Why Do Atheists Criticize People's Beliefs?
May 21, 2017 at 6:29 pm
(This post was last modified: May 21, 2017 at 7:00 pm by Valyza1.)
(May 21, 2017 at 5:47 pm)Pandæmonium Wrote: Why does a belief have to constitute any degree of 'truth'? Are you sure?
Some people believe the earth is flat, whilst some believe that a race of lizard people run the earth. Both are demonstrably false and decidedly not random having a body of believers behind them (remarkably), so where is the kernel of truth?
I don't know of any real person who believes a race of lizard people run the earth, but the kernel of truth in the belief that the earth is flat is that the surface of the earth actually is flat on the micro level, just not on the macro level. (Incidentally, I don't know of anyone in the last 500 years who believes the earth is flat on a macro level, either).
If something appears a certain way, the appearance is not usually 100% false. What's typically false are the conclusions people jump to from knowing certain truths. (The earth is flat at such and such a place: True. Therefore, the earth is flat into perpetuity: False). We may get a lot of things wrong, but that doesn't always mean it's because we're reasoning from a false premise. I think more often than not, it's because we're reasoning poorly from a true premise.
