What is Your Approach?

[The Reality Salesman01]

we tend to latch on to the simplistic answers we find to complex questions in life.

I will ask that you rephrase this statement and say “some people tend…”

Example:

Complex Question- Where did the universe and the cosmos come from?

Simplistic Answer-God did it.

When we want to know something, a quick google search sometimes suffices in place of a thorough investigation - after all, with so much to know there's little time to investigate every matter.

Yup! I wanted to know what artificial crab meat was made of, I consulted Wikipedia, and now I don’t eat artificial crab meat anymore…

We find quick results on wikipedia and turn around to spit out opinionated views on every subject.

Whoa…I don’t know about that. Crab meat? Maybe. Every subject? No, sir.

Rather than fleshing out the truth of a matter, we can decide what we think about something and then pull up the evidence that supports our claim.

Depends on what it is, and what can be found on the alternative.

If it looks like a duck
Quacks like a duck
Walks like a duck…?
Is it some kind of a duck?

If we really want to find answers to the questions we have, or find direction in our lives, can we really look it up on the Web?

No way Jose!!! You can thank somebody’s God for SCHOOL!! Woohoo! Can you imagine if the answer to your question was yes??? What if other people were convinced that it was true?? Phew! Catastrophe avoided.

How do we know the person who wrote a wikipedia article has a better answer to the existence of God than we do?

If you think that anybody does, you’re off to a bad start. If you are accepting claims from people simply because you think the individual making them ought to know what their talking about, then you’re wasting that thing between your own ears.

If God is just a projection of our psyche, then we can find every answer we need by asking google. In that case God wouldn't be worth seeking in the first place.

You, my friend, are in serious need of a philosophy class! You would love it.

anyone willing to pay attention, consider and weigh all possibilities, will find answers.

I am willing to pay attention. I do not know what all the possibilities are, and neither does anyone else. if I did, I would no doubt have ALL the answers! What I won’t do, is accept that just because something cannot be proven false, then it is possible. Answers that are derived in that manner are not really answers at all…are they?

But before we begin such an endeavor, we must honestly ask ourselves whether we are approaching the task with a determination to justify our opinions, negate another's stance, or discover the truth.

What you’ve just described here is called Critical Thinking. It is the alternative to religion.

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It is wired into us and happens pre-consciously through no effort of our own. Now recognizing this I for one am not of the opinion we should butcher any beliefs which science can't vouchsafe. I think there is much more to what we are than our conscious minds and I wouldn't want to relegate that much responsibility or authority to just the part of me I can hold in my conscious attention. I have no good reason to assume that just the part of me under my narrow control is superior to the totality of myself.

Good reply. Hey, have you read Free Will by Sam Harris yet? Fun, quick read! I think you'd dig it.