seem to hold the opinion that skepticism is the only appropriate orientation to have in all human endeavors. I don’t hold that opinion. If that isn’t your opinion, then I find your point of view impenetrable. [/quote] Hardly. Anyone who reads science fiction must be able to willingly suspend their disbelief, to accept the premise in order to enjoy the story. But even if you do this, the story must be consistent. The Bible isn’t even that. My question is: why abandon skepticism when talking about God? Because it feels good? Ever wonder why you have to? The danger of this is that believers soon forget that they have made this jump. While you may not be bugging anyone else to do things in accordance with your belief, Tom DeLay, who has made the same non-skeptical leap of faith, acts like it is all true. That’s what bugs me about the belief by faith argument. When they want to restrict my freedom, it is because God said so. When I press them to show me this God, it becomes a matter of faith. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/87 "2005-04-04T17:23:00Z")
Douglas Adams posted a Belief-is-useless-without-faith parabile in one of his books. I am sure you’ve heard of [it](http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/douglas.htm) . Thing is, he was an atheist. My person theory was that he wrote the story, either as an exercise in logic, or in hopes that people would use it, and fail to see the gaping holes in it, such as have already been pointed out by Voyager. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/88 "2005-04-05T03:39:05Z")
Well, I don’t know why anyone listens to Tom DeLay on any subject, religious or secular, so I can’t help you there. In fact, I can’t help you much of anywhere. You seem to think that I should intellectually justify my faith, to someone, if not to you. No thanks. You also seem to think that human logical arguments are valid in relation to God. I don’t see it. I am not a bibliolitrist. I think the Bible is a collection of stories of folks who came to know God. I think if you make your heart a dwelling place for the Lord, and read it, it can help you. But I don’t do dueling verses with anyone. Faith is not a matter of logic. If you find that to be a failing of faith, then perhaps you shall not have faith. You also seem to think that anyone who has faith in one thing, therefore must accept any illogical thing without skepticism. That is a lot of faith in faith itself, for a guy who claims to have none. But hey, like I said, illogical things are not necessarily undesirable. I don’t understand God. I don’t even understand my Lord Jesus, and I believe He is human. (And also God, but that’s another of those non logical things.) I don’t believe that God requires me to understand Him. (Or much of anything, for that matter.) I know people who are good beyond reason. Kind in the face of repeated cruelty, faithful to the faithless, and loving to the hateful. In those people I have seen God. One day, in a miracle, I felt that love. I felt it again, when doubt had driven me from it. I am not stupid. I learned then that logic, like all tools has its proper use. Learning of God is not one of them. Logic is about limits. God has none. Reason is about the understanding of the nature of all things. God exceeds the nature of all things. Wrong tool for the job. Believe me, I have heard the Brooklyn Bridge story. I know ten cons to go along with it, as well. I don’t have a Spanish Land Grant to sell you, and I don’t need an investor for my Arizona Beach Front development. I don’t want to try to sell you my religion. I’m not all that sure I have a religion, in the sense you are used to thinking about. Telling me what “most Christians” think or do or say is just you arguing with them, in front of me. Believe me, most Christians don’t agree with me. And I’m not trying to convince them of anything either! I love God. He loves me. We both want to love you. End of Theology class. If you don’t want it, don’t take it. He will still love you. I think I am supposed to too, but you know how that works. So, as I pointed out in my original response to the OP, I am skeptical of people’s ability to discuss the nature of God, in any meaningful way. That has no bearing on my relationship with the Lord. In other matters than faith, I have enough skepticism to avoid a man with “a deal for me.” I don’t want a deal. If I wanted a deal, I would propose one. ## Tris “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi ~ ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/89 "2005-04-05T05:14:49Z")
If you consider that I became ‘skeptical’ when I hit the age where I started making decisions for myself and thinking for myself in general, then it altered my ‘faith’. (I was raised Jewish, and realized that it was completely ridiculous). I wouldn’t say it ‘harmed’ my faith, as I’d be very unhappy if I did believe in any sort of supreme being/s, ultimate force, nirvana, enlightenment, etc. I’d say that it’s improved my faith in humanity as a species, in that I don’t excuse people for hateful and/or violent speech/actions based on the “god says that’s right” argument. I also discovered that, for all the people who claim to understand whatever religious teachings and writings, there’s no one who can give any sort of logical explanation for certain events. The ‘god’ that I was told to believe in then, in my eyes, was an illogical being. I find it unsettling that so many people have such solid faith in a deity and then say, “No, we don’t understand how or why God does things, but we trust in Him anyway.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/90 "2005-04-05T18:18:25Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > Well, I don’t know why anyone listens to Tom DeLay on any subject, religious or secular, so I can’t help you there. In fact, I can’t help you much of anywhere. You seem to think that I should intellectually justify my faith, to someone, if not to you. No thanks. You also seem to think that human logical arguments are valid in relation to God. I don’t see it. No I don’t actually. If you felt like telling someone else what to do based on your faith, then I would. If you claimed that your faith had been examined skeptically and passed, then I would. I’d love to know why you believe in Jesus and not Krishna, besides that being the environment in which you were raised, but that would be intellectual examination, wouldn’t it. Being raised Jewish, I can get the faith-based belief in God, but belief in Jesus is about as valid to me as belief in a cargo cult. Pure environment and culture. I was raised in a different culture from you. The very first story in the “history” book we used in my first year of Hebrew school involved Abram disproving the existence of an idol when he was a boy in Ur using logical techniques. So my culture believes in the intellectual examination of God and God’s effects on the world. When God spoke to you, did he give you an ethical code? Did he tell you what parts of the Bible to accept and what parts to reject? I’m not asking you to justify your faith, just answer questions about things that I, honestly, just don’t get. I don’t have a spiritual bone in my body, if God has ever talked to me I must have thought it was something I ate, and I think why is a crooked letter. So I really don’t get the step after the “God talked to me and God loves me” one. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121/91 "2005-04-06T04:14:10Z")
Well, it would not be about how skepticism affected my faith, so your proposal, while not uninteresting on its own would need a new thread. I am not sure exactly where it would go, although Great Debates ends up being the default witnessing thread. Explaining the miracle is something I have tried to do before. As an experience for me, it was beyond life changing. (Salvation, you know, more that life itself.) But for a disinterested bystander (of which there were none) it was barely noticeable. As I mentioned, it was not an event that provides any evidence at all to anyone but me, and it left me with no doubts at all. Why Jesus? I don’t know. Perhaps God chose the way to my heart that was open. Perhaps He has other routes to reach other hearts. That’s all theology, and I don’t have, or want any of it. Jesus was there. So was I. Questions didn’t come up at the time. Being dumbstruck and overwhelmingly shamed were on my mind, and being lifted up beyond the reach of man was in my heart. Theology didn’t even come in third. Joy, laughter, tears, and a love so warm and strong that it was obvious it could never die seemed more important. But, enough of the hijack. If you want to continue, I will join another thread, on the subject of defining the indefinable. However, if God were in a box, (which, being omnipresent, He must) closing the lid won’t keep Him in there. ## Tris “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~ Lao-Tzu ~ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-scepticism-harmed-your-religious-faith/296121.md?page=4)