Well, something along those lines, simply captivated me for a while. Let's say, hypothetically, I'm arguing with myself here. Given my relationship with myself, I'd say, some sort of chest-thumping "I BELIEVE IN SCIENCE!!!" response, especially given me being a future engineer and whatnot.
Well, I do. Or at least, I believe that I believe in the scientific method. That being said, there are plenty of "scientists" or students of science (be it psychology, medicine, chemistry, etc) who seem convinced that they actually have concrete, absolute understanding of whatever topic it is they've studied for so long. This is obviously Bad Science. Good Science will never lead to a person standing there with a dead-set final answer. Good Science will only lead to more questions, and with those, progress. Technology will become more advanced, medicine will make various leaps ahead and of course, on occasion, textbooks will have to have chapters completely altered in some cases. (Take note, creationists - science is supposed to work that way!)
A Good Scientist would understand that he knows nothing, but works within the framework of the best possible subjective viewpoint that all of his research and life experience can offer him. A Good Philosopher will be like this too - maybe even more blatantly so since it can be much harder to convince any given person going through the early "but - why?" stages of anything. Questions are how we make advances as society, and I believe that, as individuals, we do too.
My answer would thus be something like, "I believe that all that any given person really has is themselves and their minds. All of their perception is based on a struggle between doubt and faith. I don't believe there's one answer for what the world is about, where we all fit in it, I believe there are none. But I do believe in order to get by, we all have to make use of our own individual balances of doubt and faith."
I'm pretty sure that I had expected a little bit more of a "if you can't see it, it's not there" argument based on the questions I'd been asking myself. And I'm pretty sure it sounded like a cop-out at the time, actually. What I don't get when I challenge my own points of view is that I'm not actually looking for an argument or a debate, I'm asking critical questions to better understand why I believe in something that I might not, or could not. Realistically speaking, I can go right on believing whatever I like and generally it won't bother myself (naturally, there would be some beliefs that just scare me, but what would that bother me with anything except scaring myself?).
Of course, then, I'd ask myself to prove that there's nothing where nothing can be observed. I then forced myself to enter this arguement, which can basically summed up as:
A: I can't prove God's real, but you can't prove He isn't real!
B: I also can't prove that there are no invisible spiders working as a team to control my thoughts - so maybe I should believe that as well?
A: No, because believing that would be ridiculous!
B: If I could prove it it wouldn't be ridiculous. Okay, well I'll respect your right to believe in the invincible invisible man if you respect my right to believe in the Spider Conspiracy. Let's agree to disagree. Otherwise I challenge you to prove how what you believe is more true than my Spider Conspiracy!
Anyway, this is the part that really interests me. I could take it quite personally if I question my hypothetical beliefs. I've found that the least offensive way to get away with it is to act as if one would be taking everything they say as granted, and give them a bit of a, "but hang on, what about - ?" a la the various Christian propoganda cartoons I remember from Primary School. Play the innocent strawman who just needs a bit of an education. The problem with this is the answers tend to follow the usual circular logic that only works in conversations between people (me included) who already believe the same thing. (The Bible is All True because God wrote it; God is infallible, it says so in the bible; So the Bible is All True because God wrote it, etc.)
So there will come a point where, as an outsider (who is attempting to be as objective as possible), I will have to ask questions that the other person may find confronting and only if I'm lucky, will I get satisfying answers. Unsatisfying answers include extremely defensive replies, more aggressively circular logic, rants about intolerance or other people "not getting it", and so on.
This is by no means limited to religion. In fact, there is one that really gets under my skin. I would have to give myself a heads-up right now and let myself know that if I ever consider this an actual explanation for anything, one: I clearly have not thought out my own stance through very well. If I'm questioning something I'd normally take for granted, then, yes, obviously, I don't get it - yet. Perhaps that's why I'm asking myself! And honestly, this comes across more like there's actually something in there that you don't get, but would like us all to simply accept so I/we can move on and just believe everything that logically follows from there. This is of course, a leap of faith that I may have perhaps taken because my parents taught me to believe it, or a gut feeling I have that insists the world must work this way, or else something similar. At any rate, it's not a case of the outsider being stupid, or not deep enough, or even just being too different to 'get it'. In a case like that, there's actually nothing to get because I could be missing a simple link in the chain. I don't think there's anything particullarly wrong with that, it just bugs me that so few people, which would include me, are willing to admit it.
There's the classic cliche that goes, "never talk about a person's religion, politics, etc". The reasoning behind this is that one might offend somebody. I would very much like it if people all made some effort to pull the sticks out of our bottoms on this one. Why be so precious about it? Let's have some interesting conversations with some substance, shall we?
This is what I think it boils down to at a certain point - no matter what I, or you, for that matter, believe in, at some stage reasoning and doubt have to give way to feelings and faith. Even the proud atheist who only believes in science and questions everything has no rational explanation as to why the rational approach is the best one. Think about that one - it also requires a leap of faith to assume that the world runs on some consistent set of rules (although the atheists and the 'spiritual' tend to agree on this idea, they mostly disagree as to whose rules).
In addition to that, conversely, I also could openly state that what I believe in is based completely on faith seem to struggle with the idea that this sort of conviction doesn't definitely make anything right. Somebody may have equally strong faith in something diametrically opposed to what you believe in, and then where does that leave me? Having faith in my own faith? So technically, then again, the other side's got that covered too.
So everyone has faith in some things, and doubts others. What makes us chose where to place our faith and doubt is something I'm extremely curious about. At the end of the day, it sometimes seems like nobody wants to admit that everything they believe might be completely, 100% wrong. An honest discussion about politics, culture, religion, etc, may lead to disagreements. They may lead to us being asked questions about our beliefs we never thought about before. If we are honest with ourselves, we may then realise that some of our beliefs are inconsistent, or don't really make sense. The logical way of dealing with this is to seek more answers so that everything fits together again. The logical way of handling this means you must allow for the possibility that what you thought before might not be true. Some people find this confronting, or seem to even find it scary. I find it refreshing and exciting. The more I learn, the more I change, the more I adapt. All the better for my understanding of how the world (see: people in it) work and all the better for my ability to live in it, contribute to it, etc. Some beliefs are not all that great, frankly, as I said before and maybe just not worthy of our faith. We should be able to question the merit of believing in certain things. There is no reason to hide behind our faith in cases where we are doing harm when really we're just afraid of change. If your faith says it's okay to steal my kidneys, or if your beliefs see your gatecrashing funerals declaring that the deceased is going to hell, we may have to have more than a little talk about that. If your faith tells you some dude created the world and he wants you to love everybody in it and help us all out, that's cool - I used to believe my life was being written in a book somewhere and irony/drama were consequently actual forces of nature. That didn't hurt anybody and I've gotta say, it did make the world that much more colourful.
I believe that it's healthy to question my own beliefs because it can consolidate your faith. I agree - I believe that having a healthy faith muscle is as important as having a strong doubt gland. I think it can also help build up a healthy respect for people who have faith in something completely different. Because after all, when it comes to touchy questions like this, I am not a fan of acceptance, or tolerance. They really are just euphemisms for "putting up with stuff that shouldn't be there". My ideal is a world where alternate points of view are embraced and appreciated for what they are, and the people who carry them are able to see the distinction between the person and the belief, allowing them greater flexibility in their lives and the world. That's why it's called an 'ideal', I guess?
Anyway, what are our beliefs actually based on? At what point does one stop using reason and just take a leap of faith? When one stops using logic/evidence to ask/answer the hard questions, what helps us decide where to put our faith? I really would like to know.
Well, I do. Or at least, I believe that I believe in the scientific method. That being said, there are plenty of "scientists" or students of science (be it psychology, medicine, chemistry, etc) who seem convinced that they actually have concrete, absolute understanding of whatever topic it is they've studied for so long. This is obviously Bad Science. Good Science will never lead to a person standing there with a dead-set final answer. Good Science will only lead to more questions, and with those, progress. Technology will become more advanced, medicine will make various leaps ahead and of course, on occasion, textbooks will have to have chapters completely altered in some cases. (Take note, creationists - science is supposed to work that way!)
A Good Scientist would understand that he knows nothing, but works within the framework of the best possible subjective viewpoint that all of his research and life experience can offer him. A Good Philosopher will be like this too - maybe even more blatantly so since it can be much harder to convince any given person going through the early "but - why?" stages of anything. Questions are how we make advances as society, and I believe that, as individuals, we do too.
My answer would thus be something like, "I believe that all that any given person really has is themselves and their minds. All of their perception is based on a struggle between doubt and faith. I don't believe there's one answer for what the world is about, where we all fit in it, I believe there are none. But I do believe in order to get by, we all have to make use of our own individual balances of doubt and faith."
I'm pretty sure that I had expected a little bit more of a "if you can't see it, it's not there" argument based on the questions I'd been asking myself. And I'm pretty sure it sounded like a cop-out at the time, actually. What I don't get when I challenge my own points of view is that I'm not actually looking for an argument or a debate, I'm asking critical questions to better understand why I believe in something that I might not, or could not. Realistically speaking, I can go right on believing whatever I like and generally it won't bother myself (naturally, there would be some beliefs that just scare me, but what would that bother me with anything except scaring myself?).
Of course, then, I'd ask myself to prove that there's nothing where nothing can be observed. I then forced myself to enter this arguement, which can basically summed up as:
A: I can't prove God's real, but you can't prove He isn't real!
B: I also can't prove that there are no invisible spiders working as a team to control my thoughts - so maybe I should believe that as well?
A: No, because believing that would be ridiculous!
B: If I could prove it it wouldn't be ridiculous. Okay, well I'll respect your right to believe in the invincible invisible man if you respect my right to believe in the Spider Conspiracy. Let's agree to disagree. Otherwise I challenge you to prove how what you believe is more true than my Spider Conspiracy!
Anyway, this is the part that really interests me. I could take it quite personally if I question my hypothetical beliefs. I've found that the least offensive way to get away with it is to act as if one would be taking everything they say as granted, and give them a bit of a, "but hang on, what about - ?" a la the various Christian propoganda cartoons I remember from Primary School. Play the innocent strawman who just needs a bit of an education. The problem with this is the answers tend to follow the usual circular logic that only works in conversations between people (me included) who already believe the same thing. (The Bible is All True because God wrote it; God is infallible, it says so in the bible; So the Bible is All True because God wrote it, etc.)
So there will come a point where, as an outsider (who is attempting to be as objective as possible), I will have to ask questions that the other person may find confronting and only if I'm lucky, will I get satisfying answers. Unsatisfying answers include extremely defensive replies, more aggressively circular logic, rants about intolerance or other people "not getting it", and so on.
This is by no means limited to religion. In fact, there is one that really gets under my skin. I would have to give myself a heads-up right now and let myself know that if I ever consider this an actual explanation for anything, one: I clearly have not thought out my own stance through very well. If I'm questioning something I'd normally take for granted, then, yes, obviously, I don't get it - yet. Perhaps that's why I'm asking myself! And honestly, this comes across more like there's actually something in there that you don't get, but would like us all to simply accept so I/we can move on and just believe everything that logically follows from there. This is of course, a leap of faith that I may have perhaps taken because my parents taught me to believe it, or a gut feeling I have that insists the world must work this way, or else something similar. At any rate, it's not a case of the outsider being stupid, or not deep enough, or even just being too different to 'get it'. In a case like that, there's actually nothing to get because I could be missing a simple link in the chain. I don't think there's anything particullarly wrong with that, it just bugs me that so few people, which would include me, are willing to admit it.
There's the classic cliche that goes, "never talk about a person's religion, politics, etc". The reasoning behind this is that one might offend somebody. I would very much like it if people all made some effort to pull the sticks out of our bottoms on this one. Why be so precious about it? Let's have some interesting conversations with some substance, shall we?
This is what I think it boils down to at a certain point - no matter what I, or you, for that matter, believe in, at some stage reasoning and doubt have to give way to feelings and faith. Even the proud atheist who only believes in science and questions everything has no rational explanation as to why the rational approach is the best one. Think about that one - it also requires a leap of faith to assume that the world runs on some consistent set of rules (although the atheists and the 'spiritual' tend to agree on this idea, they mostly disagree as to whose rules).
In addition to that, conversely, I also could openly state that what I believe in is based completely on faith seem to struggle with the idea that this sort of conviction doesn't definitely make anything right. Somebody may have equally strong faith in something diametrically opposed to what you believe in, and then where does that leave me? Having faith in my own faith? So technically, then again, the other side's got that covered too.
So everyone has faith in some things, and doubts others. What makes us chose where to place our faith and doubt is something I'm extremely curious about. At the end of the day, it sometimes seems like nobody wants to admit that everything they believe might be completely, 100% wrong. An honest discussion about politics, culture, religion, etc, may lead to disagreements. They may lead to us being asked questions about our beliefs we never thought about before. If we are honest with ourselves, we may then realise that some of our beliefs are inconsistent, or don't really make sense. The logical way of dealing with this is to seek more answers so that everything fits together again. The logical way of handling this means you must allow for the possibility that what you thought before might not be true. Some people find this confronting, or seem to even find it scary. I find it refreshing and exciting. The more I learn, the more I change, the more I adapt. All the better for my understanding of how the world (see: people in it) work and all the better for my ability to live in it, contribute to it, etc. Some beliefs are not all that great, frankly, as I said before and maybe just not worthy of our faith. We should be able to question the merit of believing in certain things. There is no reason to hide behind our faith in cases where we are doing harm when really we're just afraid of change. If your faith says it's okay to steal my kidneys, or if your beliefs see your gatecrashing funerals declaring that the deceased is going to hell, we may have to have more than a little talk about that. If your faith tells you some dude created the world and he wants you to love everybody in it and help us all out, that's cool - I used to believe my life was being written in a book somewhere and irony/drama were consequently actual forces of nature. That didn't hurt anybody and I've gotta say, it did make the world that much more colourful.
I believe that it's healthy to question my own beliefs because it can consolidate your faith. I agree - I believe that having a healthy faith muscle is as important as having a strong doubt gland. I think it can also help build up a healthy respect for people who have faith in something completely different. Because after all, when it comes to touchy questions like this, I am not a fan of acceptance, or tolerance. They really are just euphemisms for "putting up with stuff that shouldn't be there". My ideal is a world where alternate points of view are embraced and appreciated for what they are, and the people who carry them are able to see the distinction between the person and the belief, allowing them greater flexibility in their lives and the world. That's why it's called an 'ideal', I guess?
Anyway, what are our beliefs actually based on? At what point does one stop using reason and just take a leap of faith? When one stops using logic/evidence to ask/answer the hard questions, what helps us decide where to put our faith? I really would like to know.
