-There’s science
=knowledge from observations, encapsulated by a testable theory, which has then been tested indeed
-There’s reason, rationality
= coherence of different concepts. Mathematics, logic, philosophy, etc.
-And there’s FAITH
= ASSUMPTION of something, WITHOUT either scientific proof, or even validation of logical clarity
Is there room for faith?
Well we can’t always know everything, yet we must ACT nevertheless. Therefore it could be said we’re acting on faith,
In the same time, we only have faith in something BECAUSE we have observed SOME evidence of it working — which means this is already empirical knowledge.
It’s NOT PROVEN YET,
but it’s not without reason,
it’s not unreasonable,
it’s NOT yet rigorous enough,
PERHAPS it’s not worth risking one’s life,
but perhaps it’s GOOD ENOUGH TO TRY,
perhaps it’s good enough to try,
And what happens next?
If it continuously work, you’ve essentially got a working theory,
And if it doesn’t work — well your theory, and your faith, is not only wrong — it’s USELESS
So there ends the faith
Now,
With religion, the faith never ends
Because tenets of religion are so designed so as to resist all falsification
Is god a single man, or is he holy trinity? Well he’s both. No contradiction.
Is god omnipotent and wants you to “be good” and wants the “Best for you” — yet won’t save you or your family or your country or your planet? No contradiction, God’s will
etc
And even if tenets failed to predict all rational scrutiny, which obviously they have, because if something doesn’t make logical sense, it’s impossible to protect it from nonsense,
Well then you have it’s apostles ad hoc preventing it from falsification
Now of course this is not to say that the underlying purpose of religion, therefore underlying purpose of faith, doesn’t work
Perhaps the purpose is betterment of mankind
Perhaps the looming threat of the DEVIL is a very powerful motivator
So now we are in the place where:
-though we can’t confirm the DEVIL, we can’t really deny him either. It’s unfalsifiable. You can’t prove the absence of something
-AND the belief in existence of the devil is a USEFUL belief to have
Pascal’s wager, right?
There’s only one problem,
It is perfectly fine to have FAITH in something, and KNOWING it works well for you — DESPITE NOT KNOWING HOW IT WORKS,
But ONLY if you actually ARE AWARE that you DON’T KNOW how it works,
Because if you believe you DO know how it works, then you’re now believing something that is PLAIN UNTRUE
And from this untruth — you will now erect an UNTRUE STRUCTURE
If your fundamental assumption is wrong — likely everything build on top of it will be wrong too
If you believe earth is flat — your theory about planets will likewise likely be wrong
You are now cultivating FALSEHOOD
For instance you don’t have to know exactly how combustion engine works
And from your perspective — all you have to know is that you put FUEL in the car, turn on the engine, and there you go
But if you think that putting the FUEL is all the SCIENCE behind combustion engine, you know, just drizzling the fucker with some viscous liquid, then obviously you’re wrong
And once your engine breaks — your wisdom will be to just pour more fuel over it,
THIS is the problem with religion,
Not that FAITH is always useless, only because it’s unscientific
It’s scientific enough if it leads to desired outcome,
And NOT EVEN that you believe some NONSENSE — in order to in aggregate get better outcomes, desired results.
even if you don’t know how combustion engine works, and have some wrong ideas about it — as long as you stick to driving your car when it’s in decent technical shape, following the tested method — you’ll be rather fine
The problem is that you NORMALISE NONSENSE,
You NORMALISE MAGICAL THINKING
You normalise BELIEVING IN NONSENSE, because you “must have faith”
And this is because religion DOESN’T ACKNOWLEDGE that it’s teaching you useful nonsense,
You’re required to believe that it’s NOT nonsense, in order to follow it and make it useful,
And it’s only since ACTUAL SCIENCE developed, brought humanity out of poverty, showed that we’re not exactly at the centre of the universe, and that all there is to precious individual human being is some sparks in your brain…
….since then — we no longer JUST BELIEVE IN NONSENSE,
We can ADMIT that we don’t know HOW something works, but it nevertheless WORKS — and that is still perfectly robust.
We can admit that there are VARIED THEORIES HOW exactly something works, disagreement there — but that there is agreement that it does work, that under those circumstances we can observe those effects,
But we don’t FILL in the gaps with nonsense, and then have “faith”,
Therefore the fundamental tension is between:
–FAITH — understood as something that is ultimately beneficial, and WORKS, as is therefore worth FOLLOWING— despite not being fully understood
-and FAITH — understood as blindly accepting nonsense, WITHOUT admitting that it’s nonsense, without admitting that in place of this nonsense there’s simply UNKNOWN — just because (supposedly) it is ultimately beneficial
The former is perfectly congruent with science and reason.
The latter is not only not congruent — but is irredeemable.
The latter is delusion. Is a lie.
Which leads to more lies and more delusions and MORE DARKNESS.
And more pain and more suffering.
To have faith is to be immoral, evil
(And of course: ignorance is not benign but evil)
NO, there is no such thing as “truth beyond science and reason”,
There’s only UNKNOWN
Unknown which is beyond science, for as long as it is unknown indeed,
But once it becomes known — it is bound by the SAME RULES, by FUCKING DEFINITION
And finally,
this is the modern crisis,
Because we’re not smart enough to be rational yet,
But we’re mostly smart enough to not blindly believe any old nonsense,
And this results in ourselves cherry picking even worse nonsense to believe in
The religion of false equality, the religion of west-denial, the religion of virtuously saving the burning world, the religion of false scepticism, the religion of political brain rot… and all the rest of it
Again,
SMART enough to laugh at some stern old man with beard, or virgins soaked in goat milk, or that ghoulish fucking guy on a cross, or even that blue fucker with elephant trunk,
But NOT smart enough to RESIST replacing it with effectively FAR DUMBER, far more DESTRUCTIVE fantasies, memes — because they look reasonable on the surface
Perhaps the next step is that we first come clean about religion,
Which is egregiously outdated meme to propagate today,
We need secular morality, case closed
Let’s start by acknowledging that “religious faith” is no longer a useful meme. You can have FAITH in a useful practice — without having faith in all the adjacent nonsense: holy books, priests, church, etc.
Separate useful practices from nonsense, or else you’re just a lunatic, you’re unfit for modernity, which actually is interested in what works
And then, as for the modern false gods, pagan religions…
Why not have faith in reason? Boring as it sounds?
Why not, for every doubt that you have, about HOW TO LIVE, and WHAT IS GOOD, and how much you’re WORTH, and HOW THE WORLD WORKS — why not for every such doubt — you read 10 times more, and think 10 times more,
You don’t collect opinions — you collect viewpoints,
You don’t destroy your doubt — you use it to EXPLORE a new realm,
again,
to make the final leap to the SECULAR SOCIETY, based on REASON, EVIDENCE, and basically SHIT THAT WORKS — we must start actually FOCUSING ON WHAT WORKS and what MAKES SOME FUCKING SENSE,
You can’t replace your Jesus with a new dumb ideology,
You must focus on what WORKS instead,
And develop profound scepticism of everything that you can’t PROVE to work, can’t make something USEFUL of