I recently came across a New York Times opinion piece on a fairly important philosophical issue I, admittedly, had a few problems with.
The main thrust of the article was if we could all accept a reasonable degree of doubt in our religious beliefs, the discourse about religion could become much more open, honest and productive.
We all adopt common questions and uncertainties, and this allows us to communicate with one another more candidly.
My first issue is this point really should never need to be made. I don’t know of many matters in life, apart from perhaps death and taxes, that we should have any real and total certainty about when questioned.
From an existential standpoint, it doesn’t help as an explanatory tool to blindly and dogmatically accept anything to do with a broad understanding of existence.
This goes for the nature of our minds, our relations to others, religion and any issue of a similar kind that could be raised.
Nonetheless, I am constantly reminded that people still hold inflexible beliefs that they use to shield themselves from the influences of reason and observation of the world.
Given that I think this way, it goes almost without saying that I agree in principle with the article’s main point.
I am a person who makes a very strong effort to maintain a degree of insecurity in my own beliefs, so that I never become too entrenched in one idea.
This is a principle in which I am, ironically, highly entrenched. But I digress.
To a person who hardly ever values complete certainty in anything, the devaluation of complete certainty will seem like a very reasonable and perhaps even particularly important point to make.
It does seem like a useful point to me, but the problem still stands that this point shouldn’t have to be under discussion; it should simply be.
To me, the issues surrounding the argument are too great to ignore.
The other real problem and perhaps the biggest one is that there are basically two potential audiences this could reach.
One is those who have dogmatic religious beliefs already and the other is those who don’t.
For those who don’t, the argument likely affirms the reasoning we’ve used from the start to justify our lack of assuredness in our fundamental beliefs.
For those who do, it sounds like someone whining at them to abandon their convictions, which will not work at all.
Appeals to reason don’t work on people without lingering doubt in their mind.
So most readers of this article probably decided not to pay attention to it because it chastised them for their basic thoughts about life, or were like me and agreed in principle but failed to see how the article could accomplish anything.
The unfortunate reality of this situation is that we’re never going to be able to convince people with fundamental beliefs to question the core tenants they hold.
It’s the right thing to do, but it simply can’t be done.
jcworrel@indiana.edu
