Thursday, April 20, 2006
Education = Choice?
Scott Adams notes that[E]xtra-smart religious people almost always admit (privately) that their religion is more of a choice than a perception.But does this say more about religion or education? I commented:
Through most of college, I was sort of a Christian out of habit. Then while I was living in France I attended an Easter Mass as much for culture as anything and something clicked part way through the service that left me thinking, "Well, either I'm insane or there's something to this." It's ironic - I was "born again" in a Catholic church.
Knowing how I came to faith, I try not to be too judgmental of others' beliefs. At the same time, I think different people approach things from different angles. At one level, people want to know where we came from. At another level, the focus is on why we're here at all. At that point, you have to make a judgment as to whether it's more credible to believe this happened by chance or to believe in an intelligence taking the trouble to shape and make it.
I choose - as Scott said - to believe in the shaping intelligence bit because, as I noted, things that hadn't made sense before suddenly did one day when I was admittedly a bit suggestible. But since then, I have to confess, I haven't run across anything sufficient to change my mind. It's my brain and I'll think what I want with it.
I think many atheists cannot be quite this open-minded about their ignorance or their susceptibility to confusing what feels right with what they know. They're like fundamentalists in that regard. Religion may be easier to choose if you're ignorant, but if you're rational about most of life the illogical or unknowable can be equally scary. Easier to believe there's nothing there to know.
The educated ease away from religion because they're used to questioning but acclimated enough to knowing the answers that they're suspicious about things when they don't. They don't like the blind spot and are wary of being taken advantage of over it. Especially by such as the delusions that prompted people to send money to Jim and Tammy Faye.
Educated people who are religious, I think, are aware of this blind spot and the limitations it places on finding The Truth but like that it allows them room to find their own truth. And others room to find theirs. Knowing they've chosen the delusion of faith over the delusion of meaninglessness, though, the educated can be freer about the choices others make than either dogmatic believers or dogmatic atheists.
Scott notes that the educated religious choose to believe, rather than being compelled. I suspect the educated atheist has better reasons to disbelieve than the unionist who got into communist propaganda too. In fact, the educated make choices all the time that are lacking for the uneducated. Educated Scott writes affirmations to stay on track while uneducated scribbles wish their strips would get picked up, to take an example at random. What Scott has revealed is interesting, then, not for the questions it raises about religion but about what can be done with life depending on whether one's eyes are open or shut to the world's possibilities. Education opens eyes, hence choices. Including choosing which unknowable to "know".
posted by gbarto at 8:04 PM