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I have long pondered what to do with my new understanding of the world. At times I have felt the need to set the world on fire through vigorous and persuasive exposure of superstition. At other times my heart has plagued me with thoughts of responsibilty for rebuilding the lives of those affected by this exposure. Do then the costs of change outweigh the benefits of accuracy? I receice a regular email from The Skeptic Society and this one bore on this question. I felt the need to share it.
From: [email protected] (E-Skeptic) Date: Sun, Jan 5, 2003, 4:46pm (CST-2) To: [email protected] (Skeptics Society) Subject: E-SKEPTIC: BENEFITS OF SKEPTICISM, BY SKEPTICS Replyto: [email protected] (E-Skeptic)
E-SKEPTIC FOR JANUARY 5, 2003
Copyright 2003 Michael Shermer, Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, e-Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com and [email protected]). Permission to print, distribute, and post with proper citation and acknowledgment. We encourage you to broadcast e-Skeptic to new potential subscribers.
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In a recent E-SKEPTIC I posed a challenge to readers that was presented to me by an old friend named Randy Kirk, who is a Christian with whom I have had many long discussions and debates about science, religion, and philosophy. That question is: What are the benefits of being a skeptic (or nonbeliever, atheist, agnostic, free thinker, etc.); conversely, along the lines of Pascal's wager, in Randy's words: "How can the anti-god folks argue that their persuading others away from God, Jesus, and religion is a benefit to them now or in some potential afterlife. All the scientific evidence points to benefits of faith."
Here are a few of the responses from skeptics, along with a couple of religious believers' reponses, and Randy's response (in a second e-Skeptic). The entire Forum discussion can be found at www.skeptic.com
Why would anyone purposely add the limitations of a superstition to his/her intellect and imagination? As human beings on a backwater planet, our faculties are already limited enough.
--Ron LaDow, [email protected]
What does not believing in God have to offer? Nothing. I believe things because I'm convinced that they are true, not because they make me happy. If I believed in things to be happy, I would believe in God. --Dan Mason, [email protected]
As a student and teacher of anthropology of religion, I've always been struck by the extreme religious ethnocentrism that is almost invariably inherent in the Pascal's wager-like arguments presented by Christian devotees. If they were to take this "wager" seriously, it would be incumbent on them to apply it to all of the world's diversity of religions. This would take them into a study of that diversity, and they would soon become aware of the in-depth lack of uniqueness of their particular religion, as well as the contingent nature of their "chosen" faith. In fact, such a study, if carried out in any depth at all, would leave them little to no time to devote to just one religion!
--Leon Albert, [email protected]
Ever since the day I became a full blown skeptic, and I was unafraid to announce my skepticism in organized religion and the need to answer to a God who seemed to be very demanding in areas of Love of him/herself, I am now free to live without fear of a Godly damnation and a life of everlasting fear and pain, as described by the Christian religion that I was raised in. I am now prepared to leave this world one day, and I have no fear of the unknown anymore. I am being judged by my own conscience and I still believe that man must assist others when necessary in order to achieve the most important thing that I know of: Self Respect.
--George Poole, [email protected]
My behaviors are now my own. They are not the product of religious guilt or indoctrination, but of my own mind and my own appreciation of that which makes life (all life) great! I am free to appreciate a Muslim, a Buddhist, or a "sinner" for whom they are, not what they are. When I walk beneath the stars, I can look up and wonder at their origins, while tasking my mind to try and comprehend their endless mysteries. Everything in this world becomes a question, leading to more questions, leading to endless possibilities and thought invoking quandaries. The simplest organism is precious and awe inspiring. Questions and thoughts have replaced faith and dogma. My mind is now free to roam in places once restricted. Where God once imprisoned my mind, atheism has set it free to roam the universe in search of answers...in search of nothing more substantial than a place to roam! --Shawn K. Heflick
For the secular mind (a term I prefer to atheist or nonbeliever), life is much more comprehensible and simple. The ancient, clouded beliefs fall away to reveal the vast splendor of nature, of existence, the preciousness of being alive, being conscious, of being sentient. This experience is not mediated by the belief in a higher power; it is direct and very powerful. For some, it is almost too much to bear. Life may become poetry, but not everyone is a poet. Some may fall in love with nothingness and some may wish they had never been born at all. In place of trying to puzzle out the hopeless mystery of God's justice, a very human morality emerges that strives to make our lives better. Morality is something man does for himself and it is man's sense of fairness
that drives it as well as all forms of government or systems of justice. Human moral systems are imperfect, but they have been continuously improved with experience.
The secular mind feels at ease among other animals and life on this planet and accepts our place in the greater scheme of things. For some, family may become more important that fame. For others, pleasure may no longer be deferred for an afterlife. The realization dawns that each individual's sense of purpose is independent of the workings that resulted in the individual, that the meaning of human life is for humans to determine and no one else. "Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves."
--John Howard, Silverlake, California, JoHo2442
Nice question, but as pointless as the opposite one, "What benefitsare there in believing?" Yes, one can find rational explanations for believing in God (or any other esoteric phenomenon), like consolation or Pascal's wager. Quite correctly various philosophical and theological thinkers pointed out that none of these can be a basis for individual belief--you either do or don't. I am not looking for a benefit in my "non-believing." I actually prefer Douglas Adams' position, calling myself a "radical atheist" who is deeply convinced that there is no such thing as "God" except in the mind of people choosing the easy way to interpret the world. When they ask, "But how can you live in a world you presume to be without a meaning, an aim," they show that they cannot fathom to give meaning to their life themselves. Skepticism does have benefits in that people have to look at the world and decide for themselves, which means to be non-partisan and tolerant of others (until they threaten ones own tolerance and life).
--Dierk Haasis
Benefits to being a non-believer in the supernatural:
1. You are constantly involved in that which brings meaning to life rather than preoccupied with some existential "meaning of life".
2. You believe that everything is "explainable" in principle, and the only difference between a miracle and a natural phenomenon is that you are not able yet to explain the former in natural terms.
3. You do not feel compelled to teach your children a dogma of any kind other than to think freely and to push the limits of knowledge. There are no questions that need to be silenced, ignored or dismissed as an "attitude" problem. It makes it okay to answer, "I do not know" to many of the great questions in philosophy.
4. You are more likely to like and understand science because it will not conflict with your belief system since it is your belief system.
5. Your moral values are not based in a reward and punishment system and the complexity of morality is more apparent to you than to those that believe it was handed out to them by a being that supposedly knows best.
6. You do not blame the devil for the bad things that happen to you, you do not thank God for the good things that happen to you. You understand the statistical nature of events beyond your control and you take responsibility for your own mistakes if that is what caused the bad thing to happen and thank yourself and your teachers (parents, friends etc.) for the good things that are a direct result of a good decision you made.
7. You live life to the fullest because you do not trust there is life after death. You therefore have obvious reasons to work on making this world a better place.
From my personal experience I have found that I am more likely to have friends belonging to different faiths than someone that feels compelled to stick to their "own kind". People also tend to speak their minds more freely around you.
--Jose H. Diaz, [email protected]
Isn't being committed to the truth, wherever it leads, the only way an intellectually honest person can live? This is an inherent benefit for living "the way of the skeptic." I'm less susceptible to being conned because I want to see the evidence. Skeptics understand human life is special because of our human values and high human aspirations, not because of some sadistic God who made things the way they are. Thus skeptics are more inclined by nature to solve their own problems, because we know there is no "man in the sky" who is going to take care of us. We know that "turning things over to God" basically means doing nothing. Being a skeptic means being a mature adult who takes responsibility for his or her own life. How could any adult person make a conscious decision to live their life any other way? --William Winston Newbill, Arlington, Texas, [email protected]
"Liberating" is the key word. You don't have to choose sides, and belong to a group that is in competition with so many other groups that claim spiritual superiority. From this outsider's vantage point, on balance, so much competition and conflict between religions outweighs their usefulness. When I was growing up in Pasadena, I remember the great emotions of cheering our football team in the homecoming game against the hated cross-town rivals. Looking back on it, I was so emotionally invested in the fortunes of my high school team that I really believed we were better than our rivals. A year or two later I happened upon a homecoming game in a nearby town. Suddenly I realized that my emotional investment in the fortunes of my home football team was entirely an accident of where I happened to go to school, not a function of how good or deserving my team was.
If religious people recognized that the particular beliefs they hold are most likely simply a function of where they happened to grow up, perhaps the diminished emotional intensity of their religious experience--presumably a minus to them personally--would result in less conflict with other religious people.
--Ralph Leighton, [email protected]
The benefit comes not so much from "not believing" itself but from the process that might lead one to nonbelief: discovering, through the proper study of history, nature, and human nature, the fundamental fact that we are all prone to latching on blindly to such dogmas, be they religious dogmas or political or social ones. It is not through atheism itself that one is freed from these shackles, for atheism can also be a kind of dogma, if embraced for cynical, ideological reasons as it often is. It is rather through the methods and the intellectual honesty that comes from a true study of human history, reason, and science that one is best equipped to free oneself from all dogmas, and to embrace the challenge of discovering new mysteries for the sake of the inquiry itself, without concern about where the inquiry might lead, if anywhere at all. Finally, such a realization has broad applications in all aspects of life, including politics, business, social, and family life. The courage to be wrong, an awareness of the frailties of our intuitions, and the willingness to accept mystery are always our best guides in life, and provide us with a deep strength in the humility inherent to such principles, as contrasted with the seductive sound-bites offered by religious doctrine which lead only to hubris.
--Gerry Ohrstrom, [email protected]
Faith in religion is a mask that prevents a person from seeing the world and the universe as it really is, rather than the way he or she or someone else thinks it should be. Scientific findings that conflict with the tenets or dogmas of religion, such as on the origin of the universe, life and evolution, will not be accepted objectively, on their face, without emotional bias. A religious person thinks that religion has some truth to bear on topics like these, but that is false. Different religions across the world would claim knowledge of the answers to the specific questions in such fields, but these answers are not derived from empirical evidence. They are what someone once thought they should be. Not only are they at variance with science's answers, they don't agree with one another either. So there is a Christian origin story, a Moslem one, a Hindu one, a Taoist one, etc. Science doesn't work like this. It doesn't care what someone thinks things should be. The answers it derives are based on time-tested heuristics known as scientific methodologies, in which empirical evidence is used to get answers in a manner as unbiased as humanly possible. We speak of American religion, Arab religion, Chinese religion, Indian religion, and so forth. There is no such division for science. How science is done anywhere in the world is the same, and American science is not in any way different from Indian science.
Giving up religion changes your whole way of thinking. Religion relies on dogma and authorities for answers. Science relies on empirical evidence, looked at and considered as objectively as possible. A theist approaches problems with the mindset of, "What does my religion have to say about this?" A skeptic and scientist instead seeks to understand the problem by finding as many facts as possible and then connect those facts to the problem as objectively as possible. The non-theist therefore can deal with the world as it really is. The theist deals with the world as he or she thinks it should be.
--Ron Ebert, [email protected]
To me the benefits of being a skeptic and nonbeliever in religious nonsense is that I am not burdened with believing things that are demonstrably untrue or very likely untrue. One's beliefs tie in to other beliefs; for example if one believes in non-physical entities (spirits) that can interact with the world, it sets you up for various other goofy notions. I think you can waste a lot of time and mental energy dealing with unjustified beliefs. But fundamentally, I value truth. I want to know the truth of the way things work. I know that despite the attempt to winnow my beliefs, there are some things I believe that will later be shown false. But I definitely don't want to bother with quite obviously failed hypotheses. I echo Laplace. On another tack, I don't think that I feel more than the usual existential angst, and indeed I get quite a bit of enjoyment out of life. I also don't notice that religious people are any more serene about this than I am, despite their often proclaimed belief in an afterlife or the comfort of belief in a father like god. If there are negative consequences for your life in being a skeptic (more likely to be social than existential), well, you just have to live with them. Unbelief offers the freedom to roam intellectually, unbound by dogma. --Richard Thomas, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR, [email protected]
Having grown up in a skeptical family, I was surprised to find, when I joined various humanists groups. How bitter many of the members were toward religion. I think that the reason that surveys of church members find them happy is because the others have left. And they left because the teachings of their churches crippled their ability to love and accept themselves, because their churches made them feel guilty about ordinary human sexuality. Most of the humanists I talk to say that giving up the idea of a god has given them the joy of appreciating life, knowing that the time to be happy is now. Another point is that you give up the constant cognitive dissonance that religious people live with. Many people I know who still attend churches say that they put aside the conflicts between science and religion by putting them in separate compartments. They know that the Bible is a collection of old myths cobbled together by a relatively primitive society, but they still want to focus on the beautiful teachings and visions that are mixed into the stew.
I don't believe that this really works for anyone. I don't think it works for anyone when there are really difficult moral and emotional issues to be resolve. I think when a child dies, a spouse leaves or suffers horrible illness, the false "comfort" of belief fails and people face the same struggle to find interior personal strength that atheists do.
I think that skeptics appreciate the mysteries of the universe more because we don't make up answers. Skeptics know that we don't know everything. We understand Hamlet's charge that there are more things in the heavens and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, but we don't believe that making up answers solves any problems. This may deprive us of a false sense of security, but it may enable us to be more successful at finding workable and realistic solutions.
--Judith Daar Berkeley, Secular Humanists of the East Bay
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I share the views of these men and women. The greatest threat to human happiness is irrationality. While many of us feel a soberness when discussing these topics with believers we recognize that a greater good is served through intellectual honesty.
When I was a JW child I took pride in knowing there was no Santa Clause. Many parents complained when I told my classmates that the world had lied to them. I was in fact ordered by the Principle to stop. Were the children better off for knowing the truth? Many who rue the lost innocence(ignorance) of childhood would argue no. This is a feeling we all are familiar with. And yet what would we think of adults who still believed in Santa? Would we not see this as an arrested childhood? Perhaps the timing and methods I used as a child could have been improved had I a better understanding of human psyche, but my exposing them to the reality of the world was part of the natural course of maturing. This maturing better equips us in a world of charlatans and false hopes. In fact it can safeguard our innocence in those times when ignorance results in duplicity and bloodguilt.Comments welcome.