Blind Faith: the Fail-Safe of the Supernatural
June 1, 2011 at 5:43 am
(This post was last modified: June 1, 2011 at 6:07 am by Admiral Ackbar.)
Hey, I wrote this up last night partly as an exercise to give myself a bit more clarity regarding how it is I feel about the subject of "faith," and also as a means to practice expressing myself through writing. I quite enjoyed writing this and also found it rewarding clarity-wise (it's like organising all of those loose facts and opinions that you have floating around in your head), so I hope to make it a regular thing.
I figured that I would find a forum to post this on so then if people wanted they could debate some of my beliefs. Note that, like I said before, I am also trying to improve my writing skills so if you have any advice/criticism regarding that feel free to let me know.
So yeah, here it goes.
I figured that I would find a forum to post this on so then if people wanted they could debate some of my beliefs. Note that, like I said before, I am also trying to improve my writing skills so if you have any advice/criticism regarding that feel free to let me know.
So yeah, here it goes.
Blind Faith: the Fail-Safe of the Supernatural
Let us pretend that Charles Darwin never existed and in turn never formulated his theory of evolution by natural selection. It has now been over one-hundred years since Darwin didn't exist and still there has been no progress made in regards to an alternative theory to creationism as a means to explain how it is that life came to exist.
One day I'm sitting on the toilet when it hits me; "eureka!" I exclaim, "it all makes sense now," "life evolved via natural selection!"
I rush downstairs to inform my dear wife of my monumental discovery, tripping over my trousers (which are still around my ankles) along the way. I hug you and I kiss you, since you're my wife in this alternate reality, and I then proceed to excitedly explain to you my revolutionary new theory.
A few minutes later when I'm done pouring my heart out to you, you turn to me with a look of demure affection on your face and say, "well that's sounds like a very nice theory, dear," "but where's your proof?"
Of course, evolution is effectively proven, but my point here is that you felt it necessary that I give you evidence to prove my theory. It's just common-sense, right? If you were to make a claim to an insurance company that your house got burned down and you lost all of your possessions, that insurance company would expect proof that your house did in fact get burnt down, and proof that you did in fact lose all of your possessions.
Likewise, if I were to phone up the I.A.A.F. (International Association of Athletics Federations) and put it to them that I can run one-hundred metres in eight seconds---almost two seconds faster than the current world record holder, Usain Bolt---they wouldn't simply take my word for it and announce that Paul O'Brien is the new one-hundred metre world record holder. Such an act would be nothing short of silly. They would require proof of my claim.
So why is it then that, whilst everything else in our society works on this basis of required evidence, theories and claims of a "supernatural" nature do not? In any other case it would be completely illogical to believe a claim that is void of any proof, yet in the case of the supernatural society teaches us that such a stance is not illogical at all, and in many cases actually embraces and encourages it.
Now, before I continue I would like to address an issue that I am sure some of you will have raised by now yourselves. That issue being that surely not everything in our society works on this basis of required evidence? For example, I don't require evidence to know in my heart that my partner would never cheat on me. That's faith's territory, right?
Well, firstly, I would like to posit that one in fact does require evidence to "know in their heart" that their partner would never cheat on them; it's just that the evidence is discreet, and in turn is less effective than, let's say, my one-hundred metre world record example of evidence. This is why so many people in fact do cheat on their partner.
If one truly knew that their partner would never cheat on them, such an eventuality would not occur. However, such an eventuality does occur and the reason for this is because people do not definitively know that their partner would never cheat on them. What people in a relationship do know (well, most of them, anyway) is that the odds of their partner cheating on them are low enough for them to be able to safely assume that they are trustworthy in such regards.
The way that a person calculates these odds is through little pieces of evidence here and there that build up over time to create a bigger picture. This bigger picture shows that their partner cares about them and in turn can be trusted. For example, the way he waited up for her when she returned home late that night; the way she cooked his favourite meal after he had had a bad day at the office; the way that he had pretended not to have noticed her discreet mentionings of that diamond ring she so desperately wanted for Christmas, only for her to find it under the tree on Christmas morning. (I apologise for any offence that I may have caused by my overt gender stereotyping.)
These bits and pieces of evidence are the reason why you "know in your heart" that somebody can be trusted and in turn would not cheat on you. Faith most certainly does play a role in regards to love and trust, there is no denying that, however, do not mistake this kind of faith as being the same kind of faith as say, that of the belief in reincarnation.
The faith of love and trust is evidence based, e.g. you have a certain amount of evidence and then faith fills in the blanks (the believability of the claim being dependent upon the amount of faith required). The faith of something like reincarnation is not evidence based. I have coined the phrase 'educated faith' to refer to the faith of love, trust and virtually everything that has a certain amount of proof to support its argument. The second kind of faith we can refer to by its most common name: 'blind' faith.
The distinction between these two different kinds of faith moves us nicely back on to the original question of what it is that makes claims of the supernatural so special as for them not to require any form of proof? My personal answer to this question is nothing. However, we are raised to think exactly the opposite. We are taught from a very young age that blind faith is a good thing in regards to the supernatural. But really, what is it about blind faith, in the case of the supernatural, that is so brilliant that it supplants evidence, logic and reason? My personal answer to this question is once again, nothing, and I feel that until proven otherwise this stance is the only sensible stance one can take.
The miraculous and sacred nature of blind faith (commonly referred to simply as faith) is nothing but a fail-safe to rely on when you have no evidence to support your claim.
The majority of believers in the supernatural are all too eager to criticise science when it is not in their favour, yet praise it when it is. For example, if tomorrow a scientist were to prove that we in fact do remain in spirit after we die, meaning that ghosts do exist, believers in ghosts would be the first people to praise this new discovery and wave evidence and reason around in the face of any opposition.
However, if science were to prove that there is categorically no way at all that ghosts could ever exist, these same people would criticise science's reasoning stating that their faith (blind faith, that is) tells them that ghosts exist and nothing science can say or do will ever change that.
I would call such people capricious if their approach were not so deliberate.
So anyway, why is it that we are raised to think that belief with the absence of evidence is okay in the case of the supernatural? I believe Bertrand Russell's brilliant analogy of the Celestial Teapot can communicate an answer to this question far better and beautifully than I could ever wish to, so I will insert it below and then attempt to elaborate on the points I feel most relevant to our question.
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
Note that I have added emphasis to the final sentence of Russell's analogy since I feel it most pertinent to question at hand. In short, if you have not already gathered, what Russell is saying in the final part of his analogy is that if something is around for long enough, having been taught from one generation to the next, it tends become the norm, no matter how bizarre it may have originally seemed.
An Aztec community would have seen nothing wrong with sacrifice because they, like their parents and their parents' parents, were taught that sacrificing people to a god (that there was no evidence to prove the existence of) was normal behaviour. Just as genital mutilation is normal behaviour in our community. Most people see nothing strange about religious circumcision, however I dare say that if circumcision had never been practised and then tomorrow I created a new religion in which we cut off the foreskins of little boys people would be outraged and treat me as if I were a paedophilic barbarian. It's also pretty safe to assume that I would be arrested relatively quickly for engaging in such a practice.
The tolerance of blind faith in the case of the supernatural is, I feel, just another silly belief that has been around for long enough for it to have taken hold as the norm. It is the illogical fallacy that our ancestors were more insightful than us and somehow knew "things" about the universe that even today's most brilliant scientists do not know that keeps this trend going.
The current panic concerning the Mayan prophecy that the world will in end in 2012 is a brilliant example of this illogical fallacy in action before our very eyes. Many people believe that the Mayans, who were so ill-informed scientifically that they thought the world was flat and on the back of a turtle floating in the sea, had more insight into the workings of the universe than modern science.
Now, I'm sure the majority of people reading this would regard such a belief as wrong as well as silly, however, who are we to judge such a belief as this, yet at the same time embrace and partake in an equally fallacious activity such as astrology and the reading of horoscopes?
It is part of our culture to laugh at the outlandish and illogical beliefs and practices of other cultures, yet at the same time fail to recognise the equally outlandish and illogical beliefs and practices of our own. We live in a society in which we are taught to embrace blind faith. We are not taught why we should embrace it, we are just taught that blind faith is good. When you remove the whistles and bells of society and strip it down to its bare bones, the sheer absurdity of some of its most elemental workings are both unbelievable and unsettling.
Thank you.
One day I'm sitting on the toilet when it hits me; "eureka!" I exclaim, "it all makes sense now," "life evolved via natural selection!"
I rush downstairs to inform my dear wife of my monumental discovery, tripping over my trousers (which are still around my ankles) along the way. I hug you and I kiss you, since you're my wife in this alternate reality, and I then proceed to excitedly explain to you my revolutionary new theory.
A few minutes later when I'm done pouring my heart out to you, you turn to me with a look of demure affection on your face and say, "well that's sounds like a very nice theory, dear," "but where's your proof?"
Of course, evolution is effectively proven, but my point here is that you felt it necessary that I give you evidence to prove my theory. It's just common-sense, right? If you were to make a claim to an insurance company that your house got burned down and you lost all of your possessions, that insurance company would expect proof that your house did in fact get burnt down, and proof that you did in fact lose all of your possessions.
Likewise, if I were to phone up the I.A.A.F. (International Association of Athletics Federations) and put it to them that I can run one-hundred metres in eight seconds---almost two seconds faster than the current world record holder, Usain Bolt---they wouldn't simply take my word for it and announce that Paul O'Brien is the new one-hundred metre world record holder. Such an act would be nothing short of silly. They would require proof of my claim.
So why is it then that, whilst everything else in our society works on this basis of required evidence, theories and claims of a "supernatural" nature do not? In any other case it would be completely illogical to believe a claim that is void of any proof, yet in the case of the supernatural society teaches us that such a stance is not illogical at all, and in many cases actually embraces and encourages it.
Now, before I continue I would like to address an issue that I am sure some of you will have raised by now yourselves. That issue being that surely not everything in our society works on this basis of required evidence? For example, I don't require evidence to know in my heart that my partner would never cheat on me. That's faith's territory, right?
Well, firstly, I would like to posit that one in fact does require evidence to "know in their heart" that their partner would never cheat on them; it's just that the evidence is discreet, and in turn is less effective than, let's say, my one-hundred metre world record example of evidence. This is why so many people in fact do cheat on their partner.
If one truly knew that their partner would never cheat on them, such an eventuality would not occur. However, such an eventuality does occur and the reason for this is because people do not definitively know that their partner would never cheat on them. What people in a relationship do know (well, most of them, anyway) is that the odds of their partner cheating on them are low enough for them to be able to safely assume that they are trustworthy in such regards.
The way that a person calculates these odds is through little pieces of evidence here and there that build up over time to create a bigger picture. This bigger picture shows that their partner cares about them and in turn can be trusted. For example, the way he waited up for her when she returned home late that night; the way she cooked his favourite meal after he had had a bad day at the office; the way that he had pretended not to have noticed her discreet mentionings of that diamond ring she so desperately wanted for Christmas, only for her to find it under the tree on Christmas morning. (I apologise for any offence that I may have caused by my overt gender stereotyping.)
These bits and pieces of evidence are the reason why you "know in your heart" that somebody can be trusted and in turn would not cheat on you. Faith most certainly does play a role in regards to love and trust, there is no denying that, however, do not mistake this kind of faith as being the same kind of faith as say, that of the belief in reincarnation.
The faith of love and trust is evidence based, e.g. you have a certain amount of evidence and then faith fills in the blanks (the believability of the claim being dependent upon the amount of faith required). The faith of something like reincarnation is not evidence based. I have coined the phrase 'educated faith' to refer to the faith of love, trust and virtually everything that has a certain amount of proof to support its argument. The second kind of faith we can refer to by its most common name: 'blind' faith.
The distinction between these two different kinds of faith moves us nicely back on to the original question of what it is that makes claims of the supernatural so special as for them not to require any form of proof? My personal answer to this question is nothing. However, we are raised to think exactly the opposite. We are taught from a very young age that blind faith is a good thing in regards to the supernatural. But really, what is it about blind faith, in the case of the supernatural, that is so brilliant that it supplants evidence, logic and reason? My personal answer to this question is once again, nothing, and I feel that until proven otherwise this stance is the only sensible stance one can take.
The miraculous and sacred nature of blind faith (commonly referred to simply as faith) is nothing but a fail-safe to rely on when you have no evidence to support your claim.
The majority of believers in the supernatural are all too eager to criticise science when it is not in their favour, yet praise it when it is. For example, if tomorrow a scientist were to prove that we in fact do remain in spirit after we die, meaning that ghosts do exist, believers in ghosts would be the first people to praise this new discovery and wave evidence and reason around in the face of any opposition.
However, if science were to prove that there is categorically no way at all that ghosts could ever exist, these same people would criticise science's reasoning stating that their faith (blind faith, that is) tells them that ghosts exist and nothing science can say or do will ever change that.
I would call such people capricious if their approach were not so deliberate.
So anyway, why is it that we are raised to think that belief with the absence of evidence is okay in the case of the supernatural? I believe Bertrand Russell's brilliant analogy of the Celestial Teapot can communicate an answer to this question far better and beautifully than I could ever wish to, so I will insert it below and then attempt to elaborate on the points I feel most relevant to our question.
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
Note that I have added emphasis to the final sentence of Russell's analogy since I feel it most pertinent to question at hand. In short, if you have not already gathered, what Russell is saying in the final part of his analogy is that if something is around for long enough, having been taught from one generation to the next, it tends become the norm, no matter how bizarre it may have originally seemed.
An Aztec community would have seen nothing wrong with sacrifice because they, like their parents and their parents' parents, were taught that sacrificing people to a god (that there was no evidence to prove the existence of) was normal behaviour. Just as genital mutilation is normal behaviour in our community. Most people see nothing strange about religious circumcision, however I dare say that if circumcision had never been practised and then tomorrow I created a new religion in which we cut off the foreskins of little boys people would be outraged and treat me as if I were a paedophilic barbarian. It's also pretty safe to assume that I would be arrested relatively quickly for engaging in such a practice.
The tolerance of blind faith in the case of the supernatural is, I feel, just another silly belief that has been around for long enough for it to have taken hold as the norm. It is the illogical fallacy that our ancestors were more insightful than us and somehow knew "things" about the universe that even today's most brilliant scientists do not know that keeps this trend going.
The current panic concerning the Mayan prophecy that the world will in end in 2012 is a brilliant example of this illogical fallacy in action before our very eyes. Many people believe that the Mayans, who were so ill-informed scientifically that they thought the world was flat and on the back of a turtle floating in the sea, had more insight into the workings of the universe than modern science.
Now, I'm sure the majority of people reading this would regard such a belief as wrong as well as silly, however, who are we to judge such a belief as this, yet at the same time embrace and partake in an equally fallacious activity such as astrology and the reading of horoscopes?
It is part of our culture to laugh at the outlandish and illogical beliefs and practices of other cultures, yet at the same time fail to recognise the equally outlandish and illogical beliefs and practices of our own. We live in a society in which we are taught to embrace blind faith. We are not taught why we should embrace it, we are just taught that blind faith is good. When you remove the whistles and bells of society and strip it down to its bare bones, the sheer absurdity of some of its most elemental workings are both unbelievable and unsettling.
Thank you.
