A few years ago I was talking to a friend about some religious idea or other. I don't remember exactly what it was about, but she said something that I recently got to thinking about: "I don't want to question my beliefs." That terminated the discussion.
It struck me how odd that actually is. At the time it didn't, because that phrase has been repeated to the point of cliche. It's like the phrase "This is how it's always been done", or "That's what I was taught", or "That's what everyone else believes". It's just a given; you're supposed to accept it, because...hmmm. In other words, it's stupid. But it's stupid in a clever way. Some things are just self-evidently stupid. This one isn't, at least not initially. They reflect habits of thought. I won't go into this but will just note in passing that there are stupid things that are easily rejected because believing them isn't conducive to survival and getting along in a social context, and things that are. "I don't want to question my beliefs" is an example of the latter flavour of stupid.
If one doesn't want to question one's beliefs, how does one even know that those beliefs are good ones in the first place? If you have beliefs, shouldn't you WANT to question them, given that 1) they're YOU'RE beliefs, and beliefs are highly personal things that hang around in your head, and 2) because you should want to be assured that they can stand up to scrutiny. "I don't want to question my beliefs" is really a subconscious admission of the inherent shakiness of those beliefs. If those beliefs are so shaky that you're afraid that they won't stand up to scrutiny, why should you actually want to have those beliefs? Do they actually make sense to you, or do you just subscribe to them because they make you feel good?
On a related aside, I'm often reminded of the need to "respect" other people's beliefs, as though beliefs, by virtue of their simple existence, are automatically entitled to my respect. Of course, we're talking here about religious beliefs, not artistic views, political beliefs, parental preferences, and so on. Sorry chumps, but religion doesn't get the all-clear just because people choose to get "offended". What is particularly galling is that there is no symmetry in this whole accounting. Apparently I'm not entitled to consider what those beliefs actually say; I'm just supposed to acquiesce to this notion of beliefs having protection even from critique, and this acquiescence is supposed to precede and in fact preclude my right and duty to examine the said belief. In the parlance of our times, "fuck dat shit". Take your totalitarian reflexes and disingenuous appeals to "respect" and shove them up are your arseholes.
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The next dumb assertion is "Science is another religion". I was told this solemnly in response to my atheism recently. A friend (or rather, acquaintance of a friend) asked me what religion I subscribe to, and I answered that I didn't subscribe to any religion. "Science is another religion" is really just an excuse to abdicate one's responsibility to actually THINK about one's positions. If it can be shown that science is another religion, then doesn't that validate ALL religion (or at least one's own, which always happens to be the "true" religion)? But science ISN'T "another religion". It's a completely different beast. It's a methodology for systematically interrogating nature. It's one of humanity's greatest inventions and institutions.
The notion that science is no different to religion is a product of our asinine, cynical, selfish culture, where we pick and choose what we want to believe like so many products in a shopping mall. Want to believe in something for which there is no evidence? No problem, amigo. Just slap the label "religion" onto science to take the latter a few rungs down (and to avoid having to admit that science sustains your hypocritical mug and that you use the products made available by it on a daily basis like a stoned idiot), and there you have it: instant credibility for your crazy-arse beliefs (many of which don't even rise to the level of idiocy, but then neither do most music videos these days. When you live in a world that constantly pumps shit and tries to convince you that it smells like a rose, it's no surprise that dumb-arsery is going to rise to the surface every now and then). If you have to say that science is another religion, you're either 1) a moron beyond reproach, 2) your beliefs have no redeeming qualities, and can only be sustained by taking a dump on the excellence that is science, or 3) both. I charitably assume that I am dealing with the second scenario whenever I encounter a "Science is another religion" case, but in my heart of hearts I often feel that I'm dealing with the third scenario. It's ironic that stupidity has such Darwinian resilience, given that Darwinian evolution is such an elegant and beautiful edifice (to be sure, too much stupidity will get you killed, but a nice mix of nominal intelligence and stupidity pretty much guarantees that you've got it made in the mindless void of our consumerist society).
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Well that's what I wanted to rant about.
1 comments:
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