Belief - Loosing ability to reason
While in my teens and good part of my twenty’s, I used to love B horror movies and reading different stories about ghosts, monsters and pretty much anything mysterious or haunting. I used to get high on that mysterious feeling you get from conspiracy theories or just simple feeling of the unknown. However, I am in my thirties now, and I’ve noticed that my tolerance for uhm.. bullshit is starting to wane. And quickly at that. Just by observing my father, my grandparents, and just the world around me, I concluded that this is a very normal characteristic in my family (and I think in most people). I cannot really explain it, but as I get older, I am becoming more and more skeptical, while at the same time, less and less tolerant towards the unexplained or what some call “mysterious”. This includes (but is not limited to) : Big Foot, Loch-Ness, Physics, faith healers, ghosts, fairies and yes… all of the gods of the earth, including Judeo-Christian Gods, Thor, Zeus, Vishnu etc… BTW: Full list of gods can be found here. Let me try to elaborate this little bit further.
Does something exist if we cannot: smell it, feel it, see it, touch it or detect it via any means? Have no any kind of interaction with it, and have no evidence of its existence. Would we still be able to say that something exist? I’d say that even if none of the conditions I’ve named are present, answer would be yes. However, what kind of existence would that be then? I would be no more concerned with that kind of entity, than with the existence of Santa Claus. The existence of such entity would be meaningless to us, and any claim of something like that existing, should be worthless or at least not to be taken seriously in our society - because if not, we’re opening doors to all kinds of lunacy and pseudo-science.
How can someone possibly ask me to “believe” in something without providing any evidence, or means of detection. I mean, come on. You have to give me something. At least tiny bity piece of something I can cling to. I really don’t ask for much. But nooo. Nothing can be provided, while at the same time, I’m still expected to believe in it. Not only that, but “they” will truly be surprised if I DIDN”T believe in it. With their eyes popping out their sockets, they would say something like “YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT YOU DON”T BELIEVE IN ALLAH???” As if believing in Allah is a default state of a human being or something, and the mare act of not believing would violate some cosmic law. I really have no way of knowing if Allah exists or not, but the burden of proof is not on me, so I will not even concern myself with his alleged existence.
I really have no doubt in their sincerity when they (whom I know really well) tell me that God spoke to them. They will say something like: ” I know that God exists because He spoke to me”. Or something like that. However, If they cannot provide any real evidence of that event happening, than to me, it’s meaningless. It might not be meaningless to them, but that’s not good reason to believe in it either. I am not saying God did not speak to them, but to convince me, or at least ignite my interest, they’ll have to do better then that. This would apply also to a best friend or a family member. It’s not that I don’t trust my best friend’s word. Of course I do, but he could be mistaken too, without knowing it. Schizophrenics see and hear voices all the time, and those voices ARE real them, but that doesn’t make it into reality. It’s not that I don’t believe them, but they could be delusional, hallucinating, tricked by brain, have brain lapses, have dreamt the whole thing, have carbon monoxide poisoning, optical illusions etc… There could be hundreds of different reasons why would a sincere and healthy person think they saw something that isn’t really there. It happens all the time. Therefore saying that Allah (don’t have to be Allah; just take your pick) spoke to them is not much different than saying “Santa Claus promised to bring gifts this year”. Brain is the best 3D software we know of. I personally see only three possible explanation for these kind of phenomena:
- Brain tricks - Anything related to brain (not necessarily damage) falls into this category. Hallucinations, brain lapses, high fever, optical and audio illusions, carbon monoxide poisoning, drugs, dreams etc…
- Intentional lying - Two types of people fall into this category: First, people who want you to believe something so bad, so they make stuff up. And secondly, conscience charlatans and deceivers. Pretty much all evangelical preachers on late night infomercials, most physics and mediums of any kind etc…
- They trick themselves into believing - Emotions over reason is the key word here. You want something so bad so you make yourself into believing it. Happens all the time. Cult followers would fall into this category.
My point here is: even if you’re convinced, without the shadow of the doubt that something exists, there would be no way of knowing if what you saw is: made up in your mind, or real. Not without some kind of independent non-biased evidence. Scientifically controlled experiment would probably be the best thing, but sometimes that’s not really a practical thing, and the best thing to do is to be very skeptical, and to wait for new evidence. The moral of this story is to be skeptical. And I mean about everything. Even yourself. Because one of the worst things that can happen to us is to loose our ability to reason. One of the reasons I call this article Belief - Loosing our ability to reason is because that’s exactly what it is. We are taught through out our lives that belief or faith is a good thing. It can be. But belief without questioning will always lead to a total mind submission. Maybe you can live with it, but I certainly can’t.