Despite being a minister of
religion, I have no religious ‘beliefs’ as such. I’m deadly serious.
Now, more than a few
people have said to me over the years, ‘How can you be a minister of religion,
and say you have no religious beliefs at all?’ A good question. My reply? Well,
I usually say something like this: ‘I am a religious naturalist. I hold no
beliefs, but there are a number of concepts, propositions and principles that I affirm as
true. I affirm them as true because they are true, in that for the most part they are convictions in the nature of self-evident truths or what may be called 'axiomatic eternal verities.’ (By the way, there are also some delightful souls who write to me saying things like, 'You will burn forever in a lake of fire, you heretic, you wicked apostate!' I just say to them, 'May you find the peace of mind you're so desperately seeking,' then I continue doing what I'm doing.)
While some of the concepts, propositions and principles I affirm are what one may call 'working hypotheses,' the majority of them, as already mentioned, are self-evident truths. A self-evident truth is one that is such that, if you
understand it, you are justified in believing it. Now, I know
these convictions to be true. There is, therefore, no need to believe in them at all, for they neither require nor demand belief. (People believe things that have not been proven to be true, including many things that can never be proven to be true, but I say ... why do that?)
Here are a few of the self-evident truths which I affirm as true but don't believe. I affirm the inherent worth and
dignity of every person. I affirm justice, equity and compassion in human
relations. I affirm that unnecessary suffering, as well as the unnecessary destruction of value, are wrong. (Yes, I admit that there are some problem words there. There always is, and always will be.) I affirm the right of conscience, the democratic process, and the right to pursue a free and
responsible search for truth and meaning. I also try to show respect for the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. I affirm the principle that equals should be treated equally, and like cases should be treated alike. I have several
other such convictions.
I know
these convictions to be true. Those convictions that are not expressly or obviously self-evident or axiomatic I have come to know as true by a
process of free inquiry and the use of reason (in other words, by evidence).
These convictions collectively constitute the foundation of my desupernaturalized faith. By 'faith' I do not mean
beliefs or trust, but rather living with hope, courage, and confidence.
Now, it is true that the word ‘belief’ is seems to be a
word people struggle with, no doubt because of its connection to belief in God,
and the shorthand of ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers.’ Apparently, the term ‘non-believers’
goes back to the 19th century. John Stuart Mill [pictured left] in his Autobiography makes the point that the word ‘non-believer’ is not a
reasonable term since it implies lack of any
belief and, using standard definitions of belief, he could not perceive of
anyone as being without belief. Well, Mr
Mill never met me.
There is a school of thought to which some of
my more learned friends belong which asserts that the word ‘beliefs,’ in the
plural, refers to the totality of the current state of one's beliefs
(religious, political, or otherwise), opinions and ideas, including scientific
opinions and ideas as well as factual or evidence-based opinions. Now, if this
be one’s definition of ‘beliefs’, then there is no distinction whatsoever between
facts and beliefs. However, as I see it, facts (that is, occurrences in
space-time) are not opinions, but merely the basis for forming opinions. Despite
the views of many these days, (no) thanks to grubby postmodernism, one opinion is not as good an any other opinion. For an
opinion to be ‘valid,’ it needs to be supported by facts that are sufficient to
support and ground the opinion held.
Now, the school of thought to which I have referred, which
makes no distinction between facts and beliefs, asserts that when we ‘adopt’ an opinion---legitimately evidence-based or otherwise---we hold it as a belief. Of
course, upon proper inquiry some beliefs will be found to be countered by
certain facts, for it is the reasoning and beliefs formed from understanding
those facts that we actually use to counter certain beliefs that are not
evidence-based.
My usual response to this school of thought is that if one
has beliefs at all they ought to be all based on logically probative evidence.
When they are so supported, they are no longer beliefs but convictions or
truths. However, according to the opposing school of thought, we all have
beliefs. For example, when we go to the garage, and put the ignition key in our
car and start the ignition, we may very well not have an adequate,
evidence-based understanding of what is happening, but we believe---note that word
believe---that the car will start and
carry us down the road. Even if we do ‘know’ how a car works sufficiently to be
able to explain it accurately, that does not mean our knowledge comes from
evidence. More likely, it comes from studying and listening to people who have
some authority on the matter.
So, my opposition says, we do not have to have all of our
beliefs backed by demonstrative evidentiary experience, and that would be true
for most of us. So, we would never ask a mathematician to present evidentiary
proof that a line is a straight
one-dimensional figure having no thickness being a straight
one-dimensional figure having no thickness (that is, width) which extends
infinitely in both directions but ordinarily in practice
connects two points. Such belief as a mathematician has, particularly those
beliefs that are axiomatic, is clearly rational and not empirical. (Ah, that
annoying supposed distinction between rationalism and empiricism again. I won’t
go there.)
My response to the
assertion that we do not have to have all of our beliefs backed by demonstrative
evidentiary experience is usually as follows. If
I get on a bus it is because I know
that it is more probable than not
that I will get to my destination safely. Of course, the bus may crash or break
down along the way, but that doesn’t mean that it was not more probable than
not that that I would get to my destination safely. I never said it was certain
that I would arrive safely. I did not hold a belief that I would get to my
destination safely. It was simply a state of mind based on factual (relevantly,
statistical) probabilities. Call it an opinion if you like, but not a belief.
No, I am not playing word games here. My
state of mind was simply a confidence
based on factual probabilities. When I get onto a bus, or travel to work as
a passenger in a car driven by a friend, I simply have confidence in the truth
or existence of a state of affairs not susceptible to immediate proof but based
on statistical probabilities. If and when I get to my destination safely, the
existence of the hoped-for state of affairs will have been proven ex post facto, that is, it will by then
have been actualized.
In the case of
mathematical propositions (eg the above mentioned definition of a line, or the
definition of a triangle as a polygon with three edges and three vertices), we
are simply dealing with what are known as analytic propositions, that is, propositions the truth of which truth
depends solely on the meaning of its terms, that is, they are true or false by definition. They are grounded
in meanings, independent of matters of
fact. Indeed, all definitions are ultimately circular or tautological in
nature, since they depend upon concepts which must themselves have definitions,
a dependence which cannot be continued indefinitely without returning to the
starting point. Now, to call these propositions beliefs strains credulity.
I do of course agree
that we all have opinions on various
matters. We find facts, but rarely do the facts speak for themselves. In order
to know something we are often forced to draw conclusions and inferences from
objective facts, and often it is the case that different people can quite
reasonably draw different conclusions or inferences from the same set of facts.
Such is the nature of things. But, as I see it, beliefs are different things
altogether. A person believes something
when, not only do they not know whether that which is believed is true or not,
there is actually no possibility of a person ever knowing whether the thing believed
is true. In other words, the thing believed is not susceptible to rigorous
proof at all. It is not a case of the
thing believed being not immediately
susceptible to rigorous proof. It cannot
be proved at all. That is why it is ‘has’ to be believed. (Of course, it is
not obligatory to believe it at all, and I wouldn’t believe it anyway.)
Take, for example, a
literal belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, not all
Christians hold that belief but many do, and many of those who do regard that
belief as an essential tenet of the Christian faith. Speaking personally, I don’t believe that Jesus literally and bodily rose from dead. I like what the iconoclastic Anglican bishop Dr David Jenkins [pictured left] said about the Resurrection. He called the notion ‘a
conjuring trick with bones.’ How wickedly funny! Be that as it may, the question
of whether or not Jesus physically rose from the dead is a question of fact but
it is a matter that is not something capable of rigorous proof.
However, for something
to be provable it must be repeatable, and any event or supposed event in the
past is something that cannot be repeated. For that matter, we can’t even prove
that Jesus or Napoleon or any other person from the past was born or lived. In the case of the
supposed historicity of Jesus, it has been argued, with considerable justification in my view,
that there is insufficient independent historical evidence to safely conclude
that the person known as Jesus Christ, as
depicted in the New Testament, ever existed. In that regard, there
is not even one single demonstrably
authentic passage purporting to be written as history within the
first 100 years of the Christian era that shows the existence at or before that time of such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, called
the Christ, or of such a set of persons as could be accounted his disciples or
followers. Further, there is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the 2nd century.
That is fact.
Not only that, there is
the added problem that the physical world in which we live yields no
contemporary reliable evidence that people who are dead can be supernaturally
resurrected. I
speak as a lawyer here. (I wear a number of hats, sometimes more than one at the same time. It's fun.) If a jury were permitted to even consider such a
proposition, it would require expert testimony by someone scientifically qualified
to testify to the likelihood of the supernatural resurrection of one particular
dead person some two thousand years ago. However, there is no objective,
verifiable evidence, based on scientifically sound principles, which could be
adduced in a courtroom today that would establish the singularity of supposed
Jesus' alleged 'supernatural' resurrection some two thousand years ago. In order
for an expert's opinion to be reliable and thus admissible, it must be grounded
in verifiable propositions of fact, but in light of the logically probative
material available to us there are no reliable grounds upon which to assert
that supposed Jesus' alleged supernatural resurrection is based upon any
verifiable proposition of fact.
All
other religious beliefs---and many beliefs that are not religious in nature (eg political and ideological beliefs)---are
susceptible to the same sort of robust challenge. Now, some people say to me,
‘Well, you can’t prove it [that is, the supposed state of affairs believed in]
isn’t true.’ Of course, what these people fail to realize or admit is that the
onus of proof in these matters is on those who assert the existence of some
supposed state of affairs. Sometimes a more sophisticated argument is advanced
to the effect that the absence of evidence for some supposed state of affairs is said
not to be evidence of absence---that
is, not evidence of something not being the case. So, the absence of
evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is said not to be evidence that the
resurrection did not happen. However, the absence of evidence for some supposed
state of affairs is indeed evidence of absence where the ‘negative
evidence principle’ is satisfied. That principle has been stated as follows:
A person
is justified in believing that p is
false if (1) all the available evidence used to support the view that p is true is shown to be inadequate and
(2) p is the sort of claim such that
if p were true, there should be
available evidence that would be adequate to support the view that p is true and (3) the area where
evidence would appear if there were any, has been comprehensively examined. [Michael
Scriven, Primary Philosophy (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p 102.]
But, leaving
all of the above aside for the moment (assuming we can really do that), what
exactly is the problem with 'beliefs,' you may
ask? Well, Shakyamuni Buddha referred to beliefs as being in
the nature of thought coverings or veils (āvarnas). These thought coverings
or veils do not reveal reality, indeed they distort reality. How? Well, they
prevent us from knowing and experiencing things as they really are in all their directness and immediacy.
Belief is conditioning. Knowledge is experiential. A belief-system is a
distorting lens which experiences, processes and interprets but then distorts what happens through an amalgam of
beliefs, all of which are the past and conditioning.
I have always
found helpful these words attributed to the Buddha: 'Do not believe, for
if you believe, you will never know. If you really want to know, don't
believe.' There is also this sound advice from the Pāli texts:
In what
is seen, there should be only the seen;
in what is heard, only the heard;
in what is sensed, only the sensed;
in what is thought, only the thought.
However, when we see something through a
belief-system what is seen is filtered, interpreted, analyzed and judged
through the belief-system. No longer is it a case of that which is seen being only that which was
seen, or that which is heard being only what was heard, or that which is sensed
being only what was sensed, or that which is thought being only that which is thought.
Reality immediately becomes a new and altogether different reality. This is not
living mindfully.
We need to safely and mindfully 'navigate'
our way through life, but beliefs in the supposed existence of states of affairs in respect
of which there is no possibility of one ever knowing whether that which is
believed is really true stand in our way and hold us back. What
we really need
is knowledge and understanding. The very
nature of a belief is a mental construct based on an already
past presumed reality.
That is, by the time a particular belief has been formulated, the presumed reality
upon which that belief is purportedly based is no longer a present reality, if
it ever was a reality. It is now the past. Beliefs lock us into the past.
Beliefs imprison. They do not liberate. They are chains that bind us. Eschew beliefs. You don't need any.
To be continued.
It is said that the next day Tokusan burned all his books, scholarly notes
and commentaries. He declared, ‘In comparison to
this awareness, all the most profound teachings are like a single hair in vast
space. However deep the complicated knowledge of the world, compared to this
enlightenment it is like one drop of water in the ocean.’
One of the many things I like about
Buddhism is that its essential ‘message’ is that we must be our own teacher, saviour,
and disciple. No one outside of us can save us from ourselves. No one can find
truth for us. No one---no earthly person, god, or demi-god---can be truth for us. Truth just is, and our task is to see things as
they really are as they unfold unceasingly from one moment to the next. That is why truth is dynamic and not static. It is forever new and fresh. There is no 'way' or 'path' to truth, because truth just is, and it's all around us and within us. 
