The insult of disbelief

johnson1010 · Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:26 am


	Quote: People who tell me my God isn't real insult me. Not that I care about them insulting me, but more of them insulting God, and also themselves.

Discussion of religion is taboo precisely because of this attitude. I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and I want to take a crack at explaining it for believers and atheists alike.

Imagine someone walks up to you and compliments the pants you are wearing.

“Hey, nice pants! Do you like them?”

“Yeah, I guess I do. Thanks!”

“Did you know that those pants were made by papa smurf?”

Conundrum: What am I to do.

I know a bit about pants. Where they come from, who makes them, why they make them, where they are sold, and the equipment used to make them.

I know a bit about the pants that I am wearing in particular. That there’s a tag on them saying “made in china”, that I bought them at target, that they are khaki’s from a company called “faded glory” and what that means about their social origin.

I also know a lot about smurfs. Invented by Pierre Culliford for a comic strip in the late 1950’s. cartoon characters. Imaginary. Chased by Gargamel and his cat. Replace many words with “smurf”.

Putting what I know about these things it is abundantly clear that there is no way that my pants were, in any way, made by papa smurf.

Now, I have in front of me a person who just proclaimed an honest, well-intended statement about something they believe intrinsically.

I know beyond reasonable doubt that what they said is wrong. If I just come out and say: “There is no possible way that papa smurf made my pants.” It is immediately confrontational. It also comes off as offensive to the person with this cherished belief because one of our first interactions was for me to call down one of their cherished beliefs in public and in front of other people which represent prospective friends and allies.

Society likes for us to give everybody lots of elbow room when it comes to their tightly held beliefs, and that’s largely because they react so negatively when those beliefs are challenged. I am asked not to poke the hornet’s nest because it will cause a stir. I am asked to at least pretend that I haven’t heard what I heard, or pretend that, yeah, maybe my pants could have been made by papa smurf.

But the truth is, there is no indication that that belief has any solid ground, and a very substantial amount of evidence which directly contradicts the claim. In fact, in the case of the maker of my pants, I can conclusively trace that origin to the satisfaction of any non-vested witness that the claim of the believer is resoundingly incorrect.

The problem being, if I refute the claim of the believer, their irrational attachment and intrinsic self-association with that belief may inspire like-wise irrational hostility. That’s why I have been condemned to hell on forums for pointing out that god probably doesn’t exist, and why Muslims can threaten death for drawings of Mohammad.

Make no mistake. The man who tries to kill someone else for drawing a picture is at fault. Not the man who draws the picture. There is literally NOTHING that you could say or type to make me want to kill you, or wish for you to suffer for all eternity in hell.

If you feel overwhelming insult when someone merely challenges your beliefs, ask yourself why that is. Why should someone else’s doubt cause YOU any anguish?

If I assert that 2+2=7, are you angry? Are you personally insulted? Why not? Think about that.

realiz · Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:12 pm


	Quote: If I assert that 2+2=7, are you angry? Are you personally insulted? Why not? Think about that.

There may be times when this could be really hard to take. If you were a young student just learning arithmetic and you were very certain that 2+2=4 and someone older and wiser challenged your belief and insisted you were wrong that the answer was actually 7, it could be very upsetting when it just does not make sense to you.

When you think you understand something, maybe very sure you understand something, and then to be told you are wrong can be hard to take.

The people in Katelyn's life who she has admired and loved have taught her what she believes to be true, what she is sure is true and she has based much of her life so far on this truth. It can be insulting to be told that all the people in your life that you love and admire are wrong.

johnson1010 · Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:52 pm

Exactly.

The facts are the facts. They live independant of those who taught you. They exist independant on our opinions of them, or our preference.

If you find you are emotionally invested in some idea, ask yourself why. Probably, it isn't because it was just such a great idea. Probably there are other motives for that strong connection. Motives which are not dependant on the veracity of that belief.

So don't get mad at somebody for saying the earth is round when you thought it was flat. Find out why you need to believe the earth is flat.

R. LeBeaux · Thu Sep 15, 2011 2:32 pm


	johnson1010 wrote: “Did you know that those pants were made by papa smurf?” . . . If I just come out and say: “There is no possible way that papa smurf made my pants.” It is immediately confrontational

My response to this type of statement, whether it be about pants or gods, is usually to smile and say something like, “Oh? What makes you believe that?” I say this without sarcasm, attempting to convey a sense of curiosity and interest in their opinion. Then I listen respectfully to the answer and base my response on a judgment call concerning the person’s sincerity, their emotional investment in the explanation, and whether or not I feel a rebuttal will be either a waste of time or perhaps of some value to their future wellbeing. For the most part, when it comes to religion, my judgment will be that I should not waste my time in a futile attempt to change someone’s mind or alter their belief system. Plus, there is always the possibility of my being able to win the debate and cause harm by shattering a person’s reliance on a set of spiritual beliefs that actually help sustain and maintain their emotional stability, which is something I would never wish to do.

On the other hand (said the economist), if I decide that a person’s belief system poses a danger to the world, the society, or even the person next door, I will probably do my best to convince said person that he or she is wrong. Such an effort, of late, tends to be reserved for severe fundamentalists in whom I sense an ability to persuade others that violence is a proper response to what they perceive to be the ills of the world. Others, whose babbling strikes me as being ineffective, I tend to simply write off, on the theory that their efforts will prove to be more damaging to their own cause than any influence I could have on their fundamental beliefs.

James Vaught · Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:31 pm

When I was young (in my 20's), I loved to discuss and debate religion. The older I get (now 66), the less attraction the subject has. Now, I tend to go by the rule of "if you don't seek to make me profess belief in your God or to support him, it doesn't matter" and I try to change the subject. Life is too short to argue over something none of us will know the truth of in this lifetime (even if there is another lifetime). I'm agnostic and have been as long as I can recall what I believed.

giselle · Thu Sep 15, 2011 11:34 pm


	johnson1010 wrote: If you feel overwhelming insult when someone merely challenges your beliefs, ask yourself why that is. Why should someone else’s doubt cause YOU any anguish? If I assert that 2+2=7, are you angry? Are you personally insulted? Why not? Think about that.

I think this oversimplifies the argument by drawing a parallel between religious belief and arithmetic. Religious belief includes some very complex feelings and thoughts about oneself, ones place in the universe and the existence of ones mortal soul. Arithmetic has none of this. Also, a religious person may feel they have a relationship with their god, even love their god and accordingly feel a strong sense of attachment and loyalty. I think this is where such anguish could come from if this god is insulted. And I doubt that any such anguish could be felt over an arithmetical disagreement (so i agree with you on this point). The elements of complex feelings, relationship, love, attachment etc. are present in the one case (god) and missing in the other (arithmetic) so I think the attempt to draw a parallel between the two is an oversimplification and is invalid.

Robert Tulip · Fri Sep 16, 2011 4:38 am


	giselle wrote: the attempt to draw a parallel between the two is an oversimplification and is invalid.

It is valid. If religious believers claim the world is flat, or was recently created by God, that is just as offensive as to claim that two plus two does not equal four.

In 1984 by George Orwell, if the Party says two plus two equals five, everyone is required to believe it. This type of delusory corruption is the ground of the absence of ethics in supernatural religion. Believing things that are not true is a slippery slope. As Voltaire said, belief in absurdity permits atrocity.

TPNiedermann · Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:13 am

I am an atheist who writes on this stuff. My latest book is "The Words That Created God: An Atheist Reveals the True Meaning of the Ten Commandments."

The true divide is not between "believers" and "non-believers" so as much between "those who believe" and "those who have faith." Atheists can have faith; they just don't couch that faith in terms of God. It's not a new issue--it has been debated for centuries. I find that believers have a real hard time with this. One way to look at it is that believers have accepted certain things as fact, while those who have faith don't. Instead they practice trust in other people, even in God. but they don't seek to define people or God. They accept them as they are. And it is in this vulnerability of acceptance that the strength of faith is to be found--especially in the mutual vulnerability between people. Believers want a type of security that isn't really possible. they want things to be true in one form forever. Those with faith accept nuance and change. Think of it: believers try to define God and what He wants exactly, with total clarity and precision. Even if you accept the existence of God, this is impossible. God cannot be defined (it's actually in the Bible). And so on. When I get to it, my next book will be on the wars between faith and belief.

johnson1010 · Fri Sep 16, 2011 12:43 pm

interesting take TPN.

Robert Tulip · Fri Sep 16, 2011 12:48 pm

Hi TPN, thanks and welcome, interesting analysis. We have discussed here previously how even science rests on faith in the reliability of sense and reason, although some wish to reject the term faith and call it confidence instead.

Your explanation of belief is a precise description of what the Bible condemns as idolatry. Turning Jesus and the Bible into idols rejects Paul's advice in Romans 1:25 to worship the creator rather than the creature. Dogma is inherently idolatrous. The iconoclastic nature of science is continually tearing down false idols, but even this process rests on some bedrock assumptions. The question as I see it is how we articulate these assumptions and build up systematic logic based on them. The alternative is such unhelpful attitudes as paralysis, ennui and solipsism.

This has been debated for more than just centuries - it goes back to Plato and his discussion in The Republic of the epistemology of knowledge and belief, with his simile of the divided line.

johnson1010 · Fri Sep 16, 2011 1:09 pm


	Quote: although some wish to reject the term faith and call it confidence instead.

*Raises hand*

RT, do you not think there is a legitimate difference to be had?

You would be pointing to that ultimate disconnect between mind, experience, and reality. But isn't the fact of that reliability make it reliable? Insanity, hallucination, and mental construct aside.

yes, i recognize that our perceptions are a construct. A "picture" of what the world is, and not the actual world, but however faulty our construct may be, it is reliable in so far as what it is able to detect. Cars are not really smaller because they are farther away, but we can accurately measure distance using this scaling short-hand to reliably avoid getting hit by cars.

I am interested in your analysys of my idea of confidence vs. faith.

Robert Tulip · Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:21 pm

The distinction between faith and confidence rests on the question of whether absolute knowledge is possible.

An example here is the basic structure of the solar system. Science is undoubtedly confident that the planets are in their well known order. There is still much to learn about Trans Neptunian Objects and other physical questions, but the basic order of the sun and planets is certain.

My concern with the term 'confidence' is that it admits a chink of doubt regarding objective knowledge. Anyone who says maybe the planets are actually in a different order is either ignorant or a nutcase. Logically, such principled doubt may be admirable, as Popper and Hume showed. But practically, it creates a popular view that science is just one worldview among many, that there is no objective knowledge of the universe.

So I prefer to say that certainty is 100% certain, and should be restricted to facts that are beyond dispute. The difference between confidence and faith is this tiny chink of difference between 99.99...% and 100%.

In philosophy, this debate was the reason for Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. His doctrine of synthetic a priori judgments - necessary truths - was introduced to solve the conundrum posed by Hume, that we do not know if the sun will rise tomorrow, and we cannot prove a logical connection between a cause and effect. Hume's logic is absurd from the point of view of common sense, and Kant tried to bring philosophy into line with the logic of common sense. Kant summarized his views in terms of faith in the moral law within and the starry sky above.

Faith is a term with much baggage, associated with belief in things that are not true and for which there is no evidence. Even if we do choose to have faith in claims that lack proof, such as ethical ideas about love and justice and the good, this form of faith can still be validated on the model of the real scientific faith provided by absolute confidence in the truth of core knowledge, because even ethical ideas can be tested against evidence by study of their consequences.

It is obviously wrong to have faith in something you know to be false. The converse is that it is right to have faith in things you know to be true. Faith is not just blind obedience, it is a statement of where we place our trust and loyalty, and can be entered with eyes wide open. We lose faith when our trust is shown to be unjustified, but that is no reason to assert that we can somehow live entirely without faith.

giselle · Fri Sep 16, 2011 3:10 pm

Robert Tulip wrote:


	giselle wrote: the attempt to draw a parallel between the two is an oversimplification and is invalid.

It is valid. If religious believers claim the world is flat, or was recently created by God, that is just as offensive as to claim that two plus two does not equal four.

In 1984 by George Orwell, if the Party says two plus two equals five, everyone is required to believe it. This type of delusory corruption is the ground of the absence of ethics in supernatural religion. Believing things that are not true is a slippery slope. As Voltaire said, belief in absurdity permits atrocity.

Appreciate your response .. I am not convinced that an offence/insult over math is equal to that of religious matters, belief etc. for the reason I stated above ... the fundamental place of 'relationship' in the human experience of religion and belief and how (I believe) this relationship might create a sense of insult in some circumstances . As to Orwell, I accept that, in the context of the 1984 and the Party, the requirement to believe what is obviously false is offensive ... but primarily because it is a 'requirement' so there is an element of brainwashing and coercion ... the dehumanizing factor, the stripping of the dignity of the autonomy and dignity of the individual does create an offensive, insulting situation but this goes beyond the case I was considering above.

johnson1010 · Fri Sep 16, 2011 3:40 pm

alley-oop.

confidence-vs-faith-t11336.html

johnson1010 · Fri Sep 16, 2011 4:04 pm

Quote:


	Quote: johnson1010 wrote: If you feel overwhelming insult when someone merely challenges your beliefs, ask yourself why that is. Why should someone else’s doubt cause YOU any anguish? If I assert that 2+2=7, are you angry? Are you personally insulted? Why not? Think about that.

I think this oversimplifies the argument by drawing a parallel between religious belief and arithmetic. ..

I was trying to point out the difference between a simple fact, vs a vested ideal, and i think you hit the nail on the head with your analysis of it.

The point being, people don't get upset over the veracity of the claim, but rather their attachment to the source of the claim.

Isn't the more important thing the truth? Isn't the more important thing to have an accurate grasp on what is happening?

Doesn't the fact that a person defends their beliefs because of where they came from rather than whether they are true really illustrate that the assertion of magic couldn't be trusted in any case because of a vested interest?

It indicates a need to believe, not a search for truth. Not an accurate parsing of truth from fiction, but an embrace of the impossible and the rejection of what can be demonstrated to be true for reasons that don't add up.

So why step lightly around the issue? It isn't me who's at fault because a believer chooses a poor source of information. It is they who are at fault for vesting so heavily without doing their due dilligence and checking their sources. I will not respect or side-step the believers rage for being challenged on something that they are too lazy to check into for themselves.

Anger and hostility are not valid responses to being corrected. We do not mollify aggressors by meekly ducking our heads when they pass by. That only creates greater and greater transgressions. You stand your place and demonstrate that you won't be cowed by their puffed chests and false cries of insult.

It's a silly tactic designed to shut down discussion without considering the points you have made.


	Quote: I am a lost cause? What?! Excuse me, but I am a lost cause. You know why? b/c I DO KNOW THERE IS A God!!!!! I DO KNOW THAT I WILL BE IN HEAVEN WHEN I DIE OR Jesus comes back 4 me. You can NOT tell me i dont!!!! I came here to talk about books, but i only talk about Christian books. so you know what? I am going to make y'all mad and i dont care. I am leaving this. You continuously insult my God, and mock him. You tell me He's not real, but we shall see. You will oneday regret not listening to the 'teenager'. You know who told me everything i know? God! Yeah y'all think im some looney who is a complete idiot? i dont care. i dont care what y'all think. I will be in Heaven and i will feel so sorry 4 y'all that you didnt listen to me. and you know what? you just lost a fan on FB!!!!! I am teling everybody i know to tell their friends to tell their friends, and you just wait!!! Christian-Haters!!!! Y'all good for nothing sorry idiots deserve to rot in Hell!!!! I would pray 4 yall but im kinda mad right now. blieve what ya want. i tried. God you know i did. Goodbye!!! ... I am done. I'm not taking it anymore. Chris, please remove my account.

Chris, we need an exponential punctuation function.

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