Do You Care Whether The Things You Believe Are True?

This piece was originally published on AlterNet.

What do you say to religious believers who don't care about reality?

I don't mean people who unconsciously don't care about reality. I don't mean people who unconsciously resist or rationalize evidence when it contradicts the things they believe. I get that. That's universally human. Everybody does that. Atheists, believers -- everybody. Me, and you, and everyone we know.

I'm talking about people who consciously, intellectually state that they're less interested in what's really true about the universe than they are about their personal interpretation of it. People who consciously, intellectually state that reality can't be completely understood, and therefore all interpretations of it are equally valid. People who consciously, intellectually state that it's less important to understand reality than it is to not offend people by pointing out that their beliefs are inconsistent with the evidence. People who consciously, intellectually state that, even though there's powerful evidence against the belief that (say) consciousness is animated by an immaterial soul that survives death, or that life was shaped into being by a loving God, or what have you... it's still reasonable for them to hold those beliefs. People who consciously, intellectually state that, when it comes right down to it, they don't care whether the things they believe are true.

And who firmly defend that position.

What do you say to them?

As an atheist writer, I've been having this weird series of conversations about religion with believers who take this position. Some of them take it in a very hard-line relativist way: they insist that there's no reality other than the one we create in our minds. Or they insist that, even though there probably is an external reality, there's no way to truly understand it... so it's completely reasonable to live in the world as we create it in our heads, and to interpret reality in whatever way gives us comfort and pleasure. Regardless of whether that interpretation jibes with, you know, evidence about how reality works.

Others are more slippery about this position. They'll state their religious beliefs... and then, when challenged to provide some evidence supporting those beliefs, they'll say something like, "That's just what I believe. None of us can prove for 100% certain whether our beliefs are right. We all choose what to believe. So what's the point in debating who's right?"

I'll be honest: I find it very hard to argue against this position. Mostly because I find it so utterly baffling. The idea that reality matters? The idea that we ought to care whether the things we believe are true? To me, this is close to a fundamental axiom. And when people say they don't care about that, it leaves my jaw hanging in dumbfounded silence.

But that makes it a topic worth getting into. I like questioning my fundamental axioms. I think they're worth examining. So I'm going to examine this one.

Why should we care whether the things we believe are true?

Why should we treat the external, objective reality of the universe as more important than the internal, subjective reality of our personal experience?

Why is the universe more important than me?

Perspective as a Moral Obligation

Well, for starters: The universe is about 13.73 billion years old, and it's about 93 billion light years across. I am 48 years old, and I'm five foot three. Not to be ageist or a size queen... but really. When I look at those numbers, do I honestly have to ask why the universe is more important -- and more interesting -- than the inside of my head? Or of anybody's head?

I'm not saying the insides of people's heads aren't important or interesting. Of course they are. They're what make art interesting, and literature, and so on. And they're what make psychology and neuropsychology interesting as well. The insides of people's heads are fascinating. And they matter.

But the world inside a person's head is just one tiny fragment of the vast, ancient, wildly freaky complexity of existence. Why would I give that tiny fragment greater priority than the vast, freaky complexity? Even if the head that this tiny fragment is inside happens to be my own? To me, that seems like the absolute height of arrogance.

In fact, I'd argue that it's more than just arrogant. I'd argue that it borders on unethical. Understanding that our own experience is not the only one? That other people matter to themselves as much as we do to ourselves? That none of us has a pipeline to truth? Understanding that we are not the most important being in the universe; having the ability to view life from an outside perspective, and acknowledge that we don't, cosmically speaking, matter more than anyone else? That is the core of human ethics.

To argue that our personal view of reality is every bit as important as reality itself? To insist that it's valid to frame reality any way we like, without regard to the actual evidence about it? It's placing ourselves at the center of the cosmos. It's saying that our personal experience really is the most important one. It's defending the validity of being out of touch, of living inside our heads.

Perspective is more than an intellectual discipline. It's a moral obligation. The willingness to step back from our experience, to examine our beliefs about the world and let go of them when the evidence contradicts them, is a huge part of how we gain the humility we need to see our true place in the world. Caring whether the things we believe are true is a crucial part of caring, period.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

This isn't just about philosophy, though. It isn't even just about the vital branch of philosophy known as ethics. There are purely pragmatic reasons for caring whether the things we believe matter.

We need to understand reality, so we know how to behave in it.

If we believe things about reality that aren't true, we're going to make bad decisions. If we believe that we failed our English test because our teacher has it in for us, we're not going to study harder for our next test. If we believe that we keep getting stomach-aches because we hate our job, we're not going to quit having Doritos and Red Bull for breakfast. If we believe that we can turn on the TV by hitting it with a rock, we're going to miss "America's Best Dance Crew." It's like data processors say: Garbage in, garbage out.

And this applies to religious and spiritual beliefs as well. If we believe that we failed our English test because Mercury was in retrograde, or that our stomach-aches are God's punishment for thinking impure thoughts about Lady Gaga... we're still not going to study or knock off the Doritos.

Understanding reality is how we know how to behave in it. Understanding cause and effect, which causes lead to what effects, is how we make better decisions -- decisions that are more likely to lead to outcomes we're hoping for.

And if we're going to understand reality, we have to care whether the things we believe are true. We can tell ourselves that we create our own reality until we're blue in the face... but if we don't create our personal reality based on the best possible understanding of the larger reality around us, if we don't create our personal reality by eating a healthy diet and doing our English homework and so on, reality is going to bite us in the ass.

Of course there are some very pragmatic, nuts- and- bolts ways that our beliefs about reality affect reality. Being optimistic can help us see more opportunities; being good to people draws other good people to us; etc. But there's nothing magical about that. It's just human psychology. Based, I'd like to point out, on observable cause and effect. Exactly the kind of reality I think people should care about.

What's more, if we care about reality, we have to apply reasonable standards of probability and plausibility to it. When faced with solid evidence strongly suggesting that our beliefs almost certainly aren't true, we can't tell ourselves, "Well, my belief can't be absolutely disproven with 100% certainty -- therefore it's reasonable to keep believing it." We can't tell ourselves that hitting the TV with a rock might turn it on this time, we can't be absolutely sure that it won't, it's hypothetically possible. Not if we want to watch TV.

Now, when pressed with these kinds of questions, many of these "We create our own reality and don't have to care if our beliefs are true" believers will agree. They'll say that, when it comes to petty, mundane, physical matters, of course they understand cause and effect, and want to understand it better so they can create good consequences and avoid bad ones. When they're on the twentieth floor of a building, they don't exit that building by jumping out the window. They don't act on the principle that they can create their own reality and gently float down from the window to the sidewalk. They believe in reality, in physical cause and effect... enough to take the elevator. When it comes to practical matters, of course they care whether the things they believe are true. It's just the grand metaphysical issues, the issues where cause and effect isn't blindingly obvious, the issues of God and the soul and eternal consciousness and whatnot... that's where they feel they can make up any interpretation of reality that makes them happy.

Yeah. See, here's the problem with that.

It's not so easy to believe whatever you find comforting in some cases... and then question, or challenge, or let go of your beliefs in others.

Skepticism is a discipline. It does not come naturally to the human mind. The human mind is wired to believe what it already believes, and what it wants to believe. The habit of questioning whether the things we believe are true -- and letting go of beliefs we're attached to when the evidence contradicts them -- takes practice.

I know that in my own life, when I still had New Age woo beliefs -- and my "we make our own reality " rationalization of them -- I was much more prone to hanging onto other, non-spiritual beliefs I was attached to. And I was much more prone to attaching myself to beliefs in the first place if I found them comforting or easy. My belief that I could make things work with my loser boyfriend; my belief that there was no connection between my weight and my health; my belief that if I ignored my student loans for long enough the university would give up and go away... all these were much easier to fall into, because I was so practiced at convincing myself that it was reasonable to believe pretty much whatever I wanted.

What's more, my spiritual beliefs were very slippery. (A phenomenon I've noticed in many other believers.) When confronted with strong evidence that contradicted my beliefs, I'd pull out the "this may not be literally true but it works for me" line. But when I was alone, or with others who shared my beliefs? I bloody well believed those things. Entirely and literally. And again, that slipperiness -- that willingness to slide back and forth between wishful thinking and critical thought, depending on convenience and who was watching and how attached I was to the ideas -- slopped into the practical areas of my life. Often with truly lousy consequences.

But after I started applying skepticism to religion, and eventually let go of my spiritual beliefs, I became much better at critical thinking. In all areas of my life. Politics, relationships, money, health -- everything. I became much better at asking, "What's the evidence for this? Is this consistent with what we know about the world? What are the arguments for and against?" This is often not easy. I'm human, with a human tendency to believe what I already believe or what I want to believe; and better critical thinking often means letting go of ideas I'm very attached to. But the practice I had letting go of religion makes this much easier, and much more natural. Again: Skepticism is a discipline. It takes practice. And when we let ourselves believe whatever the hell we like about God or the afterlife, it gets far too easy to let ourselves believe whatever the hell we like about everything else.

Which leads back to the question of ethics. When pressed to the wall in these debates, believers will often wind up saying things like, "Why do you care what I believe? Living in my self-created reality where God loves me and I'm never going to die... it makes me happy. What difference does it make to anyone else?" But rejecting evidence about reality doesn't just affect ourselves. It means rejecting the reality of how our actions affect other people. It means rejecting the realities of money, of sex, of showing up to work on time, of foreign policy, of global warming... in favor of stories we find familiar and comforting.

And I see that play out with religious believers, every day of my life.

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

But beyond all that -- beyond my philosophical objections, my ethical objections, even my pragmatic objections -- I have another, stronger, far more serious objection to people who say they don't care if the things they believe are true.

I don't believe them.

If you really don't care whether the things you believe are true... then why are you defending those beliefs in an atheist's blog?

Why are you arguing so passionately, and at such great length, that your solipsistic cultural relativism is a valid viewpoint? Why don't you just shrug off my arguments for atheism and materialism, and go about your merry way in your self-created reality? Why do you care what I think?

Here's the thing. I think religious believers do care whether the things they believe are true. The ones who comment about their beliefs in atheists' blogs sure as heck do. I think they comment in atheists' blogs because they want validation for their beliefs. They want atheists to say, "No, your beliefs aren't like all those others, those other beliefs are crazy, but yours make sense." Or they want atheists to say, "Wow, I haven't heard that one before -- how fascinating and well thought out!"

It's only when that response isn't forthcoming that the cultural relativism gets dragged out. It's only when atheists say, "Actually, your belief isn't any more consistent with evidence or reason than anyone else's," when we say, "Yes, I've heard that one before, about a hundred times, it still doesn't hold up"... it's only then that believers start insisting that they don't care about stupid old reality anyway. I think believers do care whether the things they believe are true -- right up until the moment when they're faced with evidence strongly suggesting that they're very much mistaken.

I think religious believers do care whether the things they believe are true. And they should. Caring about reality is a fundamental part of what makes us human. Human beings are explorers. We're curious. We want to find out what's behind that rock, that mountain, that ocean, that galaxy. We want to find out what's inside that tree, that flower, that cell, that atom.

And that curiosity is one of the best things about us. That curiosity has led us to a greater understanding of the vast, ancient, wildly freaky complexity of existence than we ever thought possible. That curiosity is why we understand about galaxies, and continental drift, and matter being mostly empty space, and everything that's alive being related, and any number of compellingly fascinating, completely counter-intuitive realities. What's more, that curiosity has led to innumerable advances in the quality of human life. That curiosity is why we understand that diseases are caused by germs and viruses and genetics and so on, instead of evil spirits or imbalances in the bodily humours. That curiosity is why we understand that we ought not to let raw sewage run in the streets or in our drinking water. That curiosity is why we can talk to each other on the Internet.

Curiosity about how reality works is one of the finest things about humanity. We ought not to abandon it whenever it makes us uncomfortable or forces us to let go of beliefs we're attached to. We ought to care more about reality than we do about the stories we tell ourselves about it. We ought to care, more than just about anything else, whether the things we believe are true.

Comments

[Jim H]

Here's another reason why this matters: Remember the Bush admin person who told Suskind that they "create their own reality"? Most likely, he was just a "useful idiot" for those above him. They had power, and did in fact create their own reality, to great profit for themselves and their friends, leaving a mess for the rest of us.

[Gwen]

You posted this on your blog June 21st -- why the repeat?

[jane hay]

I don't find it unexpected at all that the religious don't care what reality is. After all, if you listen in on their conversations, they think the Creator of the Universe took time out from his busy day to make sure they found a parking place right in front of the door at WalMart. Praise glod ! Talk about self-absorbed and egotistical. (I've got fundie in-laws, and a fundie son and daughter-in-law, so I hear this stuff a lot.) And they REALLY don't like to leave their comfort zone.

[Greta Christina]

You posted this on your blog June 21st -- why the repeat?

Gwen: I posted a link to the piece when it was originally published on AlterNet on June 21st. I am reprinting it in full here now. I like to have my work appear in full on my own blog, in order to have it all in one place. And many people prefer to comment on my blog rather than on AlterNet, since the AlterNet comment threads are, shall we say, challenging. Hence the reprint.

[Bruce Gorton]

Greta

Not so much challenging as challenged.

If someone could convert stupid into electricity Alternet's resident commenters would replace every power plant on Earth.

[DSimon]

Bruce, but would that be moral? We'd then have to make sure they stayed stupid in order to keep our infrastructure running.

[Wordplayer]

Greta, there is an epigram I like to quote (variously attributed to Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, and others) that seems tailor-made to go with this article: "It ain't the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so."

~Wordplayer

[Keyser Söze]

The universe is about 13.73 billion years old, and it's about 93 billion light years across. I am 48 years old, and I'm five foot three.

Surely, you can rely on the second half of this, but the first half is just conjecture and just as much a matter of "faith." You shouldn't equate scientific understanding of the material world we can see with our own senses with guesses about the past or future. That sort of "science" is a quite different matter, and materialists are prone to confusing scientific conjecture with scientific fact.

Anyway, why get worked up about people who have "faith"? Pretty much by definition, "faith" pertains to people who can't prove what they believe. After all, no one needs "faith" in gravity. I used to argue with such people in my youth, but it's completely pointless, so why waste your breath?

And I should point out that this applies just as much to the vaguely "spiritual" and not just to "religious believers."

[Nigel]

The age of the universe is not just based on conjecture. Direct observation can set a minimum age, and various other observations can be used to calculate a more precise value. No faith required. You could say that the theory of evolution is based on faith with as little justification.

[Ecelctic]

Kaiser, all four parts involve similar amounts of trust. "I am 48 years old" actually means "the available evidence regarding the date of my birth overwhelmingly places it 48 years ago".

And when I say "overwhelming", it means "I can't be bothered to take seriously contrary claims unless they present substantial conflicting evidence". That's a personal judgment, but many people have thresholds close enough that we can consider a fact proved to everyone except the most die-hard conspiracy theorists,

Sure, there are no internal inconsistencies in the theory that the universe was created with the appearance of age last Thursday, but so could you.

Likewise, "I'm five foot three". How do you know? when did you last measure? Are you sure it hasn't changed since then? Are you sure of your measuring standard?

Now, I know you can easily provide a lot of evidence for each of those claims, but just because your height hasn't changed much in the last 30 years, and lots of other adults you know don't change height rapidly, how do you know that your height isn't changing right now?

Horrors, you're extrapolating from available evidence!

[Joshua Zelinsky]

Keyser,

when you say:

Pretty much by definition, "faith" pertains to people who can't prove what they believe.

You are utterly wrong. I can't prove pretty much anything in life. Proof is for mathematics and alchohol, nothing else. Science is concerned about evidence, and the evidence for the age of the earth is massive. There's no faith involved in accepting the hypothesis that has the most data.

[Yahzi]

Here's my answer to these kind of people:

The Patented Yahzi Baseball Bat Test (TM).

Step 1: Obtain a baseball bat.

Step 2: Fix your mind firmly on the notion that reality is what you want it to be.

Step 3: Strike yourself in the head with the bat until step 2 is no longer possible.

The best thing is that the test is foolproof. One way or another, the testee stops bothering you with their idiotic notions of unreality.

:D

[Brian]

Hey, cool blog, never been here before. Hi.

I wanted to say that while I AM concerned with whether, say, leading researchers in a given field are able to successfully circumvent their biases and describe reality accurately, I am NOT very concerned with whether the lay person does. People's beliefs converge very much on practical things, like how to use an elevator, but converge less so as things get more abstract. Ideas about God are so irrelevant to our daily lives that people think all kinds of stupid things about that--but then, they can, because it doesn't stop them from successfully getting to work.

I'm much more concerned with whether people believe HARMFUL things than incorrect or unsupported things. And yes, I recognize that sometimes one leads to the other.

Still, I'm much more likely to befriend people who believe in God and oppose war than people who believe in war and oppose god.

[Joey Fox]

Thank you, Joshua Zelinksy! Science can't prove a damn thing. That's one of the first things they teach you in any college science class. You either disprove something, or support something to various extents. It'll adjust itself with new information... And that's why it's so beautiful :D

[Jeff]

Greta, very thoughtful. It will cause me to closer examine my own beliefs. I know there are many things hanging out in my head that are unwarranted. I have noticed though, that there is often a disconnect between belief and action. We may for instance believe in global warming caused by human activities, but not actually do anything different. Laziness? Probably. But lately I have begun to suggest that it may be better to work within a belief structure and to find common action. Nevertheless it behooves all of us to strain toward reality. Thank you.