The Nature of Belief (and Proposition 8)
I want to talk, just for a moment, about the idea of ‘belief’; a concept that I think gets misrepresented quite often by both the religious and secular.
There’s an assumption I hear quite often, wherein people say things like, ‘Well, you chose not to believe in God’, or ‘those who choose not to be Christians.’ To be fair, I also occasionally hear non-believers deride theists for ‘choosing’ to believe in a higher power. It’s as though people think of belief as a light switch; something that can be turned on or off in accordance to whim.
I don’t think that belief actually works that way. We can choose how much access one has to evidence towards a contrasting opinion, but whether or not that evidence compels one to change their belief is not necessarily a choice. One could, of course, fake it, but the fact of the matter is that there is a tremendous difference between acting as though you believe in something, and actually believing in it.
This assumption does happen both ways, as I’ve said, but I hear it directed at non-believers quite a bit - the misapprehension that non-belief is an active and rebellious choice.
Let us do an experiment. I want everybody reading this to choose to believe that the government is actually controlled by malignant reptilian beings that are crudely disguised as human beings. Can you actively just choose to really believe it? How about if I told you that believing in the ‘reptilian government leaders’ changed my life, that the world made much more sense with this belief, and that those that failed to believe in it were imprisoned by the lies of the reptilian masters. Would you believe the theory then? What if I showed you pictures that seemed to show George Bush Sr. with reptilian eyes, and then accused you of choosing to ignore the truth even when I’d given perfectly reasonable evidence. Could you then just ‘choose’ to believe?
Of course you couldn’t. The evidence simply isn’t convincing. The supposed consequence (being enslaved by reptilian masters) is equally unconvincing.
And while I know that some might take offense at the comparison, that’s a similar reason to why non-believers cannot simply ‘choose’ to believe in Christianity. The arguments seem just as plausible to us as the ‘reptilian overlords’ argument. The story seems implausible and the evidence seems implausible. Saying that Christianity will lead to God’s love and heaven and that non-belief will lead to Hell isn’t convincing, because we don’t believe in God’s love, Heaven or Hell. If we aren’t convinced by the concept, the evidence, the consequences or the motivation, then it is quite literally impossible to ‘choose’ to believe in the belief system. The best that one could do would be to just ‘go through the motions’.
It’s not as though I’m particularly cut off from competing arguments. Since joining Facebook, I’ve read a great deal of competing and fascinating arguments in favour of Christianity. In some ways, Christian apologetics have helped my point of view enormously, I can, at last, see why intelligent, compassionate people would even want to follow Christianity, an idea that I must admit I’ve often struggled with (and I don’t mean the ‘homophobic’, oppressive bits of Christianity, I mean I’ve always been baffled by the core idea of Christianity itself - that there’s a God who thinks that the best way to show love and forgiveness is to perform a ritualistic sacrifice of his son.). Reading the writing of Christian apologetics has helped quite a bit with allowing me to grasp how Christianity might be in any way appealing.
But what the apologetics haven’t done is to make the Christian faith in any way more believable to me. In fact, if anything, apologetics have shown that in order to accept Christian doctrine, they have to positively do mental acrobatics. They have to re-interpret and ret-con and cut out bits that don’t add up and then ultimately fall back on the one thing that can never convince me - faith.
And so I’m no closer to believing. And that’s not a personal choice - it’s the matter-of-fact end result of the compounding evidence that the faithful were able to provide.
Now I said that this misapprehension of belief goes both ways, and I strongly find that to be true. Many atheists will look at the apologists and say, “Well, look! That apologist knows all the evidence is stacked against them! They see how much they have to bend and twist and manipulate scripture to get it to fit in with a realistic world view - why do they still choose to believe in it at all?”
In the comments of another blog, a theistic commenter put it very succinctly. She said to me, “The way that you couldn’t ‘choose’ to believe in theism, because of all the evidence you see against it? I couldn’t ‘choose’ not to believe in God, even without evidence of him.”
It is, in a way, the flip side of the same coin; having no choice in non-belief because of lack of evidence, and having no choice in belief despite opposing evidence. I understand the concept. I can appreciate that it exists, and I have no reason to berate anyone for it.
But…
(ah, you knew there was a ‘but’ coming)
When you go outside the zone of ‘personal beliefs for your own life’ and start treading into territory like… oh, I don’t know… passing state law, then ‘I just know it in my heart’ doesn’t hold a drop of water. When you are considering adding a bloody amendment to the state constitution, there had better be real, solid, hard evidence to back up your position.
And this brings me around to Prop 8; the proposition to add a constitutional ban on gay marriage in California. I don’t expect everybody in California to accept homosexuality. I don’t expect everybody to agree with the idea of gays getting married. Some people, despite all contrary evidence, despite the fact that there is no real, secular reason to believe so, honestly believe in their hearts that homosexuality is immoral. That is unfortunate, but that is a fact.
But we cannot pass laws based on ‘what we believe in our hearts’. We have to pass laws on evidence. Evidence shows that pretty much all the secular arguments that can be made for Prop 8 are either lies (that 8-year-olds will be taught about gay sex in school, that churches will be forced to perform gay marriages) or could also be made as a case against senior citizens getting married (see my blog ‘The Sanctity of Marriage’ a few posts back).
There’s only one reason left why anybody could argue for Proposition 8 - to legislate religious beliefs, and that cannot be permitted.
Some people cannot help how they believe - that is an unfortunate but real fact. But without solid, imperial evidence to back your belief, that believe should not, and can not become law. Please vote No on Proposition 8. I’m not asking that gay marriage opponents accept homosexuality (though that would be nice), I’m only asking that they don’t make their religion the law.
There’s an assumption I hear quite often, wherein people say things like, ‘Well, you chose not to believe in God’, or ‘those who choose not to be Christians.’ To be fair, I also occasionally hear non-believers deride theists for ‘choosing’ to believe in a higher power. It’s as though people think of belief as a light switch; something that can be turned on or off in accordance to whim.
I don’t think that belief actually works that way. We can choose how much access one has to evidence towards a contrasting opinion, but whether or not that evidence compels one to change their belief is not necessarily a choice. One could, of course, fake it, but the fact of the matter is that there is a tremendous difference between acting as though you believe in something, and actually believing in it.
This assumption does happen both ways, as I’ve said, but I hear it directed at non-believers quite a bit - the misapprehension that non-belief is an active and rebellious choice.
Let us do an experiment. I want everybody reading this to choose to believe that the government is actually controlled by malignant reptilian beings that are crudely disguised as human beings. Can you actively just choose to really believe it? How about if I told you that believing in the ‘reptilian government leaders’ changed my life, that the world made much more sense with this belief, and that those that failed to believe in it were imprisoned by the lies of the reptilian masters. Would you believe the theory then? What if I showed you pictures that seemed to show George Bush Sr. with reptilian eyes, and then accused you of choosing to ignore the truth even when I’d given perfectly reasonable evidence. Could you then just ‘choose’ to believe?
Of course you couldn’t. The evidence simply isn’t convincing. The supposed consequence (being enslaved by reptilian masters) is equally unconvincing.
And while I know that some might take offense at the comparison, that’s a similar reason to why non-believers cannot simply ‘choose’ to believe in Christianity. The arguments seem just as plausible to us as the ‘reptilian overlords’ argument. The story seems implausible and the evidence seems implausible. Saying that Christianity will lead to God’s love and heaven and that non-belief will lead to Hell isn’t convincing, because we don’t believe in God’s love, Heaven or Hell. If we aren’t convinced by the concept, the evidence, the consequences or the motivation, then it is quite literally impossible to ‘choose’ to believe in the belief system. The best that one could do would be to just ‘go through the motions’.
It’s not as though I’m particularly cut off from competing arguments. Since joining Facebook, I’ve read a great deal of competing and fascinating arguments in favour of Christianity. In some ways, Christian apologetics have helped my point of view enormously, I can, at last, see why intelligent, compassionate people would even want to follow Christianity, an idea that I must admit I’ve often struggled with (and I don’t mean the ‘homophobic’, oppressive bits of Christianity, I mean I’ve always been baffled by the core idea of Christianity itself - that there’s a God who thinks that the best way to show love and forgiveness is to perform a ritualistic sacrifice of his son.). Reading the writing of Christian apologetics has helped quite a bit with allowing me to grasp how Christianity might be in any way appealing.
But what the apologetics haven’t done is to make the Christian faith in any way more believable to me. In fact, if anything, apologetics have shown that in order to accept Christian doctrine, they have to positively do mental acrobatics. They have to re-interpret and ret-con and cut out bits that don’t add up and then ultimately fall back on the one thing that can never convince me - faith.
And so I’m no closer to believing. And that’s not a personal choice - it’s the matter-of-fact end result of the compounding evidence that the faithful were able to provide.
Now I said that this misapprehension of belief goes both ways, and I strongly find that to be true. Many atheists will look at the apologists and say, “Well, look! That apologist knows all the evidence is stacked against them! They see how much they have to bend and twist and manipulate scripture to get it to fit in with a realistic world view - why do they still choose to believe in it at all?”
In the comments of another blog, a theistic commenter put it very succinctly. She said to me, “The way that you couldn’t ‘choose’ to believe in theism, because of all the evidence you see against it? I couldn’t ‘choose’ not to believe in God, even without evidence of him.”
It is, in a way, the flip side of the same coin; having no choice in non-belief because of lack of evidence, and having no choice in belief despite opposing evidence. I understand the concept. I can appreciate that it exists, and I have no reason to berate anyone for it.
But…
(ah, you knew there was a ‘but’ coming)
When you go outside the zone of ‘personal beliefs for your own life’ and start treading into territory like… oh, I don’t know… passing state law, then ‘I just know it in my heart’ doesn’t hold a drop of water. When you are considering adding a bloody amendment to the state constitution, there had better be real, solid, hard evidence to back up your position.
And this brings me around to Prop 8; the proposition to add a constitutional ban on gay marriage in California. I don’t expect everybody in California to accept homosexuality. I don’t expect everybody to agree with the idea of gays getting married. Some people, despite all contrary evidence, despite the fact that there is no real, secular reason to believe so, honestly believe in their hearts that homosexuality is immoral. That is unfortunate, but that is a fact.
But we cannot pass laws based on ‘what we believe in our hearts’. We have to pass laws on evidence. Evidence shows that pretty much all the secular arguments that can be made for Prop 8 are either lies (that 8-year-olds will be taught about gay sex in school, that churches will be forced to perform gay marriages) or could also be made as a case against senior citizens getting married (see my blog ‘The Sanctity of Marriage’ a few posts back).
There’s only one reason left why anybody could argue for Proposition 8 - to legislate religious beliefs, and that cannot be permitted.
Some people cannot help how they believe - that is an unfortunate but real fact. But without solid, imperial evidence to back your belief, that believe should not, and can not become law. Please vote No on Proposition 8. I’m not asking that gay marriage opponents accept homosexuality (though that would be nice), I’m only asking that they don’t make their religion the law.