Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
Believe what you want... whatever pleases you. [sound familiar yet?]


It seems to me that that, in a nutshell, is the core of this entire discussion and the most fundamental difference between you and I.

I believe that there exists beyond ourselves a physical world, and that this physical world exists independently of us. I believe that insofar as some model, idea, postulate hypothesis, or model conforms in its properties to the real world, it is true, and insofar as it does not, it is false. I believe that the more we understand about the physical world, the better our understanding of ourselves.

And--perhaps most key--I do not believe there is any advantage to holding onto an idea simply because we find it pleasing or comforting. I do not believe that the comforting lie is superior to the comfortable truth.

In fact, I believe that holding on to comforting ideas that are false, just because they are comforting, is an incredibly harmful, destructive impulse that throughout history has been responsible, and continues to be responsible, for the vast majority of human atrocity.

So, to your "Believe what you want... whatever pleases you," I say this:

1. That is not a good tool for understanding the physical world. All the prophets, rabbis, fakirs, priests, seers, shamans, mystics, mediums, spiritualists, sages, medicine men, witch doctors, gurus, and occultists who have ever lived, with all their visions, prophesies, revelations, and divine inspiration combined, have shed less light on the workings of the physical world than Isaac Newton alone. Without the essential ingredient of "going out and seeing if your ideas actually work," no dream, vision, or revelation can be counted on to explain the workings of the world.

2. "What you want" and "what pleases you" most often means what supports your prevailing prejudices, insecurities, and fears." This is why we see, over and over, some kind of faith used as the foundation of morality, yet we also see that the moral values given to us by preachers and prophets are evil, twisted, corrupted versions of the very prejudices held by those preachers and prophets. From the Christian Bible, which endorses slavery and teaches that women are inferior to men, to the rural parts of India where religious faith teaches that it is acceptable to burn a woman alive if she is suspected of infidelity, we see over and over again that taking things on faith is the easy way to justifying atrocity, and that the beliefs which are most pleasing are those which most legitimize the evil impulses of the believer.

For those who care passionately about the truth, "believe what you want, whatever pleases you" is moral and intellectual bankruptcy.

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