Reading back I see one small point I’d like to address.
Who’s this “we”? Who thinks there isn’t an explanation* for people holding unsupported beliefs? No me.** And not your average theist. Again, I don’t think you’ve described your target realistically.
*a substitute for the more treacherous word reason.
**In case you’re wondering, I buy into the whole causation/determinism/physicalism package.
Sometimes they do. I’d say faith is sometimes the real reason but faith can be misguided or misplaced. Faith in a long held tradition. Faith in what some religious leader is telling you. That sort of thing also occurs over and over again in many non religious facets of human existence.
So if I believe “love thy neighbor” and it seems to work well in practice then I have good evidence? If I try prayer on faith and it seems to work well for me in practice then that’s good evidence?
That’s right it is hard, but we really have no other choice since so many of the decisions everyone makes that effect the lives of those around them are based on our subjective experiences and the decisions we make because of them.
All people use rationalization and justification for some of their actions.
The apparent claim of faith in the situations I’m talking about is that it occurs independently of any reason. Suspecting a dangerous animal may have caused a rustling has a sensible reason for retreat. In fact, the person probably doesn’t believe there is definitely a dangerous animal there, but runs because he doesn’t want to take that risk. This strikes me as very different from a belief without any evidence.
Religion as a whole may have some survival value (tho the pros may not outweigh the cons). However it still wouldn’t be valuable to believe something arbitrarily without a reason. It would make more sense that a person would be overly eager to believe a tribal shaman or the like.
Originally Posted by begbert2
No doubt there are many who would be impossible to convince. But I take it you agree that the real reason he would believe something like this is likely to be because of what others told him. So if we are to have any chance at all of changing his mind, the best approach would be to address his real reason for belief.
Heck, I wouldn’t even call that faith. Rational action based on an uncertain but rational suspicion, yes. Faith, no.
Personally I think that the faith and religion have persisted because it’s reassuring. Lots of people take heart in the “fact” that God loves them, and they have a purpose, and there’s life after death and so on and so forth. That’s a pretty sweet-sounding pill, and if I were more wildly credulous to things I might try to cultivate religion myself just for the emotional high.
Remember, something like faith isn’t genetic, so it doesn’t have to contribute to the survival and propogation of the ‘host’ to survive. It merely has to be attractive /contagious enough to consistently spread to other hosts before the original host dies.
I think that that’s a common reason, yes, especiually within organized religions. (There are some free-spirited persons who seem to have their own ideas of what God is that they came up with themselves, though.) However I don’t agree that addressing this reason for belief will be convincing at all, because very few theists believe that this is the reason they believe, and so to them, you’d be arguing about something entirely beside the point. And insulting their family, friends, and the people they respect in the process. Bad plan.
Not that I know a lot of converted-to atheists, but from what I hear around here the contradictions and occasionally poor morals in the doctorines are more compelling with regard to abandoning faith than anything else is. Perhaps you should try that (though it won’t work on everyone either).
A major agenda of mine is to discourage false beliefs. A lot of trouble (wars, persecutions, financial ruin) is caused by people who incorrectly think their religion is best, their country is best, their race is best, their political view is best, and so on down to falsely believing they can make money flipping a house or cure cancer with snake oil. In most of these cases there is no clear way to know what is right, so the best we can do is determine a reasonable level of doubt and take an appropriately cautious approach. I don’t think this is dangerous since we wouldn’t be assuming an unsupported belief is false, only that it might be false. If the issue is important we should seek out more evidence.
I was religious up until I was about 20, and I think up until then, if I had been asked to justify my beliefs (nobody did) I probably would have claimed “faith”, which is in effect no reason. Forty years have gone by and my impression is still that a lot of religious people would react the same way. Perhaps the young me, or most other believers would admit to a plausible reason if pressed, but most of the time that never comes up. Perhaps what concerns me most is that a lot of the atheists I know seem to dismiss faith beliefs as simply stupid or irrational. I think the beliefs are quite understandable, but we don’t tend to get the the real reasons because the conversation too often stops at “faith” which gets us nowhere. Now maybe I have misjudged terribly and there aren’t many people who use faith as if it were a reason for belief, in which case this thread is a waste of time, but that isn’t the impression I have.
I agree. If that’s the best information we have, that’s what we have to act on, bearing in mind the possiblility of error.
True. I make no claim that, overall, theists are any worse than atheists in this respect.
I think that’s one of the major problems with the group think mentality. We should realize we are still learning and that it’s perfectly okay to let go of previously held concepts as we process new evidence and experiences but organized religion tends to resist that. If you reject one or two of their key traditions then you’re out of the club.
The other thing that bothers me is being so dam sure you’re right that you insist you’re right for everyone else as well. Acknowledging the possibility of error and being aware of how much we have left to learn let’s us be more open to other ideas and allowing people to follow their own path.
I can’t guarantee that it would work, but I hope a point could be made without insulting people. If that were necessary, I agree that it would be a terrible idea. I’d proceed more along the line of “I’m sure your parents were great people - mine were, and they were religious, but that doesn’t mean I they automatically knew the real truth about religion. After all, there are good people all over the world who have a incompatible ideas about religion. Obviously there’s no simple way to know the truth. It’s tempting to think that ministers and priests and rabbis would have the real answers - after all, most of them are smart, well educated in religion, and kind, caring people. But they don’t agree with each other or with many smart and caring religious experts who are atheists. So even if somebody has studied religion all their lives we can’t assume they have the answers.”
Its not hard to make a good case that parents, clergy, and community leaders can be wrong about religion without insulting them, and I feel like this would be helpful in getting people to realize that their beliefs don’t really have a firm foundation.
I think you missed the point of the example. I’m suggesting Human psychology is designed in a way such that it is natural to immediately attribute thought and design to unknown phenomena. We would, of course, judge such behavior as “rational” now, but I don’t believe the ability to avoid predators was reasoned out; rather, our psychology evolved this tendency to personify natural phenomena, and it proved to have an evolutionary advantage to primitive man.
Humans certainly have a built-in psychological tendency to “over detect” the presence of predators. Have you ever been in a situation where you quickly glimpse something and think it is a living thing (e.g. a small object on a table is a bug)? That tendency is of little use today (unless you’re still foraging in packs along the African Savannah), but it does explain why humans still find it easy to attribute thought and design to phenomena which, when examined logically, can be explained entirely in natural terms: It’s an artifact of a now-mostly-obsolete survival mechanism. It doesn’t surprise me that many folks can’t “shake” the feeling.
If the pros don’t outweigh the cons, religious behavior would not be a product of evolutionary forces. We are definitely on shaky ground here, but I think scientists should be interested in why–if there is no logical reason to believe–every culture on earth has developed religion.
Your theory seems to be that theists don’t really believe “without a reason”, but that they are unable or afraid to articulate the real reason. I am merely pointing out that if you are limiting “reason” only to things associated with logical cause and effect, you are missing another possibility: That our minds are simply designed to accept illogical religious belief as a by-product of an early evolutionary advantage.
Another more fantastic possibility is that by having some persons in a group especially susceptible to religious belief, the group as a whole benefits. Again, we have the example of herd animals in which some specific group members innately prefer to live on the fringes of the group rather than in the main body; these members are more likely to be picked off by predators (so the innate tendency isn’t individually useful), but their position as “bait” and their ability to alert the rest of the group to a predator’s presence may give the group an overall advantage. Thus, although religious belief may be an overall negative to folks who have it (e.g. they are more likely to act on things without having a sound, logical reason for doing so), the presense of these individuals may benefit the group in some way.
There are several problems with this idea–it implies, for example, that religion and ultimately culture itself carries a specific evolutionary advantage, rather than existing as an unintended side-effect of some other, obsolete advantage–but if it is true, it argues we might not want to convince religious people to give up their beliefs, for fear it could harm the group. Again, I’m not supporting this argument, but merely using it as an example to show that there may be ways other than personal, logical justification to validate religious beliefs.
It isn’t easy. I think there is a way to approach it that challenges people to think for themselves without insulting everyone. Even then people have very strong emotional bonds to certain beliefs for various reasons. I’ve had Christians accuse me of being very arrogant for even suggesting that millions of Christians might be wrong. Well, aren’t they saying that many more millions of non Christians are wrong? I think it is a necessary effort. I try to stress putting the truth before tradition. Have the courage to honestly look at your own beliefs and other beliefs as well. Not to prove anyone right or wrong but just to really consider other beliefs and arguments. Gradually more information is available to more people and a shift takes place.
Well, I do appreciate your openness and introspection here. I have only one thing left to say and it being unsolicited advice you should feel free to discard it. I suspect you’ll be more satisfied if you spend more time trying to understand what is and less time trying to derive what aught to be.
Let me try to explain faith as best I can, from a Christian perspective.
Faith is not a magic that we wave about to justify believing whatever we want to believe, without any solid evidence to believe it. Faith is the exact opposite of that. It is the virtue that allows us to hold strongly to our bedrock beliefs even when we want to believe something else.
Every Christian has had some experience which justifies their belief. In many cases it’s a genuine revelation, but in some cases it’s something else. Certainly for almost all of us it was an intense experience, and usually unique or close to unique. Certainly it’s not an experience that we repeat every day. That experience forms the bedrock of our Christian beliefs.
But since human beings are naturally fickle, schizophrenic creatures, it’s easy to drift away from those beliefs, particularly when we go a great length of time without a spiritual experience.
Faith is the practice of remembering and holding on to our original spiritual experiences and using them to maintain our belief during periods of doubt. (This is a simplification of sorts, but it’s the best explanation I can give.) Some amount of faith is a necessity for leading a meaningful and productive life. With no faith, we’d just be constantly shifting our beliefs to match our ever-changing moods.
Or consider this situation. When he feels happy, a husband may believe that his wife is faithful, but when he’s in a cynical mood, he may suspect cheating even without any basis for it. By building up faith in his wife, he can force himself to trust her fidelity even when he’s in a cynical mood. That’s faith.
I certainly appreciate your attempt to be polite and inoffensive. However, you must understand one big barrier to communication between believers and non believers. Many non-believers treat all religious folk as if we must be ignorant and uneducated, and to imply that we’d drop our religion in a matter of seconds if only we had some basic facts. Too much of this attitude starts to grate on us because it’s so untrue. In many churches, including mine, I can pretty much guarantee that every person has heard the basic arguments: religion as a social construct, religion as a means of social control, religion as a psychological phenomenon, religious belief as a product of evolution. We’ve considered all these arguments carefully and rejected them. Some people can’t help feeling insulted by the implication that we’ve never heard these things, or that we’ve never given them adequate consideration. Of course we have. We’ve lived in the same society, received the same education, and read the same books as everyone else has (or at least some of them), so it’s unlikely that anyone will dazzle us with any of these standard secular explanations for religion.
I appreciate your input here. It’s true that many believers have specific and real spiritual experiences that help them form and hold on to belief. It’s a journey we can relate to others but must make within ourselves and ultimately it is a personal decision. It interesting that you say
These real spiritual experiences are interpreted through what and who is around us. People are taught by their parents or by the church they join after having said experience. If the experiences continue then they are often interpreted as confirmation of the church and it’s doctrine. That’s all fine. Each person must pursue what works for them and continue their journey in their own way. What I’d like to see is for more people to understand that a real spiritual experience in a Baptist, or Methodist, or Charismatic church isn’t necessarily a conformation of doctrine. You don’t have to embrace everything they teach to enjoy and share in the experience. God loves all mankind and is available to us in many ways through many filters {religions} that mankind has constructed.
There’s a simple analogy I like.
People are drawn to the light but make the mistake of worshiping the lamp.
I hope that Christians who experience the love of God and Jesus in their hearts can also appreciate that love expressed and experienced in many other ways.
People find it disturbing and even offensive when Christians respond with
“you’re not worshiping the right lamp there fore your light is invalid and doesn’t count”
I agree in part. We can see examples on this very board of atheists who tend to think their approach makes them the superior intellectual or more intelligent.
All the while they demonstrate their own beliefs held without evidence and their emotional attachment to unsubstantiated concepts. I have to say that flipping through the channels on a Sunday morning and seeing one preacher after another I can understand their irritation and the “enough is enough” response. With Christians actively trying to force their beliefs on everyone through their involvement in politics it seems reasonable for people to challenge them. If folks like Dobson and Robertson are going to claim they know the mind of God then they should be prepared to defend themselves. Personally I think the dialog helps move us forward.
IMHO there are prime examples of Christian beliefs that are held based on tradition rather than truth. Beliefs that are held not just without evidence but held in the face of ample evidence that they are incorrect. The words of Christ implore us to seek the truth over tradition. That will inevitably mean there will be more confrontation of ideas and beliefs to come. It’s all good. The fact that you’re here participating is a plus.
I dont have much to add to this debate that hasn’t been said already. IMO discussions on faith always come down to :
“I have faith”
“Faith in something you cannot prove is irrationiall”
“I have it faith”
“Your stupid”
Not verbatim of course, but normally this is where it ends up.
In an aside, cosmosdan, I just want to say I love this quote:
:smack:
That should be ought as in the is-ought problem. An is-aught problem would be a very different beast. Posting at 1am after an evening out drinking is never a good idea.
I tend to doubt that religion is built in to the mind in any way mainly because I feel the idea of gods is more abstract and specific than most things that are genetically wired. On the other hand, the mind being a very general purpose device, there is nothing wired in to prevent superstitious beliefs. Since people grow up being familiar with minds, but until recently had no conceivable way to imagine how a brain might work, it was very natural to hypothesize that there are minds without bodies that could do things. Since assumptions like this are virtually impossible to falsify, they tended to stick around and social institutions got built up that propagated specific versions of these ideas. So I think religions could easily just be a side effect of normal beneficial mental mechanisms.
It seems like the biggest advantage of religion in the past would be to help one tribe defeat another tribe since members would be more willing to die for the cause, and even though this was not good for humanity as a whole, it helped propagate the genes of the winners. In a global society with powerful weapons we’d be a lot better off if we could eliminate differences such as religion which could be the cause of warfare.
I will assume that this is what faith means to you, but that’s not necessarily the impression I’ve gotten from others. But even so, suppose the bedrock belief is wrong? Mormons, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and others have bedrock beliefs that we’d both disagree with. And I’d expect many of them have had intense spiritual experiences. Is this sort of faith a virtue when they employ it?
You say almost all of you have had intense experiences. Offhand I would have expected relatively few religious people have had these (say 20%? I never had one myself) while the majority would believe mainly due to authority. Of course I came from a very moderate Presbyterian background where I’d expect profound experiences to be less common. I’d be very curious if anyone has gathered data on people’s direct experiences, their nature, and how they are distributed among various sects.
As it happens I agree with you that most atheists do a very poor job of making their case and it bothers me a lot. As you say, they often treat believers as if they were stupid, and they tend to make the same ineffective arguments over and over. I’ve been to “Is there a God?” debates and usually come out frustrated that the non-religious speaker said almost nothing that had a chance of changing anyone’s mind.
On the other hand, there are an awful lot of religious people out there who are pretty clueless. I’ve pointed out Bible problems to Jehovah’s Witnesses and, despite the fact that they are heavily into religion, they are completely unaware of them (as I was when I went to church). It’s an entirely different world from Great Debates, where I expect most of the believers are very knowlegable.
The fact remains, however, that there are very incompatible views out there, and some of us, probably most of us, are wrong about some very important matters. So we should try to get at the truth without trying to attribute our differences to bad character on the other person’s part. If it turns out I’m wrong, the best thing that could happen to me would be to be corrected, and if I’m right I hope I can find a way to win people over.
Thanks. I just discovered it recently myself and it’s my new favorite. It seems to capture the essence of organized religion in a nutshell.
The other part that appeals to me is that the light in the analogy doesn’t have to be something we disagree on. The light we are drawn to might be as universal as truth and love. The exploration of our potential as beings. If we can see the light we are drawn to as that, then it needn’t be such a barrier between the believer and the non believer. Providing we can stop worshiping the lamp, or lamps.
The truth is a worthy goal.
In the past year I’ve become more aware of the need to exchange ideas and have the inevitable confrontation of beliefs. Not in a desire to ridicule or belittle anyone or simply to be the right to their wrong, but to move the dialog and our cultural consciousness, forward. None of us are all right or all wrong, and we have something to gain from striving to understand each other.
There was a recent thread on Jerry Falwell. I was no fan of his and often used him as an example of bad religion, and I was still surprised by the amount of vitriol expressed toward him. I saw a few things about him on TV including starting homes for unwed mothers and recovering alcoholics, and it occurred to me when they talked about the Moral majority that he had played a role in moving the dialog forward. By challenging the right and wrong of each other, we move forward , together. Without Falwell we might not have a Richard Dawkins, and so on.
cosmosdan - Good points. I think we’re pretty much on the same page.