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posted by martyb on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the Fee-Fie-Fou-Fhum-Fideism-Falafel dept.

Commentary at Salon!

Should you believe in a God? Not according to most academic philosophers. A comprehensive survey revealed that only about 14 percent of English speaking professional philosophers are theists. As for what little religious belief remains among their colleagues, most professional philosophers regard it as a strange aberration among otherwise intelligent people. Among scientists the situation is much the same. Surveys of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, composed of the most prestigious scientists in the world, show that religious belief among them is practically nonexistent, about 7 percent.

[...] Now nothing definitely follows about the truth of a belief from what the majority of philosophers or scientists think. But such facts might cause believers discomfort. There has been a dramatic change in the last few centuries in the proportion of believers among the highly educated in the Western world. In the European Middle Ages belief in a God was ubiquitous, while today it is rare among the intelligentsia. This change occurred primarily because of the rise of modern science and a consensus among philosophers that arguments for the existence of gods, souls, afterlife and the like were unconvincing. Still, despite the view of professional philosophers and world-class scientists, religious beliefs have a universal appeal. What explains this?

[...] First, if you defend such beliefs by claiming that you have a right to your opinion, however unsupported by evidence it might be, you are referring to a political or legal right, not an epistemic one. You may have a legal right to say whatever you want, but you have epistemic justification only if there are good reasons and evidence to support your claim. If someone makes a claim without concern for reasons and evidence, we should conclude that they simply don't care about what's true. We shouldn't conclude that their beliefs are true because they are fervently held.

Another problem is that fideism—basing one's beliefs exclusively on faith—makes belief arbitrary, leaving no way to distinguish one religious belief from another. Fideism allows no reason to favor your preferred beliefs or superstitions over others. If I must accept your beliefs without evidence, then you must accept mine, no matter what absurdity I believe in. But is belief without reason and evidence worthy of rational beings? Doesn't it perpetuate the cycle of superstition and ignorance that has historically enslaved us? I agree with W.K. Clifford. "It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." Why? Because your beliefs affect other people, and your false beliefs may harm them.

I am checking to see what the Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster has to say about all this.


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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by Gaaark on Monday January 21 2019, @12:02AM (4 children)

    by Gaaark (41) on Monday January 21 2019, @12:02AM (#789222) Journal

    Replace Highest Truth with Dark Matter and you have the state of science today.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @01:48PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @01:48PM (#789570)

    Replace Highest Truth with Dark Matter and you have the state of science today.

    The difference is that scientists are trying to learn more about Dark Matter and make the black-box of it go away. Compare...

    Science: Our theory says there should be a lot more matter in the universe, but we can't find it. So either our theory must be wrong, or there must be more matter out there. Let's call this discrepancy "dark matter," and run lots of test to figure out if our theory is correct, and/or if we can find where this matter is.

    Religion: Our theory says that this happened because it is the Will of God. Therefore it is the Will of God and there is no need to investigate further. God works in mysterious ways. Who are you to question Him? Where were you when He built the firmament, and determined the waves, and scheduled the sun?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @04:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @04:51PM (#789647)

      Personally, I like Einstein's view.

      I feel that science is the best way to read the universe that God wrote.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:07AM

      by Demena (5637) on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:07AM (#789895)

      He is right. Dark matter is a religion. It is rather unlikely to exist. All our examinations and studies show that its properties vary so much there would have to be many different types. Yet Quantifed inertia answers the issues that raised dark matter. Yet at the current time if you ask a scientist what causes inertia you will get an answer semantically equivalent to “god did it”.

    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:17AM

      by sjames (2882) on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:17AM (#789975) Journal

      You have a limited imagination when it comes to religions.

      The alternate questions are "Why did God will that? What was his/her objective? By what mechanism was it made to happen? Is there some way we might be able to do that one day? What must we do to learn how to do that?