Finding a Rational Belief System

"Faith is what you believe in the absence of evidence, not in spite of the evidence."

In the conflict between science and religion, we face a strange problem.  Many people fear the scientific world-view as damaging to their belief system.  When that happens, they cling to their beliefs regardless of data or argument.  And this is the problem.  Too many people believe things that are factually, demonstrably wrong.  They don't care about data or facts.  They just continue to believe.

In The Humanist magazine, Brian Trent wrote an impressive article on "America's Addiction to Belief."  He details some of the rampant conspiracy theories and discusses the underlying psychology of the phenomenon.  For instance, some people believe: Obama is not a US Citizen, Bush orchestrated 9/11, NASA faked the moon landing, Obama is a Muslim terrorist, Evolution is a lie, Global Warming is a hoax, and that the world will in 2012 (which will no doubt receive countless jokes during that election year).  It amazes me that people believe these things even after presented with evidence to the contrary.

We fall for these statements out of ignorance, but also out of the safety that long held believes seem to bring us.  We also continue to believe these things, because we tend to only talk to people we agree with.  Trent quote Joe Scarborough, a moderate Republican on MSNBC:

“A conservative can wake up in the morning and never have his or her views challenged. And the same is true for liberals,” said none other than MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough in aNewsweek interview last summer. “It’s just stunning to me how difficult it is to have a political conversation with adults. It’s very disturbing to me as someone fired upon by the left and right pretty regularly… Where is the rational middle?”

We fall for these ideas, because the modern blogosphere and 24-cable news pits all opinions as equal regardless of their validity or veracity.  I once saw a NASA climatologist challenged on Cable News by a Tea Party protestor over global warming.

When it comes to these belief structures, a rational analysis of facts plays no role.  Emotional, visceral appeal replaces critical thinking.  The coalescence of science and religion can only occur in a rational conversation- one where facts mean things.

In the debate of evolution in schools, Trent says:

Evolution is taught in schools not because there is a global secular conspiracy, but because it’s backed up by factual data. By comparison, modern creationism (dressed up—and down—as intelligent design or as the preservation of academic freedom) lacks any credible documentation or data and fails even the most basic of rational tests. Perhaps most astonishingly, it has yet to articulate what its theory actually is. At day’s end it is a position of faith; in other words, it belongs in Sunday school and not biology classrooms.

Over and over again, the proponents of intelligent design fail to offer an scientific perspective or empirical facts.  That is why Creationism-ID alway fail in the court of law.

A belief system based on rational facts will easily find a method of combining modern science and modern religion.  Notice, that this article has not stated any irrationality in the belief of God.  That is not what we are talking about.  Science and religion can co-exist, but only when we are prepared to accept a rational belief system.