Intellectual Humility: A Guiding Principle For The Skeptical Movement?

[Belacqua]

"It is a pity that the ignorant are always so certain whereas the wise are so full of doubt."

I think that anyone who studies the world with an open mind learns to be humble.

Scientists learn how conclusions that seem completely proven by evidence can fall apart nonetheless. History shows that much of what we hold to be true today will seem laughable in the future.

Historians see that systems and ideologies which their adherents took to be inevitable to human nature pass away with time.

Religious people see that there are good people in other religions, and that their own religion doesn't guarantee goodness.

Atheists discover that the views of religious issues they had when they became atheists are overly simple.

The trouble is that people are only tenuously and sporadically rational. All these groups of people hold to their beliefs with more passion than is justified, and filter evidence to suit their preferences. Humility is always justified, and rarely accepted.