By contrast of example, there are others that select a #2 that totally conflicts with #1. These are people who believe that #3 includes things that directly contradict science, and they live with the consequences of that. Some do so peacefully (no harm, no foul, i guess) while others zealously try to convince others to join them (annoying, sometimes harmful) or perhaps even persecute those who disagree with them (harmful and intolerant).
I don't believe that even in the best cases, people who live with beliefs that directly contradict science are "no harm, no foul." Such beliefs do have an effect; they impact society in a number of ways, some of them subtle and others not so subtle. People act in accordance with what they believe to be true, not what is actually true, and people who believe things without evidence at best open the door to those skilled at manipulating those beliefs. A person who believes X without evidence will also often believe Y without evidence if he or she can be persuaded that Y is a consequence of X.
And unfortunately, some times that may indirectly involve people in harmful things even if they themselves do not believe in harmful ways. It may be a matter of donating money to the local church, whose board of directors work for laws barring blacks from marrying whites. It may be in simply turning the other way when someone else who holds similar beliefs acts in destructive ways. It may be even more passive than that, such as not supporting (or even wanting to think about) things which might threaten the unsupported belief.
My point, though, was to suggest that using "burden of proof" or "Ockham's Razor" or similar idea as a basis for "hard atheism" (the belief that there is no God and/or supernatural phenomena) is a judgement call.
I do think that some people create a distinction between "things which can be evaluated empirically" and "things which can not," and attempt to put religion into the category of "things which can not be evaluated empirically." Such people will often say that using logic, evidence, or Ockham's Razor to evaluate claims of the supernatural misses the point, and that such attempts are using the wrong tool for the job.
Yet these same people will, often as not, then seek to have it both ways, and to make empirical claims based on their untestable, non-empirical beliefs--"God healed my Aunt Rosie's cancer," "God helped me get a promotion at work." Statements like these are empirical claims, and as empirical claims are subject to empirical analysis. (If God was the agent of Aunt Rosie's recovery, why does God play favorites? Why did God not cure Sue's cancer, when Sue lived a more virtuous life than Aunt Rosie? And what about Uncle Carl, who was a right royal bastard who despised God and everything religion stands for, yet whose cancer also went into remission? And if God can cure cancer, which sometimes goes into remission on its own anyway, why can God not make the war veteran whose leg was amputated grow a new leg--is that outside God's ability?)
You can't have it both ways--claiming that religion is outside the realm of empirical evidence or reason, then simultaneously making empirical claims to support a religious belief--yet that is, it seems to me, most often precisely what happens when people try to separate the realm of faith from the realm of empirical fact.
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Re: (cont'd...)
Date: 2007-03-01 09:27 pm (UTC)I don't believe that even in the best cases, people who live with beliefs that directly contradict science are "no harm, no foul." Such beliefs do have an effect; they impact society in a number of ways, some of them subtle and others not so subtle. People act in accordance with what they believe to be true, not what is actually true, and people who believe things without evidence at best open the door to those skilled at manipulating those beliefs. A person who believes X without evidence will also often believe Y without evidence if he or she can be persuaded that Y is a consequence of X.
And unfortunately, some times that may indirectly involve people in harmful things even if they themselves do not believe in harmful ways. It may be a matter of donating money to the local church, whose board of directors work for laws barring blacks from marrying whites. It may be in simply turning the other way when someone else who holds similar beliefs acts in destructive ways. It may be even more passive than that, such as not supporting (or even wanting to think about) things which might threaten the unsupported belief.
My point, though, was to suggest that using "burden of proof" or "Ockham's Razor" or similar idea as a basis for "hard atheism" (the belief that there is no God and/or supernatural phenomena) is a judgement call.
I do think that some people create a distinction between "things which can be evaluated empirically" and "things which can not," and attempt to put religion into the category of "things which can not be evaluated empirically." Such people will often say that using logic, evidence, or Ockham's Razor to evaluate claims of the supernatural misses the point, and that such attempts are using the wrong tool for the job.
Yet these same people will, often as not, then seek to have it both ways, and to make empirical claims based on their untestable, non-empirical beliefs--"God healed my Aunt Rosie's cancer," "God helped me get a promotion at work." Statements like these are empirical claims, and as empirical claims are subject to empirical analysis. (If God was the agent of Aunt Rosie's recovery, why does God play favorites? Why did God not cure Sue's cancer, when Sue lived a more virtuous life than Aunt Rosie? And what about Uncle Carl, who was a right royal bastard who despised God and everything religion stands for, yet whose cancer also went into remission? And if God can cure cancer, which sometimes goes into remission on its own anyway, why can God not make the war veteran whose leg was amputated grow a new leg--is that outside God's ability?)
You can't have it both ways--claiming that religion is outside the realm of empirical evidence or reason, then simultaneously making empirical claims to support a religious belief--yet that is, it seems to me, most often precisely what happens when people try to separate the realm of faith from the realm of empirical fact.