From the thread Theists: why should I believe?

Raliegh Marsden wrote:

tytalus wrote:

Raliegh Marsden wrote:Yes it's fair to say that I've already assumed that there's a god. But, just as an atheist would change their mind if they ever came across anything which strongly indicated that there is one, I would change my mind if I ever came across anything which contradicted my conviction. There is definitely ultimate and conclusive proof of a god or no god, but unfortunately, it's at the deathbed. If there's anything we can agree on, surely it's that.

There shouldn't really be an issue or a problem with people who believe in a god. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If you're wrong, you're wrong. Everything else is just lively discussion as far as I'm concerned. I've tried and failed to convince anyone, and no one here has managed to convince me. It's just one of those things.

It's not just that you may be wrong about there being a god, Raleigh; it's that you are already, demonstrably wrong to make the baseless assumption that there is one. Your comparison to atheism as if the two positions were somehow equal or both reasonable is a load of BS. The issue, the problem, is the baseless assumption. You've admitted to it here, so there is no sense in trying to justify it after the fact.

With any luck, you will go right on failing to convince anyone to accept your baseless and unnecessary assumption, just as a superstitious person may not be able to convince anyone to stop stepping on cracks in the sidewalk, lest they break their mothers' backs.

What's the problem with my baseless assumption?

Raliegh Marsden asks a very important question there.

Can a baseless assumption be harmful? Lets consider some baseless assumptions.

1) I don't need to take my child to a doctor, prayer should do the trick.
2) It is evil to be gay, you could choose to be straight instead.
3) Anyone who loses faith in our holy scriptures must be put to death.
4) Women should not be allowed to make important decisions, they are too emotional.
5) If I go at top speed I can jump this bus across a 50 meter gap.
6) God exists and is the authority for this set of morals. No discussion is allowed.

Could there be any harm in any of these baseless assumptions, or is it ok to just let people believe what they want to believe and not try to examine their assumptions for error?

I took my shot at explaining this problem in the other thread; I can't make Raliegh understand it or change because of it, but at least we can demonstrate the problem.

Whats right about a baseless assumption? Nothing because it distorts all that follows

A baseless assumption can be harmful, but as long as it is harmful only to the person who holds it, it's none of my business. However, there is a gray area when it comes to children, and it involves more than the most extreme examples like refusing medical care for a sick infant. Brainwashing a child is a terrible thing to do, but our society still accepts it when it comes in the form of religious brainwashing. We think it terrible to teach a child that black people or jewish people are animals, for instance, but we're more lenient when it comes to teaching children that gay people are innately abnormal or that a woman's place is in the home and that's it. And yet all of these viewpoints are the same at their core, and all are just as damaging to a child.

I hope Ral comes back.

What is the difference from a simple baseless assumption 'Jesus loves everyone' or another baseless assumption 'non-believers are evil I will handle them myself if needed'?

It seems that a lot of the dogmatic adherence to various claims is founded at its base on the belief of baseless assumptions. So in my opinion, even the moderate's baseless assumption can be a foundation and give way to more extreme baseless assumptions that are used to harm others.

pcCoder wrote:What is the difference from a simple baseless assumption 'Jesus loves everyone' or another baseless assumption 'non-believers are evil I will handle them myself if needed'?

It seems that a lot of the dogmatic adherence to various claims is founded at its base on the belief of baseless assumptions. So in my opinion, even the moderate's baseless assumption can be a foundation and give way to more extreme baseless assumptions that are used to harm others.

Indeed, a chain of baseless assumptions can be found to satisfy any desire without reference to reality. This can be used to justify any act, good or evil. By making a particular set of baseless assumptions foundational to a wide audience you are indeed setting up a nightmare scenario. I thought we had escaped that particular realm hundreds of years ago but it seems our populations are sliding back into it by leaps and bounds.

Check this out at Pharyngula: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/i_think_ill_skip_this_one.php

estrellas wrote:A baseless assumption can be harmful, but as long as it is harmful only to the person who holds it, it's none of my business.

Exactly. But of course with religion it often is harmful to people other than oneself. Even in secular societies we have to tolerate past religious bias in our laws and customs. It's bloody everywhere. It's insidious.

I actually don't think there is much wrong with a "baseless assumption" so long as no other conclusions are drawn from it. It's just that too few theists are able to avoid drawing such conclusions, such as the ones DanDare mentions in the OP.

It's kind of like the difference between someone who is convinced extraterrestrial life exists, and someone who is not only convinced that such life exists, but that they are going to imminently be visiting the earth to destroy it, and so castrates himself and commits ritual suicide so as to be taken away by the aliens when they come. Both are baseless assumptions. The consequences of the second guy's assumption are a bit more problematic.

My problem isn't with the content of a baseless assumption (at least not all of them). I have no problem with the baseless assumption "Jesus wants us to love each other". My problem is with the mentality of the baseless assumption and how the ability to so easily believe one can be the simple foundation of a progression of growing baseless assumptions possible leading to some with bad consequences.

"Jesus wants us to love each other"
"Jesus requires us to love each other"
"Jesus requires those that do not love each other to be taught to love each other"
"Jesus requires those that do not love each other and are not taught to love each other to be executed"

At the very foundation is the baseless assumption, held by some who 'know' that it is true regardless of any lack of evidence or any evidence to the contrary. While I realize we will likely never get rid of it as people seem prone to believe a lot of unsubstantiated things, it seems that if it people were less prone to follow along with such assumptions, a lot of terrible crimes against humanity could possibly have been avoided.

Shrunk wrote:I actually don't think there is much wrong with a "baseless assumption" so long as no other conclusions are drawn from it. It's just that too few theists are able to avoid drawing such conclusions, such as the ones DanDare mentions in the OP.

It's kind of like the difference between someone who is convinced extraterrestrial life exists, and someone who is not only convinced that such life exists, but that they are going to imminently be visiting the earth to destroy it, and so castrates himself and commits ritual suicide so as to be taken away by the aliens when they come. Both are baseless assumptions. The consequences of the second guy's assumption are a bit more problematic.

I think this is a critical distinction. What people assume is, of itself, a private matter that need not concern me. People necessarily hold all kinds of peculiar ideas without any particularly good reasons to support them. People believe in gods, astrology, lucky numbers, that their nation/ethnic group is superior to others, that their taste in music/art/whatever is objectively better, that they are smarter than average, ad infinitum.

Where it becomes a problem is when these assumptions are used to justify actions, and especially when these actions impact on others - in Shrunk's example this would be the person who not only commits ritual suicide, but poisons the children so they can also join the aliens.

Religious beliefs per se are a poor predictor of behaviour. For most people they seem to have little or no impact on their lives, other than at some abstract level of belief ("yeah, I believe in God - so who's driving the getaway car?"). These beliefs are basically irrelevant in terms of their impact on others. In these cases the OP's question of "what's wrong with my baseless beliefs?" is "they're irrelevant".

Of course some people's beliefs do motivate their behaviours. On the positive side are those whose beliefs may motivate them to look after the sick and the poor (I have a soft spot for the Salvos). Others still have beliefs that inspire them to persecute or kill people with different beliefs (I don't have a soft spot for the Taliban or the Westboro Baptists). The former's baseless beliefs are arguably positive in impact, the latter's unquestionably negative.

And then there's a more complex area somewhere between the extremes of personal action and social compulsion where beliefs inform opinions to what other people should be allowed to do: attitudes to abortion, euthanasia, drug-taking, sexual ethics, divorce, gambling, business legislation, and so on. While I can't say that there is a way to address these issues that is objectively correct, I don't find imposing limits on other's choices based on a 21st century reading of bronze age religious tracts is a particularly sensible or compelling approach to setting policy. Baseless beliefs = poorly informed decision making.

All that aside, even if baseless beliefs are harmless, isn't it preferable for beliefs to have a base? Unless the OP is suggesting that the validity of one's beliefs doesn't matter, testing beliefs seems to be a better way of determining if they are sound.

I quite agree with the previous person and the person they quote. Personally I would say that baseless assumptions are fine, so long as:

1. Holding them doesn't conflict with known reality
2. You don't use them as justification for immoral actions
3. You don't expect others to agree with such assumptions

I also think that thinking less of someone for holding a baseless assumption that fits with the above criteria is bad. But much worse by far is insinuating that every person who holds that assumption is responsible for, or in some way condones the actions of all others who hold that assumption.

I would also add that wrong behaviours can be based on logical and scientific thinking. For example, thinking that sterilising people who don't live up to a minimum standard of rationalism and skepticism would be a good idea because it would ultimately lead to a better world, is based evidence. However, I think almost everybody would consider it highly immoral. (Richard Dawkins makes a somewhat similar point to this in The Greatest Show on Earth, so hat-tip to him)

ChrisD wrote:I quite agree with the previous person and the person they quote. Personally I would say that baseless assumptions are fine, so long as:

1. Holding them doesn't conflict with known reality
2. You don't use them as justification for immoral actions
3. You don't expect others to agree with such assumptions

I also think that thinking less of someone for holding a baseless assumption that fits with the above criteria is bad. But much worse by far is insinuating that every person who holds that assumption is responsible for, or in some way condones the actions of all others who hold that assumption.

I'm not sure I agree with the last two sentences. If we cannot question someone's baseless assumptions because they don't result in any undesirable actions, then it becomes more difficult to question those that do. A higher degree of rationality and skepticism benefits society as a whole, so I think it can be argued that there are no completely harmless forms of irrationality.

I would also add that wrong behaviours can be based on logical and scientific thinking. For example, thinking that sterilising people who don't live up to a minimum standard of rationalism and skepticism would be a good idea because it would ultimately lead to a better world, is based evidence. However, I think almost everybody would consider it highly immoral. (Richard Dawkins makes a somewhat similar point to this in The Greatest Show on Earth, so hat-tip to him)

But I think that would be another example of actions stemming from baseless assumptions. Even if we assume that evidence suggests that sterilising people was beneficial for society (and I don't believe even that can be assumed), it does not follow from that that it is a proper thing to do. Such a conclusion neglects the moral and ethical issues that must accompany any such decision.

Now the tricky question, for me: Are ethical and moral principles also baseless assumptions?

Dandare said...

Could there be any harm in any of these baseless assumptions, or is it ok to just let people believe what they want to believe and not try to examine their assumptions for error?



You're welcome to examine my assumptions for anything you like. What you're not welcome to do is determine what I will or won't be allowed to think. I can literally think and believe absolutely anything I like, that's called freedom of thought. When a person does a bad thing, you deal with the bad thing, regardless of why the person did it. You don't try to force them to think differently, although you're welcome to try and persuade. But that's all you can do.

Raliegh Marsden wrote:Dandare said...

Could there be any harm in any of these baseless assumptions, or is it ok to just let people believe what they want to believe and not try to examine their assumptions for error?



You're welcome to examine my assumptions for anything you like. What you're not welcome to do is determine what I will or won't be allowed to think. I can literally think and believe absolutely anything I like, that's called freedom of thought. When a person does a bad thing, you deal with the bad thing, regardless of why the person did it. You don't try to force them to think differently, although you're welcome to try and persuade. But that's all you can do.

That's a fair enough point, but the one of the big problems is of course the indoctrination of children. They aren't being allowed "freedom of thought" in the proper sense. They are being trained to think and react in certain ways that many of us atheists find offensive and sometimes dangerous (later in their lives).

Well, kids are indocrinated all the time. Adults are in charge of kids, it's up to them to decide how the kid's going to live. When they're old enough they can do whatever they like. Look at schools, their entire function is to train them how to think, and what to believe is real. And tv, that also trains them. And their peers. And everything they see. You can't get away from it.

People these days love to play the "I'm offended" card. Here's what you should do whenever you feel offended by something : Live with it. Be offended, then get on with your own life. If you find someone's beliefs offensive, that's your thing. They're entitlted to believe anything they like and you're not entitled to stop them.

If the fact that I can believe what I like is fair enough, then that's that, there you go, it's fair. You can't go around interfering in how others bring up their kids. It's the privilege of the parent to dictate what's what to the kid, and no one else's.

Raliegh Marsden wrote:Well, kids are indocrinated all the time. Adults are in charge of kids, it's up to them to decide how the kid's going to live. When they're old enough they can do whatever they like. Look at schools, their entire function is to train them how to think, and what to believe is real. And tv, that also trains them. And their peers. And everything they see. You can't get away from it.

People these days love to play the "I'm offended" card. Here's what you should do whenever you feel offended by something : Live with it.

The problem with that is, that it impacts on my life. I honestly don't care what people do or think on their own time, but when it starts impacting on me, then I start to care.

If the fact that I can believe what I like is fair enough, then that's that, there you go, it's fair. You can't go around interfering in how others bring up their kids. It's the privilege of the parent to dictate what's what to the kid, and no one else's.

Up to a point it is. But we certainly interfere in cases of child abuse. Now teaching kids religion isn't anything like physically or sexually abusing a child, but it's my view that religion is one of the reasons, along with gross capitalism/consumerism, for the dysfunctional society we live in. When you look at it this way, and you realise that it all starts with the indoctrination of children, it's easy to be VERY uncomfortable with the practice.

rEv...

The thing is, you can't expect to to through life without someone affecting you, or you affecting someone else.

Raliegh Marsden wrote:Well, kids are indocrinated all the time. Adults are in charge of kids, it's up to them to decide how the kid's going to live. When they're old enough they can do whatever they like. Look at schools, their entire function is to train them how to think, and what to believe is real.

If the fact that I can believe what I like is fair enough, then that's that, there you go, it's fair. You can't go around interfering in how others bring up their kids. It's the privilege of the parent to dictate what's what to the kid, and no one else's.

In developed countries there are laws (although rather different laws in each country) requiring children to receive a proper education, so in that respect governments do have a right to dictate aspects of how children are brought up.

So Raliegh, what do you think about US parents, such as the Amish and many other 'home schoolers' who give very limited educations to their kids, including of course the whole just plain scientifically wrong, creationism thing? To me, and I guess a lot of others here, this is clear 'child abuse' because it drastically limits the future career and life choices of those kids.

I think it's fine.