In his first chapter, “God without the guff: how to keep faith and ditch religion,” the author, the founder of Holy Joe’s, a church in a pub in Clapham for disaffected churchgoers, affirmed that there is “a common misconception that being a Christian means you have to believe certain things—give the nod to a pile of religious ideas and theories. This is simply not so. Beliefs are important; I have lots of them. But I don’t think any of my beliefs are going to get me into heaven—or keep me out. […]
“Let’s get it clear: Christianity is about faith, not belief. There is a difference. Faith is about having trust, whereas belief is more akin to having opinions….”
Differencebetween.net defines belief over against knowing and knowledge, not faith: “‘Knowing’ means that you possess knowledge…. On the other hand, ‘believing’ means you have accepted something to be true,” though it may not be: “…you can choose in what you want to believe. […] ‘Believing’ is blind trust…. ‘Believing’ always leaves room for doubt….” In fact, “[a]n element of doubt should be put between ‘believing’ and ‘knowing’.” [Emphasis added]
In a posting to the website quora.com, Liz Calderon puts it this way: “‘I know’ implies absolute knowledge of something…. ‘I believe’ implies that you feel something is true, yet don’t have absolute proof of it.”
Yet, in the realm of religion, this appears to matter little. “Our religious beliefs are perhaps our most cherished beliefs,” Craig Vander Maas attests in his Featured Book, Beyond Religion: Finding Meaning in Evolution. “In fact, we hold them ’sacred’….” They are, after all, “something so ingrained and deep that they are unquestioned.” As he explains, beliefs “should be based on evidence.” But no: “People tend to form opinions based on emotion, and then use rationalization to defend these opinions.”
Critic and luminary Derek Sivers, in his review of the James Carse book, The Religious Case Against Belief, is emphatic: “Believers have crossed the line from uncertainty to conviction. There is no possibility of a reasonable objection. […] Belief marks the line at which thinking stops.” The master of one-liners, Steven Wright said as much when he observed, “A conclusion is the place you got tired of thinking.”
In his review of Carse, Sivers explains, “Deeply committed believers…see the world through their beliefs…. Therefore, whatever happens can only confirm the truth of what they believe. When we present believers with contrary ‘evidence,’ we only prove to them that we are outside the realm of faith, and therefore unable to see the world as it is. For this reason, belief systems are not only impervious to opposition, they thrive on it. […] Well-developed belief systems have the capacity to…[cleanse] the thinking of their believers of all mystery. Everything makes sense. […][K]nowledge has little influence over belief. […] Belief takes on a certainty that knowledge itself does not have. […] Belief refuses correction.”
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“Belief is always an act against”
“Belief is largely defined by its opposite,” Sivers reports. “Belief is always an act against; it requires an opponent who holds a contrary belief. …Belief systems are energized by their opposites. […] Because belief depends on hostile others, it is necessary for us as believers not to think what the others are thinking, or else it could pull us across the defined boundary into another system of belief. So we must be careful to know exactly where to stop in our thinking.
“[…] When we speak of ‘defending’ our beliefs, we obviously take them to be positions that we will hold against all challenges. The assumption is that we are certain about the truth of our beliefs, and that we are in hostile relation to nonbelievers.”
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Writer Julie Beck, in her essay in The Atlantic earlier this year [“This article won’t change your mind”], laments, “There are facts, and there are beliefs, and there are things you want so badly to believe that they become facts to you.” Oh, oh: “We can arrange beliefs on a scale that begins with casual asides and guesswork”—it’s Carse again. “At the opposite end are beliefs that we live and die for, or kill for.”
And here’s the thing: “Religions produce belief systems.” It’s like this: “[S]cholars have determined that people don’t use rational, instrumental reasoning when they deal with religious beliefs,” T.M. Luhrmann points out in a piece [“Faith vs. facts”] in The New York Times. “[W]hen people consider the truth of a religious belief, what the belief does for their lives matters more than, well, the facts. […] We evaluate religious beliefs more with our sense of destiny, purpose, and the way we think the world should be.”
“The investments that many religious adherents make to their beliefs are,” according to Jared Diamond writing in Salon in 2013 [“It’s irrational to be religious”], “burdensome, time-consuming, and heavy in consequences to them….”
So it is that qcc.cuny.edu reports how Christian apologist C.S. Lewis maintained that “there is an accumulation of evidence in the life of the believer that becomes self-authenticating. In this sense, religious beliefs can be claimed by the believer to be valuable and ’true’.”
“Reason and evidence offer no challenge to such beliefs,” a scholarly article from Australia [“Beliefs without reason”] makes plain. “Our emotional investment in them discourages us from paying attention to contrary evidence. […] ‘Beliefs without reason’ are beliefs which we have been taught to hold without being given adequate reasons. If the teaching is sufficiently strong, the result is to inculate us against the evidence.”
It’s as Sivers explains, “Once believers have selected their authority, genuine dialogue is abandoned. Discourse does not take its own spontaneous path, but is aimed always at correcting and strengthening the existing thinking of those who already believe. Indeed, an attempt at genuine dialogue within the belief system can be taken as an act of unbelief.”
So it is that the wise counsel Libby Howe shares in The Christian Century [“Convinced”] will be passed over: “In humility, most of what we think we know should be held loosely, with elastic built in to stretch it or add more to it—and a willingness to cut some of it out when new information and experiences become available. But to be convinced is to know in a way that resists and, perhaps, refuses to be moved. When we are convinced of something, the only new information we seek or accept is that which will confirm our already deeply held truth.”
It’s no wonder that, in the end, Bruce Reyes-Chow, in his book Everything Good about God is True: Choosing Faith, concluded, “Trying to prove—in mere words—why someone should believe: that’s a fool’s errand.” Funnily, ruefully, the UCC’s Gretta Vosper reached the very same conclusion: writing in April for progressivechristianity.org, she confessed, “Trying to get religious belief right is a fool’s errand.”
Ken Fredrick
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A sidebar
Countering belief perseverance
Summarizing its 16-page looksee at belief perseverance [“Why do we maintain the same beliefs, even when we are proven wrong?”], The Decision Lab explains, “Belief perseverance describes when we continue to hold onto our established beliefs even when faced with clear, contradictory evidence. We tend to prioritize our initial conclusions, and resist changing our minds, even when it might be in our best interest to do so.
“Belief perseverance results from a mixture of four factors. First, causal thinking encourages us to hold onto our initial explanations for beliefs in our memory. Second, cognitive dissonance makes us uncomfortable when we encounter evidence contradicting our beliefs. Third, confirmation bias propels us to dismiss any contrary evidence to preserve our initial ideas. Finally, our ego defense mechanisms sustain our instinct to be correct since we attach our beliefs to our self-identity. […]
“To avoid belief perseverance, we must foster an environment where everyone can be open to new evidence, and ready to adapt. This process means engaging in critical thinking, seeking feedback from diverse sources, and practicing reflection about our established beliefs.”
