There was an actually positive article about atheism in the NYT, that for once decided not to depict every atheist, "agnostic" or secular humanist as being evil, filled with hate (good thing they did not interview me) or being the downfall of American values (whatever that really means. By the way, read the book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
if you want American values). One of the comments on the article's website was from a believer, who, admittedly, was very fair and quite knowledgeable. The commenter talked about the fact that he knew his beliefs could not be proven, nor could the non-existence of something be proven (which as I said, is fair, to a point), but then ended his two cents with this:
"Given that none of us knows and it's all a matter of faith, be it yes or no, why not opt for belief and be an optimist?"
To the layman or uninitiated, this sounds like a valid perspective. Why not just take the side with more optimism and leave it at that? Because obviously, the side without a belief in a god is automatically pessimistic and unpleasant right?
Wrong. This is where the idea of "truth value" comes into play. But before I go there, I have a few other problems with his statement.
This person has made the assumption, based on his preset beliefs, that because he feels optimistic due to his beliefs, that all people will feel optimistic because of his beliefs. What it also says, is not only are his beliefs the corner stone of optimism, but things that are not his beliefs cannot be optimistic. As far as he can tell, you cannot be happy, content, positive or personally fulfilled without his personal perspectives. Thanks for assuming the inherent bleakness of my views!
As I've tried to explain, optimism actually is relative. I feel more optimistic (yes me) for knowing that I am in control of my life, and I'm not looking over my shoulder for some malevolent angry father character to constantly judge my every thought and action. In fact, in my mind, that's the furthest thing away from optimism. That's fear.
Wait a minute. Isn't the topic of this essay "Truth is Relative" in a sarcastic tone? Didn't I just say something IS relative? Why I did I do that? First, pull your pants back up. Second, because optimism is based on emotional outlook, which does not have to be grounded in any percentage of truth. For instance, I know someone who buys a lottery ticket every single day and always talks, quite optimistically, about his chances and what he will do with the inevitable pile of cash he is obviously not going to get. (Did you like that? "Inevitable" followed by "obviously not"? Pretty good eh? Impressed?)
The next assumption this person makes (the guy I am quoting, not the guy who buys the lotto ticket), which is vastly more important, is that since he feels that neither side (belief vs. non-belief) can be proven, both options are equally valid. This would be to say that each scenario is equally likely to be one thing or another. For this to work there would have to be the same amount of evidence on both sides, as well as the same amount of logic behind each argument. I mean, after all, either humans built the pyramids, or they were farted out by flaming cyber chimps singing the theme song from "Charles In Charge". If they are equally valid, why not believe both? Why believe either?
He also goes as far as equating his position (a matter of faith) to my position (a matter of no faith) by saying that they are both based upon belief. This is something that bothers me quite a bit, and also a notion that seems hard for certain people to grasp, especially for those whose outlook on existence deals heavily in matters of faith alone to explain the world around them.
The quick explanation is this: my position is that I LACK faith in a god or deity. Lacking faith does not require faith, unless the evidence that something exists is overwhelming.
Example: You and a friend are walking through the park. Your friend stops to point out a bird and says, "Oh Look, a Robin!" Despite the evidence that you can both see and hear the bird, you declare that the bird is not there at all. There is more evidence to prove the bird's existence in this case than the absence of it. You chose to deny the evidence and just trust in your personal belief that there is no bird there.
THAT requires faith.
Me not accepting your idea that I have Quato growing out of my chest telling me to "start the reactor", is hard to believe when there is no evidence of the kind proving your claim. Therefore I do not believe you. Hence no faith in that idea. Hence hence my lack of faith does not require faith.
The last thing that this person claims in his statement is that all truths are relative. This is the most bothersome of all to me. This is a variation of the "equally valid" idea, where we've moved away from two competing ideas for the heavy weight champion, and now ALL ideas are valid. Thousands of ideas. Even ideas with opposing views (i.e. you are the sexiest person alive / you make me want to vomit urine. Maybe that's just me?).
So how is it possible for all views to contain the same amount of truth?
And this is where the story takes a more personal turn. My own mother holds this very same perspective. She has, over the course of her life, believed many different things, starting from traditional christianity as a child, then moving into various new age and metaphysical perspectives later in life. Each time a new philosophy or ideology does not seem to "resonate" for her, she moves on to another one, hoping to find something that works.
Many people might slowly discard the truth value of each previous belief, leaving with the idea that "since belief 'A' did not work, I can conclude that belief 'A' is not very truthful", although I doubt you'd say it like that. You'd probably put more swear words in there. But the path is that we slowly get rid of the things that are less likely to be true and come to a smaller circle of ideas that are more likely to be true.
So what did my mother do after having so many new age beliefs not work for her? Did she cross them off the list of probability? Did she say "maybe all this new age stuff is bullshit"? You guessed it, NO! She has taken the opposite philosophy in that everything, no matter how unsupported and unprovable (and in many cases already proved wrong), can be true for different people. Let me repeat that. Different truths for different people.
It's this very perspective that makes conversing with my mother on any topic remotely related to philosophy and existence a dead end. It is a very basic underlying perspective that forms the base of the way you approach the world around you. It is my perspective that some answers are going to be more truthful than others, which then makes me continually research, read about, and ponder the nature of things in order to find out what is more probable. If my mother holds the perspective that one thing cannot be more truthful than another, due to their equality of truth value, then any facts, evidence or arguments I make about a given idea will hold no more validity than another much less likely idea.
Let's say I'm wearing a solid color T-shirt. Would you say that my shirt is equally black and equally orange? Or is it more likely that it is only one of those two options? We can determine by simple observation that my shirt is more probably one color, than it is another. (Although if you really want to get silly with this we could go with the example of Schrödinger's Cat and say that until you actually see the shirt, it exists in a state of all probabilities at one time, but I digress).
If you only believe that truths are personal, and things are not more likely to be one thing over another, how do your discern reality? In a world of extreme relative truths, there is no way of finding out and separating the world around you into categories of things that are, and things that are not. All things are true, and all things simultaneously are not true, apparently depending on the person.
What this philosophy leads me to is the notion that, if all things are true, and all truth is personally relative, then there is no reason to even search for truth, as truth becomes pointless. Truth no longer explains the situation, or gives a definite answer. Why even have truth at all?
This is the crossroads I am at. I very much want to be able to communicate with my mother on philosophical topics, but our base set of understandings are at odds and I can't tell you how frustrating it can be. She, again, would likely hold the view that both of our ideas are probably right, that is, both relative truths and probable truths are correct. I'll let you think about that one on your own.
"Given that none of us knows and it's all a matter of faith, be it yes or no, why not opt for belief and be an optimist?"
Coming back to this quote, I'd like to end this essay with the main reason I don't "opt for belief and be an optimist". Summing up from above, both of these ideas are not equiprobable. Both of these ideas don't hold the same amount of weight when it comes to logic, reason, and evidence. One perspective is more likely to be true than another, and I am of the mind that I genuinely care whether my ideas and, yes, beliefs, are true or not. Just because an idea fills you with optimism, does not mean it is true.
In any given situation, one answer will be more likely to be true than another (I'm either sexy, or I induce urine vomit, and so far the evidence points to the latter). One will have more evidence behind it, fit the question more efficiently, and do so with the least amount of blind assumptions possible.
To quote Matt Dillahunty from the Atheist Experience: "Wouldn't you want as many true beliefs and as few false beliefs as possible?"
Thank God that all truth is relative!
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Tags: atheism atheist truth relative reality belief new york times philosophy humor
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