Believing where we cannot prove

[dreadgeek]

Since this came up on another thread (the 2012 thread) I thought I'd start a new thread to talk about non-evidentiary beliefs. My questions are these:

1) Why hang onto beliefs for which there is no evidence?

2) Why is it considered *fair* for evidence-based beliefs to be held to a different standard than non-evidentiary beliefs?*

3) If one subscribes to a non-evidentiary belief is there ANYTHING that could dissuade one from believing it?

4) How does one tell the difference between 'good' non-evidentiary beliefs (say psychic powers) and malign ones (say racism or Pat Robertson's latest utterances).

*By non-evidentiary beliefs I mean things like psi-powers, fortune telling, God hates Haitians, etc. I do NOT mean things like "I love my children" or "My partner loves me".

Cheers
Aj

[labete]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Since this came up on another thread (the 2012 thread) I thought I'd start a new thread to talk about non-evidentiary beliefs. My questions are these:

1) Why hang onto beliefs for which there is no evidence?

2) Why is it considered *fair* for evidence-based beliefs to be held to a different standard than non-evidentiary beliefs?*

3) If one subscribes to a non-evidentiary belief is there ANYTHING that could dissuade one from believing it?

4) How does one tell the difference between 'good' non-evidentiary beliefs (say psychic powers) and malign ones (say racism or Pat Robertson's latest utterances).

*By non-evidentiary beliefs I mean things like psi-powers, fortune telling, God hates Haitians, etc. I do NOT mean things like "I love my children" or "My partner loves me".

Cheers
Aj

1. Because humans are both rational and emotional, and often unequally so. People who are more rational tend to ascribe more value to evidentiary beliefs; people who are more emotional may ascribe more value to what "feels right" or "resonates" or gives comfort. Also, people in general are fascinated by the unknown, the fantastic, the things that seem to them beyond their understanding. Believing in various concepts that cannot be proven with current knowledge (and may also be unable to be disproven by the same token) may simply enrich their lives in some way.

Shorter version: different strokes for different folks.

2. Because by categorizing the beliefs as evidence-based, you (collective, not personal) are asserting that you can prove they are true beyond a reasonable doubt or true within whatever explicit limitations are set forth, with facts, logic, and demonstrably repeatable results. There is no such intrinsic assertion for non-evidentiary beliefs, so they are not held to that standard.

Shorter version: it's in the name, "evidence-based."

3. This depends on the person and the belief, and where the person is in their journey. I believed a lot of things as a child that I do not believe as an adult, such as that termites were ant-angels (an older child had told me this). Some people cling to their beliefs, others habitually seek new knowledge. The latter group is more likely to be dissuaded, whereas the former very rarely will.

Shorter version: some people, sometimes.

4. Telling the difference between malign beliefs and benign beliefs is pretty much the same as telling the difference between benign and malign things in general: by their results.

If I believe that wearing a particular pair of socks makes me more likely to hit home runs, the worst possible outcome probably involves either a fit of pique when I cannot find my socks or an offensive odor if I am reluctant to wash them and lose their magic properties. If I believe that The Rapture is coming and its arrival will be indicated by a blinding light, then on sunny days I may well be a very real threat to the well-being and property of others if I am driving, flying, or otherwise operating heavy machinery.

Shorter version: Ye shall know them by their fruits.

[Andrew, Jr.]

1. Why hang onto beliefs for which there is no evidence? Faith. I have too. When my sister, Jo, was dying from skin cancer, everything stopped for me. I could not see the cancer that was in her lungs, on her liver, kidneys, pancreas, bladder, and reproductive organs. I could read the results of her Pet Scans, MRI's, that proved the cancer. It was my faith of 3 years praying for her to keep her alive and well. Our goal was to have her see her oldest son graduate from high school. She died before that date. But she lives in her 2 sons. Jo was suffering horribly. No amount of pain killers helped her. It was time. We put her in CaringBridge, and had updates going each week, then daily. We had made 2 books made for her 2 sons. We plan on giving them to the boys at a later date. And really nobody could really help me when I was grieving except for someone from my Grief Share Group.

2. Why is it considered fair for evidence based beliefs to be held to a different standard than non-evidentiary beliefs? Everyone travels on a different journey in their faith. That is why there are so many different religious belief systems. There is no right or wrong belief system when it comes to faith.

3. If one subscribes to a non-evidentiary based belief system is there anything that could dissuarde one from believing it? Life itself. It is hard. Say you have a disabled child, someone in your family has cancer or another kind of disease, or you have no means of healthcare. You can be poor, needy, and the list goes on. No politician, or anyone else will help you. Sure your friends will help as best they can, but that can only happen for so long. Then you will see your friends drift away. Then you have those who place a lot on your job, your income, your statis, and so on. If you don't measure up, then they want nothing to do with you.

4.How does one tell the difference between "good" non-evidentuary beliefs (say psychic powers) and malign one (say racism or Pat Robertson's...). I think and believe that most people who have psychic powers also have a deep faith of some sort. For example, I am Roman Catholic. I have not stepped in any organized religion for over 20+ years because of how the Church was. But then my sister got sick. Everything changed with that. Everything. If there was a slight chance that God would spare her life, I would have done anything at all, but I knew inside that she would die. I knew it the minute she told me. Instinct, gut feeling, whatever. We were the close. In fact, she used to call me her adorable lil one. When someone who is in a position to influence alot of people and says horrible things like God hates fags, or Pastors who tell families to disown their gay kids...that is wrong. God is love. We should always comfort people. Not throw ignorant crap in their face. That is what is wrong with people today. God would want us to comfort each other. Help each other out. To forgive & bear wrongs that are thrown at us. It is just being merciful as I see it.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

4.When someone who is in a position to influence alot of people and says horrible things like God hates fags, or Pastors who tell families to disown their gay kids...that is wrong. God is love. We should always comfort people. Not throw ignorant crap in their face.
Just my 2 cents worth.

This kind of goes to the crux of my question. Now, before I ask my follow-up question let me make it clear that I *agree* with you that telling people to disown gay kids is wrong. However, if we're fearlessly honest we must concede that we have a dog in this fight and so we would *naturally* think this is wrong.

These questions about belief etc. concern me because there are a lot of not-particularly-benign beliefs free floating out there. It seems to me that very many people, however, have adopted a stance that things like evidence doesn't *actually* matter. "If that belief works for you, then it's true for you" seems to be the overall cultural zeitgeist. "Where's the harm in that?" you might ask.

Take an issue like global climate change. Now, the empirical evidence for climate change is pretty strong. The kinds of predictions that scientists were making about, for instance, ice sheet collapse are starting to be observed. We have good historical climate data that goes back quite a ways so we have a reasonable picture of how Earth has responded to various climate forcing in the past. Now, let's say that someone believes that god would never allow humans to change the climate or, for whatever other reason, that it's simply not possible for climate change to be happening. Their *behavior* will be very different than someone who accepts the climate science. That person might think that there's nothing wrong with driving a Hummer or any other gas-guzzling vehicle. That person will want his or her nation to invest in coal-fired plants, tar-sand oil production, etc. If it was ONE person who believed this and placed themselves beyond evidence then that wouldn't be a concern. But once you scale this up to *millions* of people and now you have public policy (or the ability to stall public policy). One person driving a Hummer is no big deal. Half-a-million people driving Hummers IS a big deal.

The key thing here is that this person does not BELIEVE what they are doing is harmful yet it does not change the actual harm being done. The same thing goes for Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps. I take these men at their word: they *actually* believe what they are saying and do NOT believe what they are doing is harmful. At some point I think that society has to stop sticking its head in the sand and actually *deal* with these ideas instead of just pretending that if we're nice and never say anything that might insult someone else the 'bad people' will just go away.

To the segregationists that my parents fought against in the 50's and 60's in Alabama, *they* (my parents) were the ones throwing ignorant crap around because the Jim Crow system was correct and fine. I know that forty or fifty years on this might seem strange to you and I but the segregationists in the 50's and 60's *actually* believed what they were doing was right and completely consonant with the will of God as they understood god to be.

As a black woman and as a gay woman I have been on the business end of different groups non-evidentiary beliefs too many times to grant them the benefit of the doubt that they are generally benign.

It seems to me that God could just as easily be hate as love, I see no reason for God to be love. Certainly the Bible mentions God hating at least as often as it mentions God loving.

Cheers
Aj

[Andrew, Jr.]

I think I have what you are saying. I maybe off, but say so. You are saying that people because of how they were raised really believe in xyz because of that time period. Like older folks not understanding younger folks who live together unmarried. Is this it?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

I think I have what you are saying. I maybe off, but say so. You are saying that people because of how they were raised really believe in xyz because of that time period. Like older folks not understanding younger folks who live together unmarried. Is this it?

That's partially what I'm saying but what I'm actually on about goes in a somewhat different direction. I *do* believe that the next big stages in social equality progress--specifically those parts related to race and sexual orientation--will come after the rest of my parents generation (born in the 1920's), the Silent Generation (born after 1922 but before 1946) and the leading edge of the Baby Boomer generation (so the folks who are the age of the Clintons but not the Obamas) are all gone. After that, what will remain will be the trailing edge of the BB generation and then Gen-X and Gen-Y who will ONLY ever know a post-civil rights society and who will have grown up with gay people just being part of society.

However, what I'm on about is actually how we---as members of society---determine which ideas we will treat as true (or true enough to bother acting on). If you believe that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden or that you are really an elf in a human body, that's not really what concerns me here. What DOES concern me is what to do with, to take another example, historical revisionists. If someone believes that history is just a story with no more veracity than, say, Star Wars then we have a problem. There are people who *genuinely* believe that the Holocaust never happened and they are aided and abetted (unwillingly) by people who believe that 'all truths are true for the people who believe them'. This is why I insist that evidence, proof, facts and empiricism actually *matter*. They are imperfect tools but they are the best tools we have at the moment.

Cheers
Aj

[apretty]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Since this came up on another thread (the 2012 thread) I thought I'd start a new thread to talk about non-evidentiary beliefs. My questions are these:

1) Why hang onto beliefs for which there is no evidence?

2) Why is it considered *fair* for evidence-based beliefs to be held to a different standard than non-evidentiary beliefs?*

3) If one subscribes to a non-evidentiary belief is there ANYTHING that could dissuade one from believing it?

4) How does one tell the difference between 'good' non-evidentiary beliefs (say psychic powers) and malign ones (say racism or Pat Robertson's latest utterances).

*By non-evidentiary beliefs I mean things like psi-powers, fortune telling, God hates Haitians, etc. I do NOT mean things like "I love my children" or "My partner loves me".

Cheers
Aj

1-4 because thinking is hard and humans like to feel comforted, like a giant adult-sized binky that tells you everything's gonna be alright: continue to hate who you hate, work in a job that doesn't pay you enough to live, do x, y, and z and if you're good, you get a big giant reward in the end! yay!

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by apretty

1-4 because thinking is hard and humans like to feel comforted, like a giant adult-sized binky that tells you everything's gonna be alright: continue to hate who you hate, work in a job that doesn't pay you enough to live, do x, y, and z and if you're good, you get a big giant reward in the end! yay!

Have you, by any chance, read Bright Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich or Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges? I just finished reading them (one as an audiobook) and highly recommend them. Both are scathing looks at how we have become a culture of people who, for all the world, appear to prefer our comforting illusions over the hard work of actually changing society. On the one hand we have the purveyors of 'The Secret' telling us that wishing makes it so (in prettier words but that's still the message) which can easily (and does) slip into the realm of blaming those at the bottom of the well for their position. If we create our own reality and your reality happens to be that you are destitute you created it and therefore there's no reason to question the system in which I have a lot and you have little or nothing. On the other hand, we have people claiming that God will rapture certain humans up and grind the rest underneath Jesus' sandals and so why even *bother* worrying about global warming? While we typically put the former on the Left side of the spectrum and the latter on the Right, I tend to see them as being far more alike than different.

Cheers
Aj

[Andrew, Jr.]

AJ,

I see what you are saying. But what about those glbt folks who lived as such back in the 20's-30's-40's and so on? We cannot ignore their presents here on earth. That would be wrong.

Yes, I agree with you about the timeline. Society will not allow us to go backwards in ignoring racial and sexual orientation. Too many people are out, and companies are adjusting to domestic partners (benefits). The problem is with obtaining the same rights as hetro. We all are deserving of that.

As for faith, that is really a journey that everyone takes alone. It is like someone transitioning. It isn't something that a group does together. It's individualistic. I find it very insulting and offensive when people think it is their business as to why someone like myself does have surgery, but doesn't go on hrt. It blows my mind. Like why is someone Catholic, Buddist, Jewish, or Wiccan. It isn't my focus. It is that person's. Does this make sense?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

AJ,

I see what you are saying. But what about those glbt folks who lived as such back in the 20's-30's-40's and so on? We cannot ignore their presents here on earth. That would be wrong.

I'm not saying we should ignore them. That's not what I'm saying at all. I am painfully and personally aware that my parent's generation is closer to being entirely gone than they are to being in the majority. The generations I'm talking about are those born between around 1900 - 1925 (my parents generation of which the leading edge (first decade) are almost ALL gone and the trailing edge (my parents) are largely gone).

Let me also clarify that I'm not talking about the LBGT folks from that era. I'm talking about those generations as a whole It is simply true--by any study one might care to read--that people who grew up in the 20's and 30's are MORE likely to feel that gays and lesbians do not deserve the right to marry or that interracial marriage is somehow wrong than people who grew up in the 80's or 90's. (And before anyone objects I'm not talking every single person born in the 20's or 30's) Since they are *extraordinarily* unlikely to change their minds at this late stage of the game, when they are gone the balance of political power will simply shift to a different center of gravity.

Yes, I agree with you about the timeline. Society will not allow us to go backwards in ignoring racial and sexual orientation. Too many people are out, and companies are adjusting to domestic partners (benefits). The problem is with obtaining the same rights as hetro. We all are deserving of that.

On the whole I don't think we'll go back but (and it's a non-trivial but) I still worry. Why? Because my curiosity is so wide-ranging and, in part, because I'm the child of people for whom 'The War' means WW II, I have read a lot about 'what went wrong' in Germany. The United States in many ways (but not economically) reminds me a great deal of late-stage Weimar Germany. The first gay and lesbian organizations were formed in Germany in the 10's and 20's of the last century. Berlin was the most cosmopolitan city of the age. Germany was THE place for the study of physics and mathematics. Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac...giants in science walked the German streets. That was the 20's. By 1935 the Nuremberg laws were passed and Germany descended into a barbarism that made everything before it look like so much kindergarten playtime. My fertile imagination can come up with any number of scenarios where we wake up one November morning and find ourselves in America where the newly elected President has promised that they will make America more free and return us to greatness but it will take returning us to our 'Christian roots'. Part of that will be the exclusion of gays and lesbians (we'll be the test case to see how much they can get away with) and then the Muslims in our midst. So barring some kind of theocratic descent into barbarism, yes we won't go backward. But I don't think that we're out of those woods yet and, unfortunately, I fear that Obama and the Democratic Congress are being spineless enough that it will set the stage for just what I fear.

As for faith, that is really a journey that everyone takes alone. It is like someone transitioning. It isn't something that a group does together. It's individualistic. I find it very insulting and offensive when people think it is their business as to why someone like myself does have surgery, but doesn't go on hrt. It blows my mind. Like why is someone Catholic, Buddist, Jewish, or Wiccan. It isn't my focus. It is that person's. Does this make sense?

It sort of makes sense but any given individual's religious beliefs do not concern me. In the words of Jefferson 'what you believe neither picks my pockets or breaks my leg' and as long as that it true, I don't care. What concerns me is what happens when people share a common belief and then decide that society should be ordered according to that belief. If that belief system is open-ended and amenable to evidence then, largely, no harm and no foul. Even if bad decisions are made they can be corrected. It is when non-evidentiary beliefs are made into public policy that things become horrific. Please note that I'm not talking about atheism. Communism had as little evidence going for it as any theistic religion or New Age belief and it was a *horror* to live under. This is entirely about society giving what amounts to a free pass to ideas that have no evidence behind them.

Given the history of our species and given our species absolute LOVE of finding an Other and then coming up with new and unendingly creative ways of doing bad things to that Other, we ignore the problem of non-evidence based beliefs driving public policy at our great peril.

Cheers
Aj

[Boots13]

AJ, I wish my mind worked like yours....but somewhere along the way I ended up being satisfied with throwing my brainless body through space and the text books fell by the wayside. You are indeed remarkable !

My impression is that Evidence is based on the equation of hypotheticals...beliefs. We approximate, we ask, we reason, we hypothesize and then we have equations that solve, or not, the question at hand....for example , when we fail we make the rule "THAT CANNOT BE" but we have the potential to ultimately evolve the information to find an exception to the rule...proven by equation.

Rules (evidence) have exceptions but how would we know, if we did not believe and work, rework, continue to hypothesize based on our beliefs?
And we may never know all the hard rules and evidenciary benefits of our belief systems but should that dictate that we stop striving for truths?

And I really hate that this argument extends to beliefs that oppress and damage people, cultures, religions, etc. (Pat Robertson, Jim Jones, Radical Terrorism and individuals following their damaging beliefs).

Oh gawd, I feel like I just poked the bear...be kind AJ !

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Boots13

AJ, I wish my mind worked like yours....but somewhere along the way I ended up being satisfied with throwing my brainless body through space and the text books fell by the wayside. You are indeed remarkable !

My impression is that Evidence is based on the equation of hypotheticals...beliefs. We approximate, we ask, we reason, we hypothesize and then we have equations that solve, or not, the question at hand....for example , when we fail we make the rule "THAT CANNOT BE" but we have the potential to ultimately evolve the information to find an exception to the rule...proven by equation.

Rules (evidence) have exceptions but how would we know, if we did not believe and work, rework, continue to hypothesize based on our beliefs?
And we may never know all the hard rules and evidenciary benefits of our belief systems but should that dictate that we stop striving for truths?

And I really hate that this argument extends to beliefs that oppress and damage people, cultures, religions, etc. (Pat Robertson, Jim Jones, Radical Terrorism and individuals following their damaging beliefs).

Oh gawd, I feel like I just poked the bear...be kind AJ !

I'm a big believer in continually testing beliefs against reality with reality being the final arbiter. One thing that I wish more scientists would do in their public pronouncements is make it clear that there's always a codicil "to the best of our knowledge at this date, subject to revision on new evidence". Of course, when we *do* say that it drives the general public nuts because they want us to be certain. In fact, one of the ways that scientists are hobbled in our public discussions with, say, creationists or global warming deniers is that we tend to hedge ourselves in. It is a habit of mind to say "X works like this, however, it may be that it could work like that..." While creationists are free to say "it doesn't work like that" full-stop.

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and columnist for Scientific American, gave a scale in one of his books that I think is really useful in talking about what we know. The scale goes from 0 to 1 with 0 being absolute certainty that the idea is false and 1 absolute certainty that the idea is true. With the exception of certain rather prosaic things (my parents are dead, I am married to Belly, my son is named William, I'm a lesbian, etc.) everything else falls into the realm of .1 to .9. I would put astrology, psychic powers, homeopathy and racialist conceptions of humanity (be that Aryan nationalism or Afrocentrism) at .1. I would put quantum mechanics, relativity, evolutionary theory at .9.

It's a GOOD thing to constantly question and ponder what we think we know and why we think we know it. Ultimately, however, I think we have to, at some point, fish or cut bait and proceed 'as if' we knew. I also think that in testing our ideas with the real world we should always 'be humble before the data' and accept the world that the data presents to ourselves. While I don't believe in God I am willing to be convinced that there is one if someone (like God) ever presents compelling evidence for it. But the bar for that level of evidence would (and should be) set high because the God hypothesis is an extraordinary claim and as Carl Sagan so sagely put it "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

You mention exceptions to rules. Sometimes those exceptions *prove* the rule. Let's say, for instance, that I took a picture of an apple hanging suspended in a room. It's clear that there's no string holding the apple up and it's not in anyone's hand. Would I have just disproven gravity which demonstrates that apples can't just float in mid-air? No. If I'm honest I'll say "well, this picture was of an apple that was released by an astronaut on the International Space Station". At which point, it's clear that I haven't disproven gravity but, in fact, supported the theory of gravitation because in the absence of a gravitational field apples (or anything else) will float but IN a gravitational field it will drop. (As an interesting aside, if it were on the space shuttle and the shuttle were accelerating the apple would STILL fall because acceleration and gravity are effectively the same thing)

Part of why I'm so passionate about this is that I'm watching my country descend into a very scary state. Over the summer there were the tea party protests against the health care reform bill. Now, whatever you might think of the bill, it is demonstrably true that nothing in the language of the bill mentioned 'death panels'. Yet, people *consistently* made this claim and were rarely ever challenged to actually quote the language, chapter and verse. When I was growing up and someone had said that the bill contained language it didn't on, say, 60 Minutes or Walter Cronkite those newspeople would have said "We have a copy of the text here, would you mind reading it to us" and when they hemmed and hawed they would be called out for telling a lie. Now, we have become a society where if you *believe* that HCR bill contains language about death panels and you SAY that it contains language about death panels then even if the language isn't in the bill, we'll treat AS IF it were there!

As queer people this should give us all a moment of pause. In California a trial just wrapped up about gay marriage where the proponents of Prop 8 said manifestly untrue things about us. They claimed (falsely) that we are more likely to molest children. They claimed (falsely) that in the Netherlands, where same-sex marriage is legal, the divorce rate and out-of-wedlock birth rate skyrocketed *because* of the passage of gay marriage laws (the first is an outright statistical falsehood and the second is untrue because the out-of-wedlock birthrate was already climbing for a decade before SSM became legal). While the judge will most likely dismiss their arguments, many in the public and media will take it as being true no matter WHAT the reality is. This is a threat to not just our ability to have our relationships recognize legally but a threat to our very ability to live peacefully in this society. Why? Because if *enough* people believe that about us, they *will* pass laws to protect their children from us. It won't matter if we are *not* a threat, all that will matter is that they *believe* us to be.

Don't know if that answered your post or not. Please let me know if I didn't.

And thank you for the praise, I never quite know what to say when folks say such things to me. I don't think I'm intellectually all that but I'm flattered and humbled that you do.

Cheers
Aj

[apretty]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Have you, by any chance, read Bright Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich or Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges? I just finished reading them (one as an audiobook) and highly recommend them. Both are scathing looks at how we have become a culture of people who, for all the world, appear to prefer our comforting illusions over the hard work of actually changing society. On the one hand we have the purveyors of 'The Secret' telling us that wishing makes it so (in prettier words but that's still the message) which can easily (and does) slip into the realm of blaming those at the bottom of the well for their position. If we create our own reality and your reality happens to be that you are destitute you created it and therefore there's no reason to question the system in which I have a lot and you have little or nothing. On the other hand, we have people claiming that God will rapture certain humans up and grind the rest underneath Jesus' sandals and so why even *bother* worrying about global warming? While we typically put the former on the Left side of the spectrum and the latter on the Right, I tend to see them as being far more alike than different.

Cheers
Aj

i haven't, thanks for the book suggestions. my governor (the exceedingly white and christian lady who recently took away a woman's right to abortion without waiting 24 hours, prior.) did encourage us to all pray for the state on the 17th of this month. she signed a document and everything: http://www.facebook.com/#/photo.php?...d=173347701125

i'm pretty sure that took me from low-tolerance to zero-tolerance for anything religious/churchy/god-warrior/god is my co-pilot/wwjd. stick a fork in me i.am. *done*. done with victim-blaming and government-fearing white, racist, religious, uneducated and fearful, closeted and bible-thumping freaks.

and the system works because both, those that have a lot and those that have a little each blame those that have *little* for their positions.

[MrSunshine]

Originally Posted by apretty

1-4 because thinking is hard and humans like to feel comforted, like a giant adult-sized binky that tells you everything's gonna be alright: continue to hate who you hate, work in a job that doesn't pay you enough to live, do x, y, and z and if you're good, you get a big giant reward in the end! yay!

I'm just not down with a "big giant reward" in my end. I'll still strive to be the best I can though I just won't be taking a bow.

[dreadgeek]

I saw this today at Huffington Post and when I read the part quoted below I thought I'd paste it in at length because it goes *directly* to what we're discussing here:

I spoke to Scott Roeder at least a dozen times over the course of reporting. He told me he listened to Bill O'Reilly sometimes on the radio. (Scott wasn't a guy who had cable - he worked at marginal jobs and moved apartments an awful lot.) And he liked Bill O'Reilly. But Scott had a keen interest in and hunger for learning about terrible conspiracies that lay, as he believed, just beneath the fabric of society. He went to meetings where people discussed how the Illuminati were controlling the country and the world and feeding innocent women into a satanic sex cult. He believed the fluoride in drinking water was there to render the masses more docile, which is why he wouldn't drink from a tap. He believed federal tax laws weren't laws at all - and so they needn't be followed. And he believed in the information about George Tiller fed to him through websites and literature and conversation by the most violent fringe of the pro life movement. He believed Dr. Tiller intentionally tortured babies. He believed that once, when a fetus had been delivered still breathing during one of Dr Tiller's procedures, Dr. Tiller killed it with his bare hands.

Talking about the sick things Dr. Tiller supposedly did was one of Scott's favorite topics during our conversations. After all, if you are going to murder someone, it's not enough simply to say you have a philosophical difference with him. And he presented all this to me as if it had been printed in the New York Times. He presented this information to me as if it were unimpeachable. As if he were educating me about some material that I hadn't done enough research to know about.

Bill O'Reilly is not the person who created for Scott Roeder the specific narrative that he used to create in his mind a picture of a person whom he could murder proudly. But he did help to create an environment in which Dr. George Tiller was thought of as a criminal and a murderer (whatever you think about what he was doing, it was legal). He provided a kind of moral cover and cable-sanctified legitimacy.

It's a problem that's bigger than extremist pro-life elements or Bill O'Reilly. The problem is the thriving culture of manufacturing dehumanizing lies about people you disagree with, whether they are about Dr. George Tiller, or George W. Bush. It's dangerous. It's dangerous whether you say George Bush wanted to murder Iraqi children or Barack Obama is a secret terrorist who wants to use two married gay men to kill your grandmother. And it's incredibly dangerous for people in positions of authority or power to ratify insane, dehumanizing narratives about people. That's a relatively new phenomenon. The militia movement didn't have a cable channel. Scott Roeder did.

This goes exactly to what concerned me enough to create this thread. Now, I want to make it clear that I'm not saying ANYONE in this thread has done anything talked about above but what concerns me is the habit of *mind* that allows this kind of thing to take hold and flourish. Here is the value that skepticism brings to society. Skepticism, as a habit of mind, provides a near *reflexive* questioning of the received wisdom. We are quickly becoming a society where no useful distinction is made between lies and truth.

Was Saddam Hussein's Iraq involved in the 9/11 plot? No. But people *believe* he was although anyone with Internet access could have found information that would throw that belief out the window within half an hour of research. Is the Health Care Reform bill a plot to kill grandma? No. And anyone with Internet access can download the bill, search for "death panels" and see that the language isn't in there.

As a political liberal, I am disappointed with my side because there is a space that has opened up in the American body politic for reality-based politics but we on the Left seem to show no real interest in doing the hard work of basing our politics on reality. This isn't to say that reality is the provence of the Left, rather it is to say we could MAKE it our provence (just as the Right could if they wanted to).

Cheers
Aj

[Bit]

Hi Aj! Because your focus is on society, rather than on individuals, I'm answering your questions that way; also, I'm assuming, given the main thrust of your following posts, that you are basically talking about the religious beliefs which have so strongly influenced laws in the US.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

1) Why hang onto beliefs for which there is no evidence?

They were originally designed to support the power structure. If the power structure changes, the beliefs will fade out of our policies and laws. We've seen this over the centuries. The stranglehold that religious institutions had on the daily lives of the people was lessened as the governments in Europe took more power to themselves. It was foreshadowed by the Roman church's treatment of the Knights Templar after King Stephen threatened to invade Rome with an army big enough to crush any resistance to his will. It was hugely moved forward when King Henry created the Church of England. It continued with Martin Luther's Reformation.

The stranglehold was finally dealt a death blow by the US Revolutionary War and subsequent independence; as far as I know, we pioneered government without church involvement.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

2) Why is it considered *fair* for evidence-based beliefs to be held to a different standard than non-evidentiary beliefs?*

The trouble is that old ideas die hard--and VERY slowly. For five thousand years, government and religion have been joined at the hip; it has seemed quite natural to continue the habit of governing in accordance with religious ideas even without church members doing the actual governing. So we have today a nation specifically founded to be NON-religious which is actually governed by religious laws. The laws have the weight of tradition behind them now. People accept them without demanding evidence because "that's the way it's always been."

It doesn't occur to most people that it is NOT the way it's always been.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

3) If one subscribes to a non-evidentiary belief is there ANYTHING that could dissuade one from believing it?

Over the course of my lifetime--51 years--this nation has changed in ways that were incomprehensible to my grandparents' generation. As the people have moved away from living by religious ideals, so has the government... even if we have had to drag it kicking and screaming behind us.

Over the course of my lifetime--such a short amount of time!--we've seen these beliefs, among others, officially discarded:

• women and children are rightly the personal property of men
• people of different skin colors may not marry each other
• women must stay with abusive men
• men must support women after they are divorced
• only women are fit to raise, care for, or teach children
• women who are pregnant may not work outside the home
• sex outside marriage is illegal

I'm sure you can think of MANY more; these are just the most obvious.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

4) How does one tell the difference between 'good' non-evidentiary beliefs (say psychic powers) and malign ones (say racism or Pat Robertson's latest utterances).

Why Aj, I'm stunned. One can tell the difference so easily! Which one grants the believer more power? If it strengthens the government's position or if it keeps the Senator in office, then yes, that's the "good" one.

Really, now, for a skeptic you're not very cynical. Leave it to a person of faith to fill in the gap. *cheeky grin*

But then--and I speak seriously here--I don't believe that public figures who either make money or gain power from espousing religious ideals actually BELIEVE what they say. My neighbor might believe it, or the guy down the street from you; any ordinary person might truly believe in religious ideals--but those who use them to make a cushy life for themselves?

Nah. I'm not buying it.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Bit

Really, now, for a skeptic you're not very cynical. Leave it to a person of faith to fill in the gap. *cheeky grin*

But then--and I speak seriously here--I don't believe that public figures who either make money or gain power from espousing religious ideals actually BELIEVE what they say. My neighbor might believe it, or the guy down the street from you; any ordinary person might truly believe in religious ideals--but those who use them to make a cushy life for themselves?

Nah. I'm not buying it.
[/COLOR][/SIZE]

You know, I've tried very hard not to be too cynical because one of the criticisms that skeptics get is that we're so cynical.

You know it's interesting that you should mention the cynicism. I HOPE that most of these folks espousing these things ARE, in fact, cynical because if they're cynically using religion to further their own material ends they can be stopped--hell, they'll stop themselves while not letting their followers *know* what's going on. It's the true believers that bother me. A cynic using anything to get over will not drive the car over the cliff. He might *talk* about driving over the cliff but before the car *actually* gets to the cliff he'll stop and find a good reason not to keep going. The True Believer, however, will keep going and there is no force on Earth that will stop them.

The cynic may *talk* about 'protecting marriage' but he's very unlikely to actually vote to make homosexuality illegal. The true believer, on the other hand, is not only happy to vote to make homosexuality illegal but looks forward to being the instrument of justice himself.

And you *know* that my question of 'how do you tell the 'good' beliefs from the 'bad' beliefs' is my own little koan to encourage people to think about it because--and this might just be my cynicism--it seems to me that we don't take the power of ideas seriously enough.

Cheers
Aj

[Bit]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

And you *know* that my question of 'how do you tell the 'good' beliefs from the 'bad' beliefs' is my own little koan to encourage people to think about it because--and this might just be my cynicism--it seems to me that we don't take the power of ideas seriously enough.

LOL, I would call that analysis, rather than cynicism.

I guess I really am WAY more cynical than you are. I think if the Cynical Leader does a poll that tells him he'll gain approval ratings, he WILL drive the car off the cliff, no matter what the issue might be. And if being seen as the "People's Instrument of Justice" will get her into office, she WILL lead the witch-hunt personally. I don't think any of them would stop short.

Yanno, it's kinda odd balancing cynicism with optimism. Normally I'm a glass-half-full kind of person--and indeed, right now I think the scenarios which scare you will NOT happen--but hooo boy, I don't ever allow myself to be optimistic about government officials or religious leaders.

[Boots13]

Forgive my absence, its been a long work week.

Your opinions and your scientific support for "hanging onto beliefs for which there is no evidence" are a great read. And I cannot explain to you why I am stuck on this, your first question, other than to say either I have a short attention span or I enjoy seeing where you go with my inquiries (both?).

I understand that numbers and research can prove or disprove theory (depending on ones angle). That scientific support is the "real evidence".
But science doesn't control, define, predict, or influence EVERYTHING, does it? Surely not EVERYTHING is logical, symmetrical, or prone to physical order.

At some point in our personal, scientific, mathematic lives, wouldn't one have to have a leap of faith in a belief (or theory) to evolve that instinct?
By the way, your opinion on instinct was interesting in your correlation to flight/fight response to stimuli. But what about singular event, or that nuance that says "it's there" (or not, depending on the angle).

And how do we begin to accept those things which remain undefinable (tangible?) as random events or "nuance" or unpredictable repetition if we have to apply a number (or evidence) to the possibility of its existence?

Surely there must be some area in which your (our) butt is hanging in the wind because of an unsupported, undefined, unproven belief.
And if its not a grounded belief, or instinct, or God; if its not dimension or time continuum, then surely it must be Chaos ! And perhaps chaos is the loophole in ""hanging onto beliefs for which there is no evidence".

[Medusa]

Saw this article on Huffington Post just now and thought it was interesting:

What Scientists Think about Religion:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elaine..._b_611905.html


There was another article directly below this one:
The End of the War Between Religion and Science: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak..._b_620133.html