Respecting Beliefs

Most of my life I've held the opinion that we should respect each other's beliefs. Or at least when it comes to religious beliefs. However, we've seen a development towards individualism and nihilism in which we're all allowed to believe anything we want, and say anything we want. This short post is about the question to what extent we should respect each others'beliefs, and to what extent it's helpful to respect those beliefs.

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Let's first define "belief," what does it mean to believe something. Belief is simply the acceptance that something exists or is true. To believe something therefore is to make a claim about reality, your personal reality or the reality we're all experiencing. When I say that my wife is beautiful, everyone will understand that I mean to say that she's beautiful to me. That's a personal belief that has no repercussions on anyone else, and my judgement of my wife's appearance will not change whether you agree or not. When on the other hand someone says that they believe their God is real, they make a claim about the reality in which you and I and everyone else exists as well. This makes the claim fundamentally different in its scope and effects on us all, and should raise the question if blindly respecting that belief is the smart or ethical thing to do.

In philosophy "knowledge" is defined as "justified belief." The best methods we've been able to device in order to justify beliefs are logic and the scientific method. Very briefly, logic is the study of correct reasoning or good arguments; for example, to claim that something exists and simultaneously doesn't exist isn't logically consistent and therefore can not be true. The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge and involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. In other words, it carefully avoids "common sense," as commonsensical can easily lead to wrong conclusions. Based on direct observation, it's common sense to conclude and believe that the Earth is flat, that the sun and stars revolve around the Earth and that the Earth is the center of the universe.

The claim that the Earth is flat, although not as consequential as claiming that the Christian God exists, warrants scrutiny and criticism as it's a claim about our shared reality. If you've read my blogs you'll know I have no qualms about criticizing commonly held beliefs about capitalism, as truth-claims about that socioeconomic configuration affect us all in a negative way. I've never, or seldom, been so critical about religion though, as I too have been made to believe that we should indeed respect each other's religious beliefs. Although I am an atheist and think religious belief is not justified, I do understand that, for whatever historical and/or personal reasons, many people find comfort and a sense of belonging through their religious beliefs, and I wouldn't want to deny them that. On the other hand it's clear to me that we would be better of without those beliefs, that even though I respect Christians in their belief, that same belief condemns me to a fate of eternal damnation regardless if moderate Christians say they don't believe Hell even exists; it's in their scripture.

In the end I think we should all respect knowledge, beliefs that are justified through whatever methods we have to justify them, however imperfect those methods may be; if it's the best we can do we should use it. Linked below is a very interesting and very well argued video from someone who refuses to respect religious beliefs. And the beautiful thing is that he justifies his belief that we shouldn't respect religious beliefs. Look, it's clear that religion, maybe because it was humanity's first attempt to make sense of the world and the universe, has always held a special and privileged position in the market for respect, so to speak, but maybe it's time to let go of that elevated position and let religion join the rest of ideas and ideologies in the marketplace of honest discussion, criticism and scrutiny.

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