To be stupid is to have made a habit of ignorance. We can't help but bathe in our own ignorance every day because there is so much we don't know. There can be no doubt that a hundred years from now we will laugh at the things that 2011 didn't know. This doesn't make it in any way acceptable to admit defeat in our pursuit of knowledge today. The opposite is true. It is because of our profound ignorance that we must strive to learn as much as possible for the good of our families now and in the future. We are capable of acknowledging our limitations while at the same time embracing and expanding what we do know to be true. I'll get to the point later of people who don't embrace what we know. For now I'll talk about people who embrace even things we know are not true.
As H.L. Mencken put it:
"The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true."
I want to start by saying that I believe plenty of things that I don't have evidence for, as we all do. No one has enough time to perfectly inform every decision they make, nor is it necessary. It becomes necessary to inform our thoughts with evidence when the results are important to us. Concerning matters of life and death or the wellbeing of our loved ones, what could be more important? My frustration should be understandable then, when I see people weigh these important decisions without regard to the available evidence.
If I said that yesterday I went into my back yard and threw a baseball into space and it was propelled into the Sun’s orbit, I would hope that no one would believe me. Why shouldn’t you believe me? Well, you shouldn’t believe me because if it were true then it would be inconsistent with everything else we know about human ability and the laws of physics. Beyond just not seeming true, nothing similar has ever been demonstrated to be possible. We could go through all of the science of just how much force that would require and how my body cannot provide adequate power to perform this function but by the time we attempt this we’re all on board with the idea that it is impossible anyway, so there is no need to do it. It should be safe to say that anyone who does believe that I threw a baseball into the Sun’s orbit yesterday is clearly wrong to think so and we can all agree on that.
At the same time, it would be trivially easy to convince any scientist that I could do this if it were possible. All I would have to do is be able to repeat such a thing and have it measured or observed scientifically. Note here that you wouldn’t believe another person who said that they witnessed the event either. So why does it matter when scientists say they have witnessed something and not when others do?
This answer highlights a pretty important distinction. Scientists stake everything on their reputation. The results of their studies must be peer-reviewed so that other experts can look at their work and make sure no mistakes were made and the methods were sound. Their results must be repeatable so that others can perform the same study and get the same results. Scientists belong to larger bodies of authority which oversee the accuracy of scientific results. All of these things combined make it impossible to misrepresent the truth and keep your job.
Scientists who lie or even simply make mistakes when publishing information are removed from their positions with prejudice, and all of their results are thrown out and discredited. No one scientist can make any immediate difference in the body of knowledge of science because his work must be filtered through the professional criticism of great numbers of other scientists before the work will be accepted as valid or true. For this reason, the scientific bodies of knowledge that we have are incredibly reliable. Science is the only reliable source of knowledge available to mankind because it is the very pursuit of observable knowledge itself through the rigors of the scientific method. Scientists in effect, are the only experts at determining truths about the world around us.
To say “I disagree with the scientific consensus that it is impossible for a human being to throw a baseball into the orbit of the Sun, and so I choose to believe that it happened,” would be representative of a brand of ignorance that most of us would see as comical. No one would take that person seriously because we’re all accustomed to applying our reasoning and knowledge to things that seem impossible or unlikely and determining that they didn’t happen. It would only be through incredible ignorance or error that a person would be compelled to embrace something so inconsistent with the rest of observable reality.
We find that these fantastic claims are ridiculous, even though it would be simple to change our minds about them. Every honest person in the modern world has this ability to spot claims that are inconsistent with everything else science knows about the world. To ignore or deny a scientific fact because it does not agree with what you want to be true is to display willful ignorance. Please know that the deniers of evolution are in this boat only. There is no scientific argument over the truth value of evolution. Evolution has gone through over 150 years of peer review, scientific skepticism, criticism, repeat testing, and every other measure that could falsify it, but didn’t. And yet again it would be simple to destroy the entire concept. As Richard Dawkins says, “a single pre-Cambrian bunny fossil would do it.”
To deny evolution is to embrace ignorance of science and the value of facts and evidence. Evolution is supported by the strongest scientific evidence mankind has ever had for any subject. Your thoughts cannot be respected if you cannot align them with reality; and the only way we have of aligning ourselves with reality is scientific study. Every other method leaves the possibility of being wrong and in anything important it really matters that we get it right. Feelings and intuitions are powerfully wrong all the time. We are jumpy after a horror movie, not because we have learned of new real dangers, but because of our emotional connection to the content or our intuitions being hyper sensitive. It should be noted that the things in horror movies never happen but we can still fear them or react to their possibility. We can’t rely on such a thing to inform us about reality or we will have no idea when we’re wrong. When we have to be right, we have to use science. We can all agree that people who do not value evidence are now out of the conversation and don’t need to be taken seriously. If you are in the group of people who will not listen to evidence then I cannot do anything for your worldview and I will not respect your ideas. Now for the people who do value evidence, which is probably everyone, read on.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” ~Carl Sagan
By now we have determined that anyone who believes without a single shred of evidence, that I threw a baseball into space is dangerously crazy, dangerously ignorant, or lying. The only thing required to turn us all into believers of this ability is simply some evidence that it is true. When we can’t find any evidence of the truth of an extraordinary claim, there are those of us who are satisfied to say that it isn’t true (of course we are still open to any evidence that could prove it to be true). Without evidence of a thing occurring, the truth value of it falls apart at the simple question “what makes you think that?”
I know that no one believes the extraordinary claim that I threw a baseball into space. So why then would such rational people apply such a different set of standards to their thoughts on religious extraordinary claims? They are factual claims about events and they are subject to evidence like anything else. Clearly raising the dead, turning crackers into the body of Jesus, the life in heaven after death, the flood and Noah’s ark, and the creation story of Genesis are all extraordinary claims. There is no available evidence for these claims despite how trivially easy it would be for God to provide a single shred of evidence for them. Take these parallel claims and provide any good reason to believe that Christian beliefs are more likely to be true:
Jeff can raise the dead. Jeff can turn crackers into the body of Thor by repeating a phrase in Latin. When Jeff dies he will be reincarnated into another creature based on the merits of his behavior in this life. Jeff can survive his death and live in eternal happiness afterward by simply admitting that Wotan is God. The land on Earth exists because God stuck a sword into the ocean and when he pulled it out, globs of Earth dripped from the blade into piles to form the continents. Justin rode into heaven on a burning chariot upon his death. A giant crow laid an egg and the Earth was born. This could almost go on forever…
All of these claims hold exactly the same amount of evidence as those made in the Christian bible. If you disagree with this then how can you determine which claims are true? What would prevent you from hearing a different version if you grew up in a different country or family? How would you be able to come to reality if you had been brought up to believe that The Lord of The Rings was the true story of our history? Readers should keep in their mind that all of the claims in my previous paragraph are actual religious claims with different names swapped in. People have believed these things at different times. How could you possibly consider any of them to be true? How are any of these claims any more believable than the claim that I threw a baseball into the Sun’s orbit? I would guess that most readers should see the light at the end of the tunnel here. Most people after thinking of this know that none of them are true. The most unjustifiable position is to pick one to support because there is simply no good reason to believe any of them. And again: if you believe one, why not the others?
Religious people know exactly what it is like to be an atheist. An atheist is a person who believes what religious people believe about all religions but their own. Every Christian denies the existence of every God but their own and the same goes for every Muslim, Jew, Jane, Hindu, etc. Some of us just go one God further.
Consider this: No one tortures children with autism or people who have seizures as a way to remove the demons –but people used to in the name of religion. No one makes human sacrifices to Zeus to prevent his vengeance from destroying us -but people used to. No one buries slaves under temples with the bodies of our rulers so that they will have slaves when they get to heaven -but people used to. No one burns children alive because someone says they are a witch. Oh wait; yes they do (In Africa today). No one cuts off parts of their children’s genitals at birth based on a story about Moses appeasing Yahweh. Oh wait; yes they do (Christians, Jews, and Muslims today).
What possible evidence is there that any of these practices are good or that we are worse off without them? Who could provide any reasoning to persuade me that any of these practices are good for us? Can’t we do without all of them? Please take notice that when religion was our dominant method of learning the nature of reality, people died grey and with their teeth falling out at 25 years old. How simple would it have been to include a single sentence about germs and washing your hands in the bible? It would have prevented tremendous suffering and yet it wasn’t in there. How about a single paragraph denouncing slavery? How about a consistent message that treats women like anything other than property or farm animals?
Don’t let it slip by you that slaves had to fight with their lives to end slavery. Religion never saved them. Women are still fighting to be treated as something other than a son-producing piece of farm equipment in many parts of the world. Religion had no part in helping women reach their status today and will have no part in their continued climb toward equality. Every Nazi soldier had on his belt buckle “God on our side,” and not a single Nazi was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for genocide or murder but at least one was excommunicated for marrying a woman who had previously gotten a divorce. Religion does not inform our morals.
There comes a time when we need to abandon all of these. I don’t advocate an end to all religion. I advocate an end to all bad thought, including wherever that might intersect with religion despite how offended the religious get. If we could all adopt a 21st century approach to life then we really might have a decent chance at surviving the next hundred years.
Religion can be a powerful force for good in many ways. Going to church does a great deal of good for many people. Religion can be credited for its charity work, positive social networking, rehabilitating the sick, organizing good works, etc. But we can get all of these things without ignoring our normal rational insights as well.
I don’t know if any religious belief is justifiable and I don’t really care about religious belief that is harmless. But I do know that denying the truth of proven science is unjustified in all cases. There are probably three times the number of atheists out there than openly claim to be atheists but simply don’t want the hassle of dealing with ashamed parents and grandparents, or losing friends and loved ones over it. So I say this to everyone: You are not alone. The fastest growing section on the pie chart of religious belief is the non-religious/atheist part. In 2008, atheists made up 15% of the U.S. population and that number is still growing.
There are still plenty of unanswered questions out there and I won’t deny any avenue that could get a valid answer and maybe some religious experience holds merit in this way. People can have their religion; they just can’t have their religion and deny reality to get it. Science is the only way we have to accurately describe reality. Religious people who accept science are great friends to have. Religious people who deny science can do so only by appealing to scientific ignorance. And remember…
To be stupid is to have made a habit of ignorance.
Thank you for your time.
