Belief

[shawn]

I read this bit by Robert Anton Wilson and I figured that it might stir up a bit'O debate.

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon
as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one
stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more
certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a
person sure of everything would never have any need to think
about anything and might be considered clinically dead under
current medical standards, where the absence of brain activity is
taken to mean that life has ended.

Now The author (deceased) was an agnostic and so had a big problem with beliefs of any kind, but he does make a good point in that people, once they accept something as a "BELIEF", it takes on a life of its own and their critical thinking processes at times (in many) stops right there.
They have peaked, reached their plateau in the mystical mountains and will go no further.
Any person then who brings to their ears or eyes any report of another point of view is automatically dismissed as a "wrong thinker" or worse (a nut) and their reaction is to either attack the other or defend the home fort (as if it was being attacked).

 

[greymare]

does it make sense that I believe some things, know other things, but still cant commit thats its entirely a belief?

And in all honestly, the more things i believe teh more there is to think about. so, i guess i think this fellas opinions are a load of hogwash. ( no disrespect intended).

 

[citizenzen]

I think the key phrase is...

As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.​

IMHO, when it comes to the big questions — What is life? What is death? Is there a God? Will I go to Heaven or Hell? Will I be reborn? — the best approach is "not knowing"... being open to the information that comes to us as it does, to accept our gaps in knowledge with serenity and not worry about filling them in.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

I agree that belief stands in for all the things we don't actually know. A hypothesis is a temporary belief. The thing is, all the things we know are really just niblits of facts here and there that we have strung together. All the space in between we fill in with belief. In that sense the belief isn't in something specific, the belief supplies the continuity: the sense of progress and seem less-ness of causality in time and space. Where complete fact sets are available belief is unnecessary. But where is that?

Chris

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

Somewhere in Philosophy there's a thread about precisely this. I think Juan started it.

Chris

 

[greymare]

Aha, thanks guys.

 

[immortalitylost]

Well, we need a certain amount of belief to function. I mean, you believe that if you sit in a chair, you will not simply fall through it onto the ground. You believe that the ground will support you when you stand on it. You believe that the sun will rise each morning and set each evening. (unless you live quite near the poles)

A certain amount of belief is what keeps us all from going mad, thinking that the world could slip into utter chaos at any moment.

I think that a better way of putting it is that a certitude of belief in an area where certainty is impossible; belief as a security blanket against the unknown, is what causes a mental stagnancy. People grasp for an answer that makes sense enough to them that they can believe it, and, fearing the unknown if their belief is ever lost, they cling desperately to it, vilifying anyone that dares try to shake their belief from them with new logic.

It's fear. And fear it'self is what we should fear, not the unknown. Because when in this life will everything be known? Never. So why fear the inevitable?

Lol, of course trying to think your way out of fear is like trying to think your way into faith. Neither end up working very well, and yet people still work so hard at it, plugging away, trying to defy gravity with mental prowess alone... ah, humans, how they amuse me. Makes me glad that I was born a kitty.

 

[Thomas]

I read this bit by Robert Anton Wilson and I figured that it might stir up a bit'O debate.

OK. Just for fun ...

Now The author (deceased) was an agnostic and so had a big problem with beliefs of any kind, but he does make a good point in that people, once they accept something as a "BELIEF", it takes on a life of its own and their critical thinking processes at times (in many) stops right there.

Well that's a false premise for a start, isn't it? 'Some people' proves nothing but a generalisation.

Surely every scientific endeavour starts from a belief about what can be said, based on available data and its implications? I mean the CERN experiment is based on a belief — one that Stephen Hawking has bet $100 against.

Black holes ... didn't that stem from a theory (which is a belief) based on data and its implications?

The assumption that having arrived at a certain point one gives up thinking is a generalisation ... and that believing in something means you no longer question, investigate, ponder, contemplate ... it's just a nonsense, really. To say 'critical thinking' stops is just a cheap shot, surely?

Any person then who brings to their ears or eyes any report of another point of view is automatically dismissed as a "wrong thinker" or worse (a nut) and their reaction is to either attack the other or defend the home fort (as if it was being attacked).

I think that sums up Richard Dawkins nicely, a classic example of someone who, extrapolating scientific data, makes a statement beyond what the data necessarily signifies and therefore is a statement of belief, then asserts that such a belief is a statement of fact, and seeks to rubbish anyone who dares question it.

So what he's talking about is fundamentalism. And I agree there are religious fundamentalists, but one has to acknowledge there are also secular fundamentalists, and currently they have a firm grip (in Europe at least) on law, politics, society, so that anyone is free to believe and practice any religion they like, on condition that it conforms to the principles of secularism in that 'religion' per se is purely an outmoded superstition which should have no effect or bearing on the way people live their lives.

Then, of course, Wilson's belief, that one should believe in nothing but question everything, is surely a demonstrably a self-refuting and contradictory dogma?

Thomas

 

[earl]

OK. Just for fun ...


Well that's a false premise for a start, isn't it? 'Some people' proves nothing but a generalisation.

Surely every scientific endeavour starts from a belief about what can be said, based on available data and its implications? I mean the CERN experiment is based on a belief — one that Stephen Hawking has bet $100 against.

Black holes ... didn't that stem from a theory (which is a belief) based on data and its implications?

The assumption that having arrived at a certain point one gives up thinking is a generalisation ... and that believing in something means you no longer question, investigate, ponder, contemplate ... it's just a nonsense, really. To say 'critical thinking' stops is just a cheap shot, surely?


I think that sums up Richard Dawkins nicely, a classic example of someone who, extrapolating scientific data, makes a statement beyond what the data necessarily signifies and therefore is a statement of belief, then asserts that such a belief is a statement of fact, and seeks to rubbish anyone who dares question it.

So what he's talking about is fundamentalism. And I agree there are religious fundamentalists, but one has to acknowledge there are also secular fundamentalists, and currently they have a firm grip (in Europe at least) on law, politics, society, so that anyone is free to believe and practice any religion they like, on condition that it conforms to the principles of secularism in that 'religion' per se is purely an outmoded superstition which should have no effect or bearing on the way people live their lives.

Then, of course, Wilson's belief, that one should believe in nothing but question everything, is surely a demonstrably a self-refuting and contradictory dogma?

Thomas

Ooh, Ooh...Dawkins...do I hear a comment about "scientific fundamentalism?" earl

 

[Netti-Netti]

Beliefs are provisional and subject to fine tuning or disconfirmation.

Matters of faith may at times be bolstered by some kind of evidence, but the evidence is likely to be indirect. I don't see faith as a form of certitude or closed-mindedness at all. It's more like openness to correction and a willingness to incorporate the indirect evidence I mentioned. This is why doctrinal fundamentalisms are a potential obstacle to faith seeking understanding.

Thomas wrote:

anyone is free to believe and practice any religion they like, on condition that it conforms to the principles of secularism in that 'religion' per se is purely an outmoded superstition which should have no effect or bearing on the way people live their lives.

Understandably, doctrinal fundamentalisms that are unsound or internally inconsistent/incoherent have rather limited application with respect to how people live their lives.

 

[Thomas]

... doctrinal fundamentalisms that are unsound or internally inconsistent/incoherent have rather limited application with respect to how people live their lives.

This is the whole thrust of Catholic Social Teaching in its debate with 21st century Western secularism — we see it as fundamentally reductivist, closing off avenues of exploration and expression.

You cannot deny that secularism seeks, by the rule of law, to enable everybody to be free to do what they want, as long as it coincides what what they think people should want.

Thomas

 

[soleil10]

You cannot deny that secularism seeks, by the rule of law, to enable everybody to be free to do what they want, as long as it coincides what what they think people should want.Thomas

Thomas, this is so true

 

[Eudaimonist]

You cannot deny that secularism seeks, by the rule of law, to enable everybody to be free to do what they want, as long as it coincides what what they think people should want.

Huh?

Which "secularism" are you speaking of? It sounds like you are describing conservatism to me, and that isn't so secular.

My personal, rather libertarian, secular view does not try to narrow down freedoms to what I personally think people should want.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Netti-Netti]

You cannot deny that secularism seeks, by the rule of law, to enable everybody to be free to do what they want, as long as it coincides what what they think people should want.

Thomas

Humanism could be said to be a form of secularism. It's emphasis on moral judgement does not seem compatible with your view.

I don't think humanists see their world view as closing off avenues of exploration and expression either.

 

[seattlegal]

The etymology of belief and believe comes from "to love." (Hence, when the term "to love the lie" became the term "to believe the lie," it gradually became suject to a loss of the original meaning.)

believe

O.E. belyfan, earlier geleafa (Mercian), gelefa (Northumbrian), gelyfan (W.Saxon) "believe," from P.Gmc. *ga-laubjan "hold dear, love," from PIE base *leubh- "to like, desire" (see love). Spelling beleeve is common till 17c.; then altered perhaps by influence of relieve. As a synonym for "Christian," believer is attested from 1549. To believe on instead of in was more common in 16c. but now is a peculiarity of theology; believe of also sometimes was used in 17c.

belief

c.1175, replaced O.E. geleafa, from W.Gmc. *ga-laubon (cf. O.S. gilobo, M.Du. gelove, O.H.G. giloubo, Ger. glaube), from *galaub- "dear, esteemed." The prefix was altered on analogy of the verb. The distinction of the final consonant from that of believe developed 15c. Belief used to mean "trust in God," while faith meant "loyalty to a person based on promise or duty" (a sense preserved in keep one's faith, in good (or bad) faith and in common usage of faithful, faithless, which contain no notion of divinity). But faith, as cognate of L. fides, took on the religious sense beginning in 14c. translations, and belief had by 16c. become limited to "mental acceptance of something as true," from the religious use in the sense of "things held to be true as a matter of religious doctrine" (c.1225).​

 

[soleil10]

Huh?
Which "secularism" are you speaking of? It sounds like you are describing conservatism to me, and that isn't so secular.
My personal, rather libertarian, secular view does not try to narrow down freedoms to what I personally think people should want.eudaimonia,
Mark

I think he means secular individualism

 

[seattlegal]

I think he means secular individualism

I think a better term might be "secular fundamentalism," which can be actually somewhat collectivist in nature.
Some collectives are like this:

, whereas others are more like this:

, and there can be overlap between the two extremes.

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

This is the whole thrust of Catholic Social Teaching in its debate with 21st century Western secularism — we see it as fundamentally reductivist, closing off avenues of exploration and expression.

You cannot deny that secularism seeks, by the rule of law, to enable everybody to be free to do what they want, as long as it coincides what what they think people should want.

Thomas

Does Catholic Social Teaching include how the schools were run in Ireland? I mean, haven't we seen the bitter fruit of Catholic social ideology? This should serve as a warning to libertarians especially. When the under fabric of social institutionalism is outsourced to "charitable" organizations abuse almost always becomes endemic.

Chris

 

[Thomas]

Does Catholic Social Teaching include how the schools were run in Ireland ...

Unfair really — I make no excuse for Ireland, my dad grew up there.

I'm talking about a succession of documents from Vatican II onwards that highlights the essential dignity of the human person, the right to freedom of belief and expression which includes, rather than excludes, religious inclination.

In Europe the tendency is increasingly towards 'newthink' ... most evident in the European Charter which actively seeks to make sure that there is no mention of Christianity in Europe's cultural heritage. Frankly this is akin to the old Soviet days of retouching individuals out of group photos.

And yes, by secular I should have said 'secular fundamentalism' — although this does not let all libertarians off the hook, as too often 'libertarian' includes the right to offend whoever, whenever, at will — in fact it can be a fundamentalism in a different guise.

Thomas

 

[seattlegal]

Does Catholic Social Teaching include how the schools were run in Ireland? I mean, haven't we seen the bitter fruit of Catholic social ideology? This should serve as a warning to libertarians especially. When the under fabric of social institutionalism is outsourced to "charitable" organizations abuse almost always becomes endemic.

Chris

Outsourcing charity? Charity begins within. Remember how FEMA was preventing people bringing help and emergency supplies from entering the areas damaged by hurricane Katrina?