What's In A Name?
In an effort to move beyond just being abusive and to facilitate a bit of discussion, I'd like to pose a question.
This morning, I read an article by a faithful individual bemoaning the fact that the "intellectuals" of the coasts view middle America as being "stupid" for being devoutly religious. This isn't a new charge by any means (it probably goes back to the Scopes trial), and one hears it a lot from the creationist/"intelligent design" crowd and certain dark corners of the republicratic party. I suppose to some extend I can even appreciate the sentiment -- at least insofar as no one likes to be called "stupid". [This is probably why, no matter how stupid someone actually is, they always begin defending themselves by saying "I'm not stupid".] Nonetheless, I'm at something of a loss as to how to correctly classify these people from a rationalistic/naturalistic perspective. In fact, that's my question:
How does one delicately categorize an individual who freely chooses to reject reason and science in favor of a mythologically-based belief system?
{Note: I know that the first objection I'll get is that religion is not mythology -- and as soon as someone produces objective evidence that their "god" is real I'll be happy to grant them that distinction. Until then, the assertion that religion and mythology are synonymous will stand: My Blog, My Rules ....}
But getting back to the point: how would we rate the competence / sanity / intelligence of individuals who made everyday decisions like this?:
List One:
* I was raised to believe that bleeding someone is the way to cure the flu ... so it is!
* Our traditions dictate that we slash our children's cheeks with knives to scar them.
* I had a vision that told me the President had a plan for me.
* The Great Pumpkin exists because Linus told me so.
* It says in this advertisement that I can loose 100 pounds in 3 days without exercise or diet - and it's completely safe!
No doubt we'd at least shake our heads at these kinds of pronouncements. Yet, if we make them religious instead of secular, suddenly we're supposed to pretend that it's a perfectly logical point of view:
List Two:
* I was raised to believe that the bible is the inspired word of "god" ... so it is!
* Our traditions dictate that marriage can only be a union of a man and a woman.
* I had a vision that told me the lord had a plan for me.
* "God" exists because my parents told me so (and/or it says so in the bible).
* It says in the bible that the earth was created in 7 days and is only 10,000 years old - so it is!
Hopefully my point isn't too hard to follow here. The kind of reasoning in List One is, by definition, illogical. If it's applied to your daily life it will have very negative consequences, and if you admit to it, a friend or family member will probably say something like: "Wow! That was really stupid!"
But I digress ... what are we supposed to call people who take the contents of List Two seriously? We all know at least one person who thinks this way, and it requires some serious rationalization to claim that these are intellectually defensible positions -- especially in light of the overwhelming scientific evidence for naturalism.
Do people have a right to believe what they will? Absolutely. In fact, as long as they leave the rest of us in peace, I'm happy to return the favor. I even understand and sympathize with their irritation when the government wants to tell them how to live or how to raise their children. But my sympathy ends when they want me to act like their beliefs are reasonable, because by any objective standard they simply aren't.
Furthermore, there is a key difference between science and religion. Science is a method. I know this is hard for many people to process, but science is not about believing in a certain set of positions, it's about using the best naturalistic method we've been able to come up with so far to attempt to ascertain in rational terms what's going on in the world around us. Conclusions are reached based upon a preponderance of evidence. Sometimes it takes years or decades to get something right, and often the errors are useful to the learning process. A theory may be well-supported even though particular aspects of it are still in dispute. Science can live with uncertainty. This is fundamentally different from a belief system, where individuals simply accept the entire contents of "holy" book at face value and spend the rest of their lives trying to hammer a square peg (reality) into a round hole (religion).
Moreover, in every other aspect of our lives we know that faith isn't necessarily a good thing. Why do you think we have lists of things you should never believe like:
* The check's in the mail.
* I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
* Don't worry, I won't #### in your mouth.
We have these lists because we realize that anyone with enough faith to believe such things is at best incredibly naive. So maybe that's the solution. We won't call the faithful "stupid", because that's a.) overly negative and b.) descriptive of an inability to comprehend. We'll just call them "naive", because maybe with some education and experience with the world of rationality they'll be able to comprehend that religion is in fact just mythology.
And if they can't, then we'll call them stupid .......
This morning, I read an article by a faithful individual bemoaning the fact that the "intellectuals" of the coasts view middle America as being "stupid" for being devoutly religious. This isn't a new charge by any means (it probably goes back to the Scopes trial), and one hears it a lot from the creationist/"intelligent design" crowd and certain dark corners of the republicratic party. I suppose to some extend I can even appreciate the sentiment -- at least insofar as no one likes to be called "stupid". [This is probably why, no matter how stupid someone actually is, they always begin defending themselves by saying "I'm not stupid".] Nonetheless, I'm at something of a loss as to how to correctly classify these people from a rationalistic/naturalistic perspective. In fact, that's my question:
How does one delicately categorize an individual who freely chooses to reject reason and science in favor of a mythologically-based belief system?
{Note: I know that the first objection I'll get is that religion is not mythology -- and as soon as someone produces objective evidence that their "god" is real I'll be happy to grant them that distinction. Until then, the assertion that religion and mythology are synonymous will stand: My Blog, My Rules ....}
But getting back to the point: how would we rate the competence / sanity / intelligence of individuals who made everyday decisions like this?:
List One:
* I was raised to believe that bleeding someone is the way to cure the flu ... so it is!
* Our traditions dictate that we slash our children's cheeks with knives to scar them.
* I had a vision that told me the President had a plan for me.
* The Great Pumpkin exists because Linus told me so.
* It says in this advertisement that I can loose 100 pounds in 3 days without exercise or diet - and it's completely safe!
No doubt we'd at least shake our heads at these kinds of pronouncements. Yet, if we make them religious instead of secular, suddenly we're supposed to pretend that it's a perfectly logical point of view:
List Two:
* I was raised to believe that the bible is the inspired word of "god" ... so it is!
* Our traditions dictate that marriage can only be a union of a man and a woman.
* I had a vision that told me the lord had a plan for me.
* "God" exists because my parents told me so (and/or it says so in the bible).
* It says in the bible that the earth was created in 7 days and is only 10,000 years old - so it is!
Hopefully my point isn't too hard to follow here. The kind of reasoning in List One is, by definition, illogical. If it's applied to your daily life it will have very negative consequences, and if you admit to it, a friend or family member will probably say something like: "Wow! That was really stupid!"
But I digress ... what are we supposed to call people who take the contents of List Two seriously? We all know at least one person who thinks this way, and it requires some serious rationalization to claim that these are intellectually defensible positions -- especially in light of the overwhelming scientific evidence for naturalism.
Do people have a right to believe what they will? Absolutely. In fact, as long as they leave the rest of us in peace, I'm happy to return the favor. I even understand and sympathize with their irritation when the government wants to tell them how to live or how to raise their children. But my sympathy ends when they want me to act like their beliefs are reasonable, because by any objective standard they simply aren't.
Furthermore, there is a key difference between science and religion. Science is a method. I know this is hard for many people to process, but science is not about believing in a certain set of positions, it's about using the best naturalistic method we've been able to come up with so far to attempt to ascertain in rational terms what's going on in the world around us. Conclusions are reached based upon a preponderance of evidence. Sometimes it takes years or decades to get something right, and often the errors are useful to the learning process. A theory may be well-supported even though particular aspects of it are still in dispute. Science can live with uncertainty. This is fundamentally different from a belief system, where individuals simply accept the entire contents of "holy" book at face value and spend the rest of their lives trying to hammer a square peg (reality) into a round hole (religion).
Moreover, in every other aspect of our lives we know that faith isn't necessarily a good thing. Why do you think we have lists of things you should never believe like:
* The check's in the mail.
* I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
* Don't worry, I won't #### in your mouth.
We have these lists because we realize that anyone with enough faith to believe such things is at best incredibly naive. So maybe that's the solution. We won't call the faithful "stupid", because that's a.) overly negative and b.) descriptive of an inability to comprehend. We'll just call them "naive", because maybe with some education and experience with the world of rationality they'll be able to comprehend that religion is in fact just mythology.
And if they can't, then we'll call them stupid .......
posted by DrJDG @ 14:58
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