May 05, 2014

Last month I was talking about the difference between knowledge and belief and the way you see the difference working out in the bible story of "Doubting Thomas". Here's why I care and I think you should care too:

There are two kinds of questions we could argue about, and no questions we should argue about. There are ideas in my head and your head that are based on knowledge, which is based on personal experience, and there are ideas that are based on belief, which is based on choice, emotions, and issues of upbringing, authority, and efficiency. Both kinds of ideas can lead to conflict and unpleasantness, but why?

If you and I are sitting in my living room, and I think it's raining because I thought I heard some noise on the roof, and you think it's not because you're looking out a window into some trees and don't see any rain, we don't have to argue, we can just step out the back door and see/know if it's raining or not. No argument is needed or reasonable, because it is so easily settled by actual experience.

If on the other hand you and I have different ideas about the nature of God, there is still nothing to argue about, precisely because there is no common experience that we can appeal to in order to settle the matter. We can have an engaging conversation during which we compare notes and notice similarities and differences and try to understand the reasons for both, or we can choose not to talk about it, but there is nothing to get mad about, nothing to shout about, and nothing to fight about. I will believe what makes the most sense to me, which cannot be separated from my childhood training, my culture, my personality and its inherent compliance/rebellion issues, my life experiences, the sincerity of my desire to know the truth and the depth of my commitment to do the research required to think clearly about this, and frankly, the hopes and fears that cause me to sincerely want certain things to be true, with the result that I choose to believe what I hope is true, which includes hoping and believing that I am ultimately vindicated, and that I will turn out to have believed the right things. And you will believe what makes the most sense to you, for all the same reasons.

So why all the anger and hatred around things that we can't know, only believe? My working hypothesis is that most people have taken so much on authority, based on their need to belong to a group, that they really aren't sure what they believe, and that basic insecurity causes a lot of emotional distress when beliefs are challenged, even indirectly, merely by the existence of someone who has different beliefs. Like the person that won't go to the doctor for his cough because he doesn't want to hear that he needs to quit smoking, we simply avoid people that rock our metaphysical boats. We are comfortable in our chosen beliefs, and we definitely want to keep it that way.

In the next post we'll look at more ways that this fundamental difference between knowing and believing affects the way we think more or less clearly about things and the way we relate ourselves to other people.

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