Eclectic Memes

I follow many blogs. Many more than I really have time to read properly. I use a tool called DEVONthink to download all the blog posts and then categorises them in a number of ways that are of interest to me. I then skim them like a custom made magazine. It’s kinda cool in a very geeky way.

So, what does this have to do with belief? Well, many of the blogs I read are written by atheists and sceptics and they, naturally enough, often discuss matters of the philosophy of belief. They, and their counterparts on blogs written by the faithful (yes, I read some of these too) often fire salvos at one another about believing the ridiculous or holding contradictory beliefs. “How can someone simultaneously believe X and Y? These are contradictions.” That sort of thing.

Every time I read these claims and assertions, whichever side makes them, I am left wondering who among us doesn’t hold contradictory, logically inconsistent beliefs? I know I do. I know I struggle with things like “is it ever justified to kill another person”. On the one hand I firmly believe the answer to this is, “absolutely not,” but then, when discussing the justification of killing in self-defense I find myself holding to the view that if it came down to him or me, it would be him. I abhor the idea of capital punishment. Not only because mistakes are made, but also on principle. Then again, when faced with some evil like Charles Manson it is difficult to ague against ending such a life on the same grounds that one might put down a dangerous animal.

And these are just two really obvious difficult beliefs. My life is replete with contradictory beliefs and sometimes I’m called out on them. Someone will point out my apparent hypocrisy, or raise an issue that causes me to critically evaluate a set of beliefs. I change my beliefs regularly when confronted with good argument to do so. The tough part is the ‘good argument’ part.

Most of my beliefs are relatively inconsequential to me. I am willing to change them without much argument because I am not really invested in them. I suspect the same holds true for most people, unlike the electric monk in Doulas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency people seldom hold to every belief with unwavering zeal.

And here is the difference I see between the faithful (those who believe uncritically) and believers in general. It is the willingness to abandon a belief when it becomes untenable. The faithful (whether a faith in religion, political doctrine, woo-woo medicine, etc.) are blind to critical assessment of their beliefs. Arguing with a person of faith is pointless because they are invested in their beliefs to such an extent that they are unable to see another point of view. It is not simply a case that they are unwilling to see another point of view, or the inconsistency of their position, they are unable to see. Their internal model of the world does not extend beyond the boundary of their beliefs, they are unable to step beyond that boundary to reflect on their beliefs.

Holding false beliefs is not generally a problem, it’s part of being human. The ability to hold inconsistent beliefs is probably an evolved ability, one of the many shortcuts that the brain has evolved to prevent us locking up into a ball every time we attempt to assimilate a new idea — much simpler to take the intellectual shortcut of adopting a new idea until it is apparently useless or harmful to our existing world view, rather than invest time critically analysing each new idea. If we were to critically analyse every piece of new information, ensuring it was consistent with all our other beliefs and our world view, I suspect we would be lion shit pretty quickly.

The danger is hold on to false beliefs even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence (or in the absence of any supporting evidence). In other words, beliefs become potentially dangerous when they are held on faith. If you believe homeopathy is a suitable medical intervention then you are holding a faith based belief. For the most part homeopathy is harmless (after all it’s only sugar pills, water and big ol’  a dollop of placebo), but it is severely harmful when you believe it can actually cure serious conditions like cancer and so you refuse real medical help (you know, the kind that actually works) in favour of the woo-woo that is homeopathy. (Having said that, the cynic in me thinks this is just Darwinian selection at work eliminating the terminally gullible from the gene pool. The real problem is when some asshole parent kills their child be forcing them to use homeopathy in favour of real medicine, or worse those religious pricks who kill children with prayer.)

How then can one cultivate a world view that allow beliefs to be challenged? Well, that is a very, very big question and one that will take some time to address properly, but briefly, I believe (there’s that word again) that young people must be exposed to many world views early in their development. This prepares their mind to accept new ideas and challenge existing ones as they grow. The worst thing one can do is limit a child’s exposure to ideas (and this is the beef I have with so called faith based schooling). Teaching a child one specific doctrine (and let’s face it, it’s usually a religious faith) and then teaching that child that this is the one world view available to them immediately closes their mind. No matter how well intentioned such indoctrination is, it is harmful to open mindedness. It can do nothing but close a mind to possibilities. It is, in short, a disservice to the child and to society.