Faith vs Facts Opinion Piece

An editorial in the NY Times brought insight into some of the reasons why we can never agree here at EvC Forum regarding faith & belief.
Faith vs Facts

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Faith vs Facts
by T. M. Luhrmann (contributing opinion writer and a professor of anthropology at Stanford.)

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JERUSALEM MOST of us find it mind-boggling that some people seem willing to ignore the facts on climate change, on vaccines, on health care if the facts conflict with their sense of what someone like them believes. But those are the facts, you want to say. It seems weird to deny them.

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And yet a broad group of scholars is beginning to demonstrate that religious belief and factual belief are indeed different kinds of mental creatures. People process evidence differently when they think with a factual mindset rather than with a religious mindset. Even what they count as evidence is different. And they are motivated differently, based on what they conclude. On what grounds do scholars make such claims?

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First of all, they have noticed that the very language people use changes when they talk about religious beings, and the changes mean that they think about their realness differently. You do not say, I believe that my dog is alive. The fact is so obvious it is not worth stating. You simply talk in ways that presume the dog’s aliveness you say she’s adorable or hungry or in need of a walk. But to say, I believe that Jesus Christ is alive signals that you know that other people might not think so. It also asserts reverence and piety. We seem to regard religious beliefs and factual beliefs with what the philosopher Neil Van Leeuwen calls different cognitive attitudes.

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Second, these scholars have remarked that when people consider the truth of a religious belief, what the belief does for their lives matters more than, well, the facts. We evaluate factual beliefs often with perceptual evidence. If I believe that the dog is in the study but I find her in the kitchen, I change my belief. We evaluate religious beliefs more with our sense of destiny, purpose and the way we think the world should be. One study found that over 70 percent of people who left a religious cult did so because of a conflict of values. They did not complain that the leader’s views were mistaken. They believed that he was a bad person.

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Third, these scholars have found that religious and factual beliefs play different roles in interpreting the same events. Religious beliefs explain why, rather than how. People who understand readily that diseases are caused by natural processes might still attribute sickness at a particular time to demons, or healing to an act of God. The psychologist Cristine H. Legare and her colleagues recently demonstrated that people use both natural and supernatural explanations in this interdependent way across many cultures. They tell a story, as recounted by Tracy Kidder’s book on the anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer, about a woman who had taken her tuberculosis medication and been cured and who then told Dr. Farmer that she was going to get back at the person who had used sorcery to make her ill. But if you believe that, he cried, why did you take your medicines? In response to the great doctor she replied, in essence, Honey, are you incapable of complexity?

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Moreover, people’s reliance on supernatural explanations increases as they age. It may be tempting to think that children are more likely than adults to reach out to magic to explain something and that they increasingly put that mind-set to the side as they grow up, but the reverse is true. It’s the young kids who seem skeptical when researchers ask them about gods and ancestors, and the adults who seem clear and firm. It seems that supernatural ideas do things for adults they do not yet do for children.

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Finally, scholars have determined that people don’t use rational, instrumental reasoning when they deal with religious beliefs. The anthropologist Scott Atran and his colleagues have shown that sacred values are immune to the normal cost-benefit trade-offs that govern other dimensions of our lives. Sacred values are insensitive to quantity (one cartoon can be a profound insult). They don’t respond to material incentives (if you offer people money to give up something that represents their sacred value, and they often become more intractable in their refusal). Sacred values may even have different neural signatures in the brain.

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The danger point seems to be when people feel themselves to be completely fused with a group defined by its sacred value. When Mr. Atran and his colleagues surveyed young men in two Moroccan neighborhoods associated with militant jihad (one of them home to five men who helped plot the 2004 Madrid train bombings, and then blew themselves up), they found that those who described themselves as closest to their friends and who upheld Shariah law were also more likely to say that they would suffer grievous harm to defend Shariah law. These people become what Mr. Atran calls devoted actors who are unconditionally committed to their sacred value, and they are willing to die for it.

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One of the interesting things about sacred values, however, is that they are both general (I am a true Christian) and particular (I believe that abortion is murder). It is possible that this is the key to effective negotiation because the ambiguity allows the sacred value to be reframed without losing its essential truth. Mr. Atran and his colleague Jeremy Ginges argued in a 2012 essay in Science that Jerusalem could be reimagined not as a place but as a portal to heaven. If it were, they suggested, just getting access to the portal, rather than owning it, might suffice.
Or then again, it might not. The recent elections in Israel are a daunting reminder of how tough the challenge is. Still, these new ideas about religious belief should shape the way people negotiate about ownership of the land, just as they should shape the way we think about climate change deniers and vaccine avoiders. People aren’t dumb in not recognizing the facts. They are using a reasoning process that responds to moral arguments more than scientific ones, and we should understand that when we engage.

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Participants:
Keep the Forum Guidelines in mind.Some of us will never believe anything without evidence.Others of us will never have nor be able to provide evidence.Thems the facts.

I dispute the implication you are making that non believers need to give fundies a pass because of their beliefs. If they are wrong they are wrong and should be called out. If you deny factual evidence because of your belief you should be called out. If you spew hate and disinformation you should be called out. Facts dont change because of your beliefs or anyone else's beliefs.There is no exception to reality because of unevidenced, counter factual beliefs. I agree that trying to change fundie minds is mostly a waste of time. But that does not mean I and others should just roll over and let them spew hate and disinformation. We should and must continue to challenge their rejection of scientific evidence and their promotion of ignorance and hate.You can revel in your own ignorance but do not expect it to go unchallenged.

Thanks for a pointless link in a section not designed for debate.

There's something logically wrong here. There are no "different cognitive attitudes" involved, there are two entirely different things being discussed that have to be described differently. Same cognitive attitude, just the usual necessary distinctions between different things. The dog is alive in the usual familiar sense that physical beings are alive, but Jesus Christ is alive in the special sense that He is alive after having died and left this physical world. His alieveness has to be identified in special terms because it is a different state of being from the aliveness of the dog and all the other beings who are alive in this physical world.

Thread copied here from the Faith vs Facts Opinion Piece thread in the Links and Information forum.

Perhaps a better name for this discussion is Beliefs Unevidenced: Still Valid?I am always confronted with the demand for objective evidence whenever I present any sort of positive truth claims regarding Biblical Christianity. My only defense is that some things cannot ever be evidenced. This does not make them invalid, in my opinion. I actually experienced some of them. In other words, there are definite experiences that I have had or been witness to that occurred when I was of sound mind. The question for this topic is whether an unevidenced belief can ever be considered valid. I can wholeheartedly agree with the above observation. To be honest, if some evil skeptic tied me up and forced me to watch hours and hours of supposed evidence showing supernatural manifestations to be false, it would crush my soul. I think, upon reflection, that Christianity appeals to me because of the ultimate eternal promise. It's not enough to just belong to the local do-gooders club where we feed people every day. If I died having done that, it would obviously be well and good, but if upon dying I found out that this life was all there ever was and that humanity ceased to exist after death, I would feel very hurt. I suppose at least the people whom I fed felt better---at least while they were alive.Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

Agreed. I do not expect you to give me any more of a pass than I give secular humanists. I have reached out and studied more of what they believe. In fact, I heard a great podcast on Humanize Me of whose link I will share, for those interested:
Listen to "333: When I Spoke in Tongues, with Jessica Wilbanks" on Spreaker. There is no factual information that is conclusive. Thats my point. Agreed. Spewing hate is not good. That includes hatred of believers simply because you see them as arrogant or biased against your favorite cultural god. Again, there are no facts that are conclusive. All that the critics have are interpretations of scriptural authorship and reasons why it is wrong. The arguments are only going to sway those predisposed not to believe. We have every right to believe what we want and to share that with others. If you don't want to listen, it is not I who will leave the room. Out of courtesy, I will shut up, but you and your activists will never force me to take my ideas elsewhere. just so you know. It's just as hard to penetrate your thick skull and angry mind! But enough fussing. I apologize. I agree that you shouldn't roll over if I or others spew hate or disinformation, but again, we live in a marketplace of ideas and your disinformation is as bad as my disinformation. You seem to think that we always insist on spewing hate. I will admit that you push my buttons but I don't hate you or anyone else. You just annoy me at times. Back atcha. Quid pro Quo, Dr.Lector?

Again, why do you post links to sites and podcasts that you never summarize. I am never going to listen to a podcast you link to. Summarize it and tell us about the person making the presentation, but do not expect me to listen to it. I am not sure what your point is. Facts are not conclusive because they are the points of data we use to come to conclusions. But your conclusions cannot ignore or manipulate the facts. Are you saying that facts are changeable(wanted to use fungible, but not sure if the word actually works here how I mean it, anyone care to pipe in on that)? Here we come to the essence. Anytime a person in authority decides they need to proselytize there is a problem. You no longer present arguments here. All you do is preach. As an admin here that is a huge issue. You are incapable of separating the adminphat from the phat. If you want to continue to preach why don't you go to sites or places where preaching is appropriate? I will continue to respond when you think your preaching is an argument. This whole thread is an example of your utter failure as an admin.
You posted the link and text from an opinion article thinking it was some sort of deep meaningful representation of our forum. It is not. Then when you were called out that it was not in a discussion forum, you moved it it's current place. Kind of defeats the purpose of an admin, when that admin can propose and elevate their own proposals. How is anyone going to think you will treat them fairly? It is kind of like a Sikh walking into a courtroom that has the Ten commandments displayed. They have no confidence they will be treated fairly. Personal attacks. How unlike you. Way to keep up those admin standards. I get angry when you preach, when you use slurs and when you attack nonbelievers. I respond I do not instigate. If you think you can freely throw around slurs, I will call you out every time. Point out disinformation I have posted. Can you back this assertion? If you think I am posting bad info call me on it, I will back it with more data and facts(oh thats right facts are worthless to you), or retract. Wow! Just days after casting a homophobic slur you don't acknowledge your own hate speech
I find it interesting that you have acknowledged you are now full blown right wing fundie. Have you finally disabused yourself from the claim you are a moderate? But I don't get challenges, all I get is preaching.

My kinda question were I can spout off without actually having to know anything.You were right to begin with. Changeable works where fungible would not. You can't swap facts in and out (fungible) without changing the conclusions.I think what Thug was getting at was that all conclusions are tentative and are dependant on the facts that lead to them. At least I hope that is what he was getting at. A fact cannot make a conclusion but a dozen or a hundred of them can lead us to one. And such conclusion is subject to change if new facts are found.I also think Thug may be suggesting that because of the scientific requirement to consider all conclusions tentative that means we can never rely on any conclusions to determine anything about the reality of the world around us especially when it comes to gods.He is neglecting confidence level. If we have a 5-sigma level of confidence in some conclusion then it doesn't matter that philosophically the conclusion is still said to be tentative, that conclusion is a rock solid reality of life. You can build satellites and smart phones, medicines and morals upon those foundations.

But that is not what he said. That might have been what he meant but not what he said. I can only go with what he said. I think you are changing what he actually said into what you would expect a reasonable person to say. The statement he made was about the facts, not the conclusions reached by those facts. Agreed. Not sure Phat truly understands that.

All beliefs are unevidenced. That's what makes them beliefs.The problem with claiming that your beliefs are valid is that all beliefs are equally valid (zero evidence = zero evidence, regardless of the context). And you don't like that either. Since the soul doesn't exist, no harm, no foul.

well there is no evidence there either. You really need to quit clinging to evidence as your only standard., You will never find enough.

That's the point. If there's no evidence for Zeus, you conclude that Zeus doesn't exist. If there's no evidence for unicorns, you conclude that unicorns don't exist. If there's no evidence for magic beans, you conclude that magic beans don't exist. That would be crazy. It's the standard YOU use for almost everything. If there isn't any, I won't find "enough". Neither will you. See above.

Maybe a question of symantics but some beliefs are evidenced hence why it is reasonable to believe them. We do not tend to go through our lives personally confirming everything we hear rather than take some things as belief. Depending on the confidence one has in the source we can believe some things who's evidence has been verified by others. I believe the sun will rise tomorrow, I do not know it will it is a belief I have as evidenced by the many sun rises that have seen.

I thought somebody might bring that up. It's a valid point, which is why I would use words like "trust" or "confidence" in those cases. I trust a bridge not to collapse. I'm confident that my pension checks will continue to arrive.