The Ethics of Belief

[Pyrrho]

To sum up:  it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.




Mr. Clifford has obviously not met many true believers.  They are fully impressed by the flimsiest of "evidence" even if it isn't evidence at all in the case of fools like our resident theists.

When a theist is told that his bullshit is true there is no such thing as "insufficient."

Mr. Clifford is effectively saying that many [or perhaps all] religious people are immoral for believing what they believe.  They ought to be careful about their beliefs, rather than accepting beliefs on shoddy 'evidence.'  Your study of history should enable you to give us many examples of people killing each other over beliefs that were not properly supported by evidence, as in various religious wars.  So their carelessness not only affects themselves, but is of great importance to others.

You also bring up another point addressed by Clifford:

No man holding a strong belief on one side of a question, or even wishing to hold a belief on one side, can investigate it with such fairness and completeness as if he were really in doubt and unbiassed; so that the existence of a belief not founded on fair inquiry unfits a man for the performance of this necessary duty. 

People are too ready to be persuaded of what they already believe, and so if they have a belief not based on sufficient evidence, they are incapable of properly judging the evidence regarding the matter.  We see this quite clearly with the ridiculous "proofs" of God's existence that many religious people put forward which they find convincing, when an unbiassed examination of the arguments reveals fallacious reasoning.

And this aspect of human psychology goes so far that even if one does not yet have the belief, but merely wishes to have it, one is apt to accept shoddy 'evidence' in order to acquire the belief.