When our kid was in 8th grade, after a full unit on comparative religions, a very subversive teacher asked the kids why they believed their specific religion*. The teacher led them through a discussion until the kids realized that they held their beliefs because their parents had taught them.
One student, though, said (paraphrasing): "I think EK would be an atheist regardless of what their parents taught them. They question everything."
This hits on what I consider to be the most important question:
Why do we believe what we believe?
If we had been born in a different place (e.g., Central African Republic, Indonesia) and/or different time (e.g., 400 BCE, 536 CE), would we have believed anything close to what we believe now?
There is, of course, no way to free ourselves entirely from the biases of our upbringing (or our human nature). But I think the best way to minimize our limitations is to regularly ask:
Do we believe anything that is not falsifiable?
This reminds me of when Bill Nye and creationist Ken Hamm shared a stage and were asked, "Is there anything that would change your mind?" Hamm answered, "No." Nye answered, "Evidence."
2 comments:
I think probably I "believe" in my own "self" or my own "free will" even though I know it is just a natural phenomena, or an "illusion". This is one of the only things I believe that is in any way at odds with my knowledge. I'm not sure if this is believing something unfalsifiable, because as far as I can tell determinism is also unfalsifiable. But it's the only thing I can think of that I believe (and act in accordance with) that is unfalsifiable or potentially falsified by the unfalsifiable logic of determinism.
My belief that my family loves me is falsifiable by any action they might take that would express otherwise. My belief that my dog is puzzled when it looks at me in that puzzled way, is falsifiable probably with brain scans, but is a belief I hold based on the evidence that evolution is lazy, and the easiest way for an organism to fake some emotion is to have that emotion. I don't for instance believe that when my dog is "smiling" at me that it is happy, I believe, as science suggests that that indicates that the dog is stressed.
What about you?
Probably that Anne hasn't loved me during these past decades. Or, well, I could be convinced I'm in a simulation, and Anne is a simulation. But short of that, I don't think I could be convinced that she didn't love me. "Love," of course, just being those evolutionarily-adaptive chemical reactions.
She could, of course, cease loving me at some point in the future.
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