Blasphemy Day: Freedom of Belief

Today is blasphemy day. In honor of that, here's some blasphemy: If God exists, he is monstrously evil. People do not get reincarnated when they die. Bad actions are not always punished, and good actions are not always rewarded. The writings of bronze age goat herders are scientifically inaccurate. Human sacrifice is not necessary for the sun to rise. Bunnies don't lay eggs.

Doubtlessly, you believe at least one of these things. Which is why I support Blasphemy Day. Because something you believe is blasphemy to someone. The price you pay for being able to express it is that others can express something that you may disagree with or find personally offensive. To oppose that is to oppose the very concept of free speech.

And so here's another piece of blasphemy: Religious belief should not be treated any differently than any other belief.

I don't believe in freedom of religion. I believe in a more general freedom of belief. Everyone should be allowed to believe whatever they want, including but not limited to religious beliefs. I prefer this formulation because as above, religious belief should not be treated any differently than any other belief.

There are lots of times when beliefs are treated differently because they're religious beliefs. The most obvious examples are blasphemy laws, which is what Blasphemy Day is in protest of. For some groups, simply disagreeing with their religion amounts to disrespecting it, which is a totally different standard to non-religious beliefs.

The reason religious beliefs should be treated just like any other is that they are just like any other. They can be right or wrong just like other beliefs and wrong beliefs should be discarded for right ones. Bad beliefs cannot be improved if they are specially protected as religious beliefs tend to be.

Another reason to treat religious beliefs the same as others is who gets to decide what is a valid religious belief and what isn't?

Blasphemy Day: Bad Faith

Today is Blasphemy Day. In honor of that, here's some blasphemy: There is no god. Jesus was just a man. Mohammed was not a prophet. A cracker cannot turn into flesh. Thunder and lightning are not caused by Thor or Zeus. Heaven and hell do not exist. Sex is a good thing. The presents under your tree weren't left there by Santa Claus.

Doubtlessly, you believe at least one of these things. Which is why I support Blasphemy Day. Because something you believe is blasphemy to someone. The price you pay for being able to express it is that others can express something that you may disagree with or find personally offensive. To oppose that is to oppose the very concept of free speech.

And so here's another piece of blasphemy: Faith is a bad thing.

In this context, by faith, I mean belief without reason. The word is sometimes used to mean something more like trust. A common arguing technique by some believers is to deliberately confuse the two separate meanings. ("You have faith that your brakes will work, which is the same as my faith in god.") Let me be clear, I am talking about belief without reason. If you have a reason for believing something, it's not faith.

Why is faith a bad thing? Because it's fundamentally irrational. You can't draw a map without first looking at the territory. Something you believe by faith might be, by pure chance, correct. But given all the different mutually exclusive things you could believe by faith, that chance isn't very good. If you're actually interested in having your beliefs be correct, faith is a very bad approach to take.

Now, evidence can be misleading. People believe things that are incorrect, but with backing evidence all the time. For example, scientists at the end of the nineteenth century believed in luminiferous aether and with good reason. Light's a wave, it has to travel through something, right? But by always evaluating new evidence, you can correct your mistakes and make your beliefs closer to the truth. With faith, there is no such recourse.

Faith is a bad thing, but what's even worse than faith is the belief that faith is a good thing. Human irrationality is a bad thing, but it's an inevitable thing. We are not rational beings by nature, and a certain amount of irrationality is to be expected. But it is not to be desired. We must strive to be as rational as possible, because that is the only way we can progress. It is the only way to correct our mistakes and fix them.

Promoting faith as a paramount good is perhaps one of the most evil things religion has ever done (well, ok, crusades, pogroms, fatwas, etc. are pretty bad too).

Questioning

I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.
-Socrates

In my previous post I talked about why truth is a good thing. Continuing that, questioning is also good. Because questioning is one of, and perhaps the single most important tool in finding the truth.

Not everything you believe is true. Not everything I believe is true. In order to discard our false beliefs, we must first find them. And the only way to do that is to question our beliefs.

Consider the modern fable of the five monkeys. The monkeys continued believing that it was a bad thing to try to get the bananas, even though conditions had changed. Just because something was true doesn't mean it still is.

This is why I so strongly support the freedom of speech and more generally the freedom of belief. The only way for the truth to prevail is for it to be critically examined.