Hearsay

I have started reading The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel given to me by a fundamentalist religious colleague who recently left the company i work at to go back to America. We had a really in depth debate about religion a while back and the discussion obviously had an effect on him and I presume he feels that this book is a good source for understating the grounds for his belief. I was quite touched at the thought actually, not sure exactly what it is about the gesture but just seemed nice to know that he cared enough to by me a book on the subject.

Anyway, ever since he gave me the book I've been quite keen to read it and finally got a chance to read the first chapter of it today. I'm always curious as to why people believe things that seem so obviously false to me. After reading the first chapter of this book I can't help but feel a bit disappointed. I was really hoping for a argument that would really test my reasoning and force me to clarify my opinions but I can see from this first chapter that the argument falls apart before the horses have even left the gate.

This book seems to highlight how easily people can be seduced by an idea when they what it to be true. It plays on people who either do not understand or do not what to understand that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The fact that eye witness testimony does not count as extraordinary evidence seems lost to the writer of this book. In this book however it appears he is not even claiming evidence that is a good as eyewitness testimony. The moment of apparent triumph in this chapter is when the theologian uses somewhat questionable logic to say that the earliest account of Jesus was two years after the fact and so is close enough to eye witness testimony. The so called skeptic protagonist in the story, said to be the books author seems floored by this revelation. That this flimsy case for the claims put forward has such an effect on the author immediately discredits any claim he makes of being a true skeptic or at least someone who understands critical thinking and the scientific method.

I would not be convinced if a hundred thousand people told me that they saw someone rise from the dead an hour ago. The claim that someone rose from the dead is so extraordinary that almost any other explanation is more probable. I flies so much in the face of observed reality that it opens the flood gates of premises that are more probable, some of which have actually be shown to have happened in the past, like mass hallucination or the deception of the masses with slight of hand and misdirection.

I think this book is demonstration of an all too common failure to understand why science trumps personal accounts and how someone can say what they believe to be true and still say something that is false.

I'll continue reading the book as I am interested in how people develop these massive logical blind spots but I'm a bit disappointed at just how weak the argument is.

One Reality

I have decided to start a blog to explore my ideas regarding the nature of reality. I believe having a clear understanding of what reality is and the method of distinguishing fact form fiction to be fundamental to the acquisition of all other goals. I believe that my ability to obtain a clear view of what is real is far from where I'd like it to be and I find it is all the more difficult to obtain my goal of clarity when the world around me seems to have a complete disregard for reason.

One of my pet hates is the idea that it's ok for people to believe different things to be the truth. It is a necessity of preserving liberty that we do not force people to believe as we do, however we should not allow the spread of ignorance to go uncontested. We seem to romanticize people believing different versions of reality like it is an important part of cultural diversity. This seems to be a clear misunderstanding about what is culture and what is ignorance. Culture is about a lifestyle preference where you choose to live a certain way because you feel it is the way you want to live. Ignorance comes in when you feel compelled to live your life a certain way even though you have no sound basis for that belief.

I think this is particularly a problem when we look at indigenous people. We leave indigenous people in these stone age world views completely stripped of any benefits they may gain from a 21st century understanding of reality because of our romanticism about their beliefs. They have no hope of integrating into 21st century society if we say it's ok for them to have a 10,000 bc understanding of what is real. We treat them like zoo animals rather than human beings and we make claims of protecting their freedoms as our defense. If someone has been brainwashed into believing the truth to be evil then is their choice to be ignorant truly free? In an ideal world we should take our science into these communities and debunk and discredit the nonsense espoused by witch doctor's, shamans and so called 'wise' elders. We should educate with physical examples of how wrong these people are. People complain about the disparity in the quality of life between indigenous and non indigenous people. I believe the major cause of this is the misguided belief that you protect a persons liberty by allowing them to remain ignorant.

In an ideal world we could solve these problems but unfortunately we do not. We live in a world rife with superstition and ignorance that extends far beyond isolated indigenous communities. Everyone is too afraid to debunk the other's superstition out of fear that someone will debunk theirs. It is sad that there are so few people who actually look forward to the day that their own superstitions are revealed to be false and so are able to move forward into the light of greater understanding.