I was at a Simon Fraser University philosopher's cafe recently where they discussed whether the world is heading towards a calamity with population growth, global warming etc.
A number of interesting points came out of the discussion for me.
1. Fact versus beliefs. Other than mathematics and logical problems that can be proved, there are no known facts in this world. The mathematical theorems themselves are theoretical and have little relevance to everyday living. There are facts about the world but we never get to know for sure if we our current knowledge is the same as these facts.
Therefore, the only thing we have is beliefs. A few hundred years ago, everyone believe the earth is flat and the sun revolve around the earth. These were considered facts in those days until new information later on updated our beliefs.
So how do we know if some day, someone will prove that the earth is not round after all but some other shape? It is unknowable and therefore we only have beliefs while the real facts are out there beyond our reach.
This is not as bad as it seems as our beliefs are close enough to the truth that predictions based on our beliefs are rather accurate and we manage quite well with it.
But we should not ever be so confident about "having the facts". Knowing that we only have beliefs, even though they are very good beliefs leaves some room for us to accept the possibility that we can learn even from areas where we have expertise and "know" that "we know".
2. Ideology oppresses. This is nothing new and mention by Carl Marx. The general case of this extends to proponents of doomsday scenarios. The arriving end of the world necessitates a change of our current priorities, give no thought for tomorrow, give everything up and follow the wise man that enlighten us of our coming doom. At some point as the movement grows, the rest of us not believing in this are being oppressed by this thinking as we find our society hijacked by this priority which we do not believe in. This applies to social value systems such as capitalism versus socialism but also to "alternative" versus standard medical treatments, natural versus standard foods etc.
It in part explains why we want to win arguments as winning arguments establishes our ideology which makes us the powerful entity over others who end up being "oppressed" by our arguments.
3. Religion and mother earth. While most in the group agreed that religion tends to dampen proactive action by advocating giving up our fate to the supernatural, someone mentioned that he had known religious people who are very proactive in planning for the future. He also know of atheists who nevertheless believe in going with nature, that mother nature has her way of dealing with things and not for us to interfere. In this sense, believing in mother nature is just as confining as believing in the supernatural. It is our own attitude that matters.
4. Hayek on social systems. I always thought of Friedrich Hayek as an economist that believe in markets and against central planning. Recently I realized that he also cautioned against making major changes to social rules and value systems that have been in place in our society for a long time. His believe is that long practiced rules in stable societies are tried and true practice from experience, not something theoretical. This is crowd intelligence. This resonates with me in looking at the recent wave of atheism in debunking religion.
Rational thinking can easily show that most religious text cannot stand up to scrutiny, but do we know the true effect of removing the all knowing supernatural from the daily lives of all of us? Rationally, we should all continue to do good, but can we count on all of us to do that without the all knowing policeman in the heavens?
After all, parents routinely coerce and lie in the process of bringing up their children. They tell their children that Santa will have no presents for children who do not listen to their parents. They plug up electrical outlets instead of logically educating their young about the hazards of sticking metal in those same outlets to see what happens.
If Santa Claus persists even if we all know it is not true, should we maintain the religious myth to keep the less rational in our society in check?
