Fact: Religion is not Reasonable - Promoting Unreason (faith) has its Consequences

Science is not a "thing," a doctrine or a set of beliefs — it is a mode of thinking and method of inquiry. There is no Book. Once this concept is grasped, the errors in reasoning committed by the writer of the May 3 letter to the editor entitled Muddying the Waters ought to become obvious. But, because an understanding of these errors will, invariably, continue to elude some, I fear it necessary to bring more to bear upon the subject.

There is an unsettling fact I think most religiously inclined readers will be loath to accept: Religion is not reasonable.

I mean this in the most analytical sense, of course, in that religious belief is not based upon reason, but upon authority. The claims to "Truth" by Jesus or Mohammad rest entirely upon the basis of their assertions to have been (in the case of Jesus) the son of God, or (in the case of Mohammad) to have communed with God through an intermediary: These are not reasons — these are simply further claims.

This is precisely why such doctrines are called "faiths." It takes an active willingness to suspend one's otherwise critical faculties in order to believe — on the basis of no evidence — that the claims proffered by such men are true. This is, incidentally, the very definition of irrational behaviour.                       

 

Science, however, is unlike religion. The only basis for its claims is that they are reasonable — that is, reason-based. Our belief in the accuracy of the statement "the Earth goes round the sun" is not premised upon who utters the statement, but upon what reasons we are given for believing it to be so.

There is, in this sense (and contrary to the assertions of the writer), no falsity to the dichotomy proffered by Scott Thompson in his April 30 column on the Comment page entitled Terror in the Name of God. Reason, and the application of reason to the discovery of truths about our world (a process we commonly call "science" or "scientific"), really is on one side of the equation, while superstition and unreason really are on the other.

The question posed by Thompson as to whether those who support and promote an unreasonable view of the world ought to be, in some way, held accountable for the actions of followers who take religious texts seriously, is a pressing one.

Apologists for religion, such as the writer, want everyone to believe that it's simply the work of a few extremists — a few bad apples — who bring a measure of disrepute to religion.

But this, surely, is a faulty, ahistoric and myopic view that betrays a certain naiveté about the true nature and effect of religion (as systems of irrational beliefs) upon the minds of otherwise morally decent people.

Religious observance — which is simply another way of saying "a dogmatic and unreflective fidelity to the dictates of an authority that demands obedience" — really is linked to the 9/11 attacks, the Boston bombings, the denial of condoms to AIDS-ravaged sub-Saharan African communities, the genital mutilation of girls (and boys), and to the deaths and enslavement of millions in a way that a mode of thinking or method of inquiry can never be.

I grant without reservation, of course, that for the majority of followers, faith has not entirely dulled their moral faculties. Despite, for example, the Koran's (and the Bible's) ringing endorsement of such inhuman practices as slavery, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and murder, most religiously inclined folks have found a way to navigate around these less-noble parts of their faith in order to act decently toward others. But this feat has always been achieved in spite of religion, not because of it.

In this respect then, it should come as no surprise that those who are attracted to unreasonable claims in the first place will include highly unreasonable people who are utterly incapable of reasoning their way out of their faith's commandments to, for example, murder infidels, subjugate women or kill homosexuals.

And so, contrary to the writer's assertion that all faiths should get a free pass, I would suggest that any system of unreasonable claims — whose leaders actively recruit and retain people who are themselves apt to believe such things — ought to share some of the blame when things go, as it were, entirely by the Book.

Thankfully, for reason and science, there is no such Book — and so far as I know, no downside to being "extremely" reasonable.

T. David Marshall is a lawyer and former lecturer in ethics and lives in Cayuga.

Available at: http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/2555864-fact-faith-is-not-reasonable/
See also http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/2257233-didn-t-galileo-show-us-truth-is-not-found-in-authority-and-obedience-/
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