James Giago Davies
A New Year’s resolution I won’t break
Respecting the substance of things hoped for
By James Giago Davies My schoolboy buddy Barry never said he didn’t believe in God, he had just asked me five minutes before if I did. We talked about not believing, why we wouldn’t, what it meant, and after an uncomfortable stretch of silence, Barry asked about the fear prompting our silence. We had both been raised Catholic, deeply conditioned to believe in God, and for teenagers to question that belief, produced conversation hampering fear—fear there would be consequences, fear God would punish doubt. Neither of us had ever met an atheist, had no real idea what that word met, and whether my friend Barry ever became an atheist, I can’t say, but before I fell asleep that night, I realized I felt no fear; I was no longer afraid to think about anything my mind could think about. The first professed atheist I met was a college professor, and I mistook his asinine arrogance as a direct byproduct of his atheism, which it was not. Just like most Wasicu tend to judge all Lakota by the one or two they come across in life, I was no different with atheists. As the years rolled by I studied the history of religion, the doctrines of particular religions, and since these doctrines differed greatly, and were often at hostile loggerheads with other doctrines, I found the only yardsticks I could trust were reason and logic. Many Christians attempt to defend their beliefs with reason and logic, but when that inevitably fails, they turn to Hebrews 11:1, which defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” That strikes a logical and reasonable mind as an elaborate and poetic ruse to magically transform the fantastically indefensible into concrete truth. But even if faith trumps all other forms of evidence, it is not based on empirical knowledge. If we have to give evidence of it in our personal lives, we cannot, because personal experience, even if verified by unimpeachable witnesses has zero value as empirical evidence. For most of my life I have experienced racism. But I have no empirical proof of this. I have thousands of personal experiences, verifiable by hundreds of people who shared those experiences, but that is not evidence. That is why it is so easy for people to deny racism exists. Even if you catch it on film, they can rationalize it, they can say maybe this person is just a jerk, and not a racist, being a jerk is not against the law. Unless you get them on film or tape making racist remarks, you don’t have evidence, and that almost never happens. People demand this empirical almost-impossible-to-obtain evidence where racism is alleged, but for some reason, when it comes to religion, most people of faith don’t demand empirical evidence. Only faith gets to be verified by “the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is applied only to beliefs which would otherwise be written off as fantastic delusion. This is why faith cannot be reasoned, only rationalized—Principle of Rationality: "If an agent has knowledge that one of its actions will lead to one of its goals, then the agent will select that action." In this case a believer isn’t interested in applying reason or logic to investigate or establish what he already knows to be true. He can only defend what he already believes, through faith, and rationalizing is the first, best action that leads to that goal. This is the crux of the conflict between atheist and believer—the atheist is arguing logic and reason, the believer is rationalizing. Each sees the other as missing the point. The atheist wants empirical proof, the believer wants acceptance through faith—and argues that only through faith, can the insight necessary to justify that acceptance be obtained. For years I considered myself an atheist, and I reasoned atheism was not a belief system. But here’s the funny part, I arrived at that determination through rationalizing! Atheists see believing as an addling of critical thinking, and so they see belief as an integral aspect of faith, not as an integral aspect of the organic mind, especially when it operates through reason and logic. They rationalized this, as it cannot be defended with reason and logic. When you rationalize you do so to defend faith, and faith defended is religion in action. This is why I stopped being atheist years ago and became a skeptic, as skeptical about atheism as any other belief system. While the default position of the skeptic is atheism, it does not define his identity or his philosophy. A skeptic has no skin in the atheism game. In defense of the faithful, faith cannot be ultimately disproven by empirical evidence, and in defense of the atheist, magical thinking cannot be rendered reality through faith. But as a skeptic, who doubts the validity of all religion, I feel compelled to offer some sort of argument for the possibility of “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Human perceivable reality is limited; our organically maintained senses (which include our brain) are restricted to a small earthly realm, where we must rely mainly on theories about the reality outside that realm. It stands to reason, powerful, perhaps even creative, arbitrary intelligences, could routinely operate beyond the limits of human perception. If they did, they would strike many of us as God, were they to intervene in our reality. I offer this possibility because it is the only one I cannot dismiss critically through reason and logic. My New Year’s Resolution: to be kinder and gentler when discussing other people’s belief systems. Even if you do not believe what they believe, there is no harm learning what others believe. Wherever my old friend Barry is at, I hope he has grown past his fear, and found his proper place in the “immense design of things.” (James Giago Davies can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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