The Choice to Believe

I was engaged in a friendly debate with a longtime friend about faith vs logic. He was someone I hadn't mentioned my agnosticism to yet, but he's cool headed and intelligent enough to accept such a thing without making an emotional plea.

I was able to explain the general ideas behind my line of thinking, as previously written here. My hope was not that I would turn his mind from his faith, but that I would help him notice the gap in logic that is required by religious faith.

We talked about the origins of the bible and some of the contradictions therein. We talked about the idea of a perfect book and how unlikely that is. We also talked about the concept of an inerrant book and where that even comes from within the community of believers.

My friend had the honesty to say that he didn't have all the answers to every doubt, but that for him, their was enough truth in the bible to convince him that the rest was true. He spoke of the historical accuracy, which was verifiable by separate sources, and that he was able to see the evidence of love being a powerful tool with humanity. That it really is the best way to treat people based on his personal experience.

I personally haven't done a lot of research at this point on the historical accuracy of the bible, so I cannot speak for or against its efficacy. But it really doesn't matter because the points I take issue with are the supernatural claims. This is an important line to draw. Just because the bible mentions things in the natural world that can be verified, does not mean that the rest of it is necessarily true. This is a logical fallacy. Just because something is partially true does not mean that the rest of it is true. Each element should be judged on its own merit, and my argument is that supernatural claims are completely devoid of any merit. They cannot be tested because they have no physical, testable evidence. The problem here is what reason is there to be believe the specific claims of christianity vs the infinite other supernatural ideas that are held by others. The truth is, there isn't. At some point, you just make a choice to believe or to not believe.

Now, there is a fine line here as well. I don't think it's possible to always choose to believe. If you have no reason not to, then it can be an exciting or captivating concept that lures you in and you choose to hold on to such a belief. But if something doesn't make sense to you, if something defies your worldview, or your understanding of how things work, then you cannot believe it. You can try to force yourself to embrace it, but you cannot fight your doubts. Nor should you.

There are some christians who do this and are still within the church. I've met many of those who finally left after years of doubts. They quietly struggle within themselves, but are too afraid to take that final step. The church, indeed all cults, often use fear as a way of controlling the masses. Afterall, if you are more afraid of the consequences than living with the nonsense, you wont leave and they will feel that they've won.

The fear and the control would be a topic best saved for a later post anyway. For those who are reading this and have opinions one way or another, feel free to leave a comment as I enjoy the debate.