It is time for the world to embrace doubt. Running the hamster wheel for 3500 years of failed promises and the recent increases in divisive belief—beliefs that cause more hatred and self superiority, where peace is mere wordplay without ever meeting that objective.
It is time to doubt. Doubt that all you ever thought you knew was true. Doubt that the founders of religion and wealth blazed trails in actual wisdom, or just the most eloquently wrong winners of a debate in the history of the world. They’ve had their shot. Man and his belief has been the hurdle before the growth of our species. Mere convictions of primitive thought—hopes that have proven they have not elevated humanity. Doubt the path we are on will now unite us to make the world awesome. We can do better.
The failures are evidenced without a doubt. But we still church it up for the kids sake long after we know the intended result is a farce—never a fruition.
But, just hang in there, have faith and keep doing the same thing over and over. Someone once said that was crazy.
HERE is an Excellent TED on the gospel doubt. It is time to change directions.
TheCommonAtheist 
Yes, they’ve had more than enough time in the driver’s seat to do a lousy job, & they should back off so someone else can step up to the plate.
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We must be crazy to think we’ve figured it all out. The beliefs everyone so desperately clings to need overhauling. For so long we’ve unvested in faith to fix our woes. Without believing in doubt nothing will change. We have to know by now we chose poorly and must doubt the way we’ve always done things. All of it!
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Science is always finding new, & changing things up…..don’t understand why some just cannot/will not ”get it”.
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You’ll have those who doubt religion’s claims and you will also have those who doubt science’s claims (as opposed to scientific proof) and you will always have the conspiracy theorists (counting myself as one of those independent thinkers). You will always have those “will not” get it simply because we are an evolving sentient species and we will never goose-step as one in Orwellian fashion. That would definitely be the end of us as a thinking species. The world we live in is complex; the greater reality much more so. We are driven questers and to bring balance you have to have those who hold back with traditions. If we simply accepted everything at face value as it comes; as it is offered, things would be much more chaotic than they are, if there even was any homo sapiens race left. Personally I decided decades ago to trust no one, and nothing; to question everything; to begin every line of inquiry with, “I don’t buy that.” Eventually of course I’ll have to buy into something but by then I will have weighed the value of it, and the possible consequences. Not everything that shines is gold. Not everything unproven is worthless but the worth, to me, comes from my own choices, not from someone else’s dictates. If I cannot prove it for myself, “it” remains a matter of faith and I’m never comfortable with that.
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Jim, once again, you said it. Doubt. Most every believer I’ve ever encountered has agreed that ‘everyone has doubts.’ Okay, so that’s a start. The next step is to face those doubts. Actually, honestly face them. Acknowledge that, yes, this an untenable, unreasonable (emphasis on the word ‘reason’) thing that I profess I believe and then ask yourself, “Why do I believe it?” You may be surprised, as I was, with your answer…. er… hhhmmm, yeah, there really is no good, rational reason to believe this stuff.
It’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward. It’s foreign. But, soon you realize that lightning bolts aren’t coming from the sky to strike you down and maybe, just maybe, it was always just a delusion.
Welcome to reality. It’s actually quite interesting.
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And it’s time to doubt the way things are done. With all the promises, peace on earth and good will to all men, the system of Jesus Christ is a failure and failures outcome over and over. Sounds like some good ideas, but faith is a poison to the souls of men. I love your answer. “Why do I believe it”. That exposes our true weakness pretty quick.
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Asking myself that question sure did it for me.
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Indeed, as a committed skeptic doubt is what I believe most. 🙂 The emperor has no cloths and the quacks gain wealth on the backs of their true believers.
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The entire system is in question. All of it. We keep asking the same people the questions. The answers are longer, and now instead of bullshit we have horseshit.
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True.
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“We can do better.”
Not only can we do better, we should all WANT to do better.
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No Ben, we have the truth. We should stick with that through faith. I know the world is in trouble, but that’s because no one has Jesussed it right yet.
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When I was a faithful believer, I thought I had been Jesussed and that’s what made me such a good egg. But the “true believers” informed me that I was using man’s standards of goodness and not God’s standard. So it turns out I was never good after all. This good egg had, in fact, been deviled.
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We’ve been on the wrong road so long but keep asking the same wrong questions to the same wrong people and going deeper in the same direction in spite of a near empty tank on fumes. Just keep heading west. Eventually ending up right where we started. Again. Belief isn’t going to get us there.
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I doubt this will happen any time soon. I also have serious doubts that anyone on the kitchen is going to bring me a coffee, so I reckon I shall just have to go and make it myself.
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I’m not sure if you meant to, but you nailed the point of the video. After all the believin’ what’s going to get us anywhere is us.
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Thank you for that link (I am usually loathe to view videos). have you read Karen Armstrong’s History of Doubt” Good book.
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Sounds intriguing. One thing I’ve focused on recently is the truth, those solutions we seek are currently at complete odds with the way we are attempting to solve them. The tried and failed only now requires admission that we have traveled far down the wrong road. That is the first step to recovery. Can mankind overcome belief mode and it’s limitations? No, Probably not. It is still much easier to be duped than to admit to it.
Ps, I don’t typically watch videos either but this one is a gem.
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“reach for the heavens and hope for the future and all that we can be and not what we are” John Denver
No doubt about it. Expecting the best of humanity is not unreasonable but it can feel frustrating.
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This clinging to the past and hoping the future ends, the nuts and bolts of belief needs a revisit from the bottom to the top. We took a long wrong fork in the road many moons ago. Admitting it is step one.
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Any discussion on doubt always brings up interesting points. On this blog most discussion is aimed at “religion” and particularly beliefs in invisible divinities, more particularly in the Judeo-Christian God Yahweh. No “doubt” about it, if one ascribes to his “inspired” record he turns out to be shady, creepy, oft vile character. It should go without saying that no intelligent person could possibly trust such a creature but it also should go without saying that no such person would support a Donald Trump, so there you have it: intelligence does not equal wisdom. There are other forces at work on this world that deserve at least the same amount of “doubt” as does religion, powers currently much more destructive and debilitating, two of which are our so-called governments and capitalism, or banksterism. These are not what they claim to be and the result of their interference in the flow of life globally can readily be seen by any observing person. Religion has proved itself a total failure, certainly and survives due to brainwashing and tradition but the very same thing can be said of any status quo including politics and economics. I extracted myself from organized religion some 35 years ago so I’ve had lots of time to walk away from its effects. Beating up on it doesn’t “turn me on” as it used to. What I see now is the much more devastating effects of the combination of fascist patriotism aligned with predatory capitalism. These are just as much “religions” requiring faith and the support of individual believers. We are blindly allowing these forces to despoil our natural environment by the pursuit of endless wars. Let me ask: what good is it to turn away from one fake religion essentially toothless to continue supporting two more that are destroying us and our world in front of our very eyes? That are stealing the future from our children? I think “doubt” needs to apply to a much broader target than irrelevant “old time religion.” I’m much more concerned about what takes place in Washington, Number 10 Downing, Tehran, Wall Street, Beijing, Hong Kong or Brussels than whatever inanities ooze out of the Vatican, Salt Lake City, Westminster or any televangelist studio. This is only my personal opinion, and where my mind is at today.
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Not sure if you had a chance to see the video, but he addresses all your concerns quite well. It isn’t just religion, it’s a top to bottom retooling. We’re all wrong and it stemmed from a path decided millennia ago. It’s well worth the watch if you have a moment. I don’t share things like this often unless I mean it! Haha
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i speak with so much conviction, sometimes i worry i may start believing what i say😄
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Hahaha. I know right? Believe everything, believe in nothing, as a dear friend of mine often says.
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haha! love that!! there is another saying amongst zen folks “don’t believe everything you think”. or “let your thoughts in, but don’t serve them tea” … one should be vigilant 😂
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Can one successfully be vigilant by trying, or is true vigilance letting go and trying by not trying?
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everything becomes effortless when we master it😊
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Hmmm… I do question that one. Not my experience.
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Good points, Jim. I think of doubt as hard, critical thinking, but mostly the willingness (key) to dig around and ask questions.
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Well, like the end of the video, we have to doubt everything about the way of life we’ve accepted, then take responsibility for changing it. We certainly have all the tools in the universe at our disposal, yet we tolerate suffering in the name of dogmas as the necessary evils of our systems—economic, political, and religious.
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Asking a question is endearing to others. It’s a win-win.
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Thank you, Jim, for bringing the TED talk to our attention. I love TED talks, and this one ranks at the top. The topic of “doubt” brings to mind the one guy who “doubted” Jesus’s story of being raised from the dead. Good ol “Doubting Thomas” who, of course, is vilified by the church, which of course, means “Doubt is good.”
Great post.
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interesting thought but doesn’t faith grow from doubt? A leap of faith can only be made by someone who doubts.
Also; to embrace doubt holistically, one most except the possibility of god wholly?
To embrace doubt one must doubt atheism along with also doubting theism.
Fascinating!!
I can easily doubt religion with you 😉
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I think the idea here at the end of the video is if we are going to change we need to doubt the way we’ve been doing things and try a better way. Belief has had its due process. People continue the same beliefs as the world deteriorates, but with so much time invested, it’s a sunk cost fallacy.
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Do you see technology as a solution?
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That would depend on the problem requiring a solution, would it not? Technology is a machine and machines have been used to “solve” problems. We have to be watchful that our language doesn’t deify technology, or grant it a sentient life of its own. Technology by itself does not solve problems and often the costs to planet and people using technology are much higher than anticipated, if they were anticipated at all. As a rule, speaking as a life-long techie, technology solves short term problems but creates long term ones. Introduction of chemical poisons in the environment for example. The convenience of plastic and disaster at sea. Commuter traffic and air pollution. Drone warfare. Cell phone technology and the cancer shadow. Conclusion: technology can be a short term problem solver but it is not “a solution.”
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As a fellow techie I would say your assessment is accurate.
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Not sure how to address that. Arthur C Clarke stated “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. As the relevance and influence of god has been systemically deconstructed in every discipline but one, and while there is no more magic, belief is as high as it ever has been. Everyone desires some type of unprovable. It is belief that is the seedbed of division, war, political dissatisfaction, and the polarizing force behind all the rhetoric, while simultaneously it is the safest time in the known history to be alive. Chances of reaching natural death are greater than ever, yet dissatisfied lives abound.
Technology has possibly made life so easy appreciation for things has suffered. People have bags of thought-time and know not what to do with it but fight for their piece of half truths. Better technology has given humans to bitching about everything. More of it may have a lot of unintended consequences. Technology for food maybe.
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You Stated — “Better technology has given humans to bitching about everything.”
My Response — But there’s the rub, a world where we all agree will be almost instant death.
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Certainly so.
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I think faith can also extend from indoctrination, either intentional or unintentional. For instance teaching your children than some religion is true doesn’t teach them to doubt, and if you’re of the evangelical bent, you can teach them that doubt is the devil working through them and that they should suppress this. Another example would be the way in which consumerism and capitalism is normalized in U.S. society. Whether this is intentional or not when the whole of society seems to revolve around money, company growth, marketing, buying more shit, etc it’s hard to have doubt and simply believe that this is the natural way for things to be.
I guess when one’s views aren’t built on evidence, even if you aren’t aware of the contradictory evidence that exists, I would still say you are operating on faith, even if you don’t know it. lol
But I guess it is all how you define faith which can refer specifically to religious beliefs, or to just a casual usage of “I have faith that my wife will be there for me if I’m sick and need care”. Even in that casual usage, I am not sure how doubt fits in. Essentially almost anything we believe to be true may not be true subject to appropriate evidence. I think it’s possible to not have doubt, but to hear some new piece of evidence and say, wow I didn’t know that, and yes this changes the way I think about X from now on. Or now I need to investigate this further because I have doubt.
So I guess I see doubt as something that erodes faith over building it up. I’ve always seen the “leap of faith” as leaping over those inconvenience pieces of evidence that would prevent you from having faith in the first place, rather than seriously considering them and making the leap in spite of counter-evidence. lol
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I Stated — “Interesting thought, but doesn’t faith grow from doubt? A leap of faith can only be made by someone who doubts.”
Your Response — “I think faith can also extend from indoctrination”
My Response — So we agree that faith comes from doubt but your additional thought is that indoctrination is another path. Here’s the rub, if indoctrination is believed… a person doesn’t need faith. If the indoctrination fails (which it almost always does) then they need faith to continue past the disbelief.
Hebrews 11:1
11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Why would you hope for something you already know you have unless you didn’t believe you had it?
hope:
Hope is something that you want to happen, like your hope to visit Paris this summer.
But a person with a plane ticket doesn’t need hope.
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As I argued, this depends on how you define faith. Personally I don’t use one verse from the bible as the arbiter of its definition. I’m using the dictionary here:
noun
1.
complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
2.
strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
Not sure where doubt is a requirement for any of those definitions.
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Indoctrination creates patterns of familiar ritualistic or dogmatic understandings, which by the way are almost completely disbelieved by all religious people. They do however find comfort in community and stability, which also by the way creates segregation and hate of other communities (religion). This is more of a human condition than it is a seeking of god, we know this because the same pattern repeats it’self in politics, and culture.
Faith and the leap to it, is a breakaway from disbelief, ritual and dogmatic understandings. A person who takes a leap of faith toward God breaks religion and is free to believe or disbelieve without cognitive dissidence. No doubts moving forward and none walking away. They can honestly say they tried and this was the outcome.
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You Stated — “For instance teaching your children than some religion is true doesn’t teach them to doubt.”
My Response — But children doubt anything they are told. The more you tell them the more they doubt, challenge and resist.
-Smoking is bad for you
-Wait until you are married before having sex
-Don’t sin or you will go to hell
I’m not aware of any children obeying or even believing what parent says. We humans do as we please and it pleases us to fit in (not faith) but it could look like it from the outside since they are all at church on Sunday.
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But children doubt anything they are told. The more you tell them the more they doubt, challenge and resist.
Have you read anything about how indoctrination has worked in history. Children absolutely buy into what their parents say, especially if you start young enough. Please provide some evidence that children can’t be indoctrinated. I’d love to see some evidence showing that children don’t automatically reject things their parents say.
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You Stated — ‘Please provide some evidence that children can’t be indoctrinated.”
My Response — That’s easy, hell and the punishment for sin. How many children or adults stopped sinning?
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I would offer in nearly every case of feral children who were displaced before the age of three, lived in the wild and learned the morality of the pack or whatever the host species is, was thoroughly indoctrinated to a way of life and morality that can’t be shaken. Proof enough morality is a learned behavior and is seldom unlearned. These children are rarely able to function as a human and believe and behave as a wolf, antelope,monkey, etc. It absolutely is untrue. Children believe everything by default. That’s why “train up a child in the way he should go” is vital to the church. If religion were withheld til legal adulthood it would be eradicated in a generation.
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They may rebel, but extremely gullible. Santa and Easter bunny ring a bell?
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I can’t argue that.
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You Stated — “Another example would be the way in which consumerism and capitalism is normalized in U.S. society.”
My Response — But where is the spotlight on the enablers?
— We are store stocked and ready every morning by China and mexico
— Our cars are filled up and ready for shopping by Iran and Saudi Arabia
— We get all our questions answered by India so we can shop smarter and eat longer.
This is a global pattern of support and neglect. America is not to blame… mankind is.
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Actually we are responsible for largely creating this type of imperialism. The days of occupying a country like Britain and other European nations are over. America has done it through economics. American corporations were the ones who made the decision to outsource, to move overseas to exploit cheap labor and evade taxation. So let’s not forget the U.S. role in why those countries are what they are now.
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You Stated — “American corporations were the ones who made the decision to outsource, to move overseas to exploit cheap labor and evade taxation. ”
My Response — There are no corporations only people with titles working in offices. People exploit cheap labor.
You know, us, our friends, our family. We do it 😉 Let’s not pretend that corporations are living entities.
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Have a made the argument that corporations are not composed of people? I was simply refuting your claim that America doesn’t deserve unique blame for the state of capitalism in today’s global economy. Also America is composed of people as well…are we not allowed to use any word that represents groups of people now? Your argument doesn’t make sense.
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America doesn’t deserve unique blame.
Blame only the people who caused it and those that support it. Anything less than this is cognitive dissidence since one can’t blame another while at the same time being the cause without conflict.
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You’re the one who used the word America before. Not me.
And hey I am not totally blameless. It took time to see what was going on. It takes time to understand how to be effective in change. I am not saying I am the most guilty, especially since I grew in Canada, but for a long time I didn’t care about politics at all, and that was a mistake. America has an identity, it has certain foreign policies, it has certain tax laws, and so when I talk about America as entity I am referring to it’s government, it’s power, and it’s wealth and what it has chosen to do with it. I see no conflict there.
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You Stated — “I see no conflict there.”
My Response — I see a conflict since the voters can change all of the above at any time and the world can also stop enabling us at anytime.
But it does not please any of us to do so. Let’s just own it, we like are fast food comfy couch and air conditioning.
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Wait so now you’re saying everybody is to blame? You change tunes faster than radio stuck on the scan setting.
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You Stated — “Wait so now you’re saying everybody is to blame?”
My Response — Even though if you scoll up you will see where I earlier replied with this verbatim
“My Response — There are no corporations only people with titles working in offices. People exploit cheap labor.
You know, us, our friends, our family. We do it 😉 Let’s not pretend that corporations are living entities.”
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I think you mean cognitive dissonance?
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Yes 😀 sorry, I was typing while ironing and watching TV. I just drove two hours for training and was in a bit of a rush. (and running late)
I’m never at home in a hotel.
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You Stated — “I guess when one’s views aren’t built on evidence, even if you aren’t aware of the contradictory evidence that exists, I would still say you are operating on faith, even if you don’t know it.”
My Response — Given the number of scientist and educated graduates that seek God this statement is nonsensical. Level of knowledge does not determine belief and if one wanted to end religion, education wouldn’t do it (ask the 911 hijackers)
You Stated — “But I guess it is all how you define faith which can refer specifically to religious beliefs”
My Response — Faith can exist in the absence of religion. Keep in mind that when people start having more faith is usually when churches want them out.
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Given the number of scientist and educated graduates that seek God this statement is nonsensical. Level of knowledge does not determine belief and if one wanted to end religion, education wouldn’t do it (ask the 911 hijackers)
This is the fallacy of composition./division here. Pulling isolated examples doesn’t necessarily disprove a general correlation between education and agnosticism and atheism. This correlation is well-established.
But the idea that anybody can have blind spots is well understood and the fact that the way beliefs form neural pathways create cognitive dissonance, so that you are simply ignoring contradictory evidence and again not building your belief on doubt as you initially claimed.
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You Stated — “Pulling isolated examples doesn’t necessarily disprove a general correlation between education and agnosticism and atheism.”
My Response — It easily does and without effort. India and China have more honor students than we have children and yet the march of spiritualism is rampant in their beliefs.
I repeat, Education does not solve the challenge of faith or religion. It never has in the history of the world and the entire existence of mankind.
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It easily does and without effort. India and China have more honor students than we have children and yet the march of spiritualism is rampant in their beliefs.
The devil is in the details here. India has a decline in religiosity since it has increased it’s ability to educate people. And just because someone is religious doesn’t necessarily correlate them to being more fundamentalist about their religion.
Secondly education is a broad word. The important thing to note is what is the education they are receiving? China indoctrinates children heavily into a political narrative. I am not sure that counts as spirituality. The point being that if you don’t have freedom of information, or that you are only given certain information, this of course is going to lead you to a certain path towards belief. Of course education isn’t the only factor that plays into whether we believe something or not. I never claimed that it was. My only argument here is that doubt need not play a role in how faith is built.
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You statement is interesting but only an opinion not a fact.
Education is not removing religion from the world only spreading and fracturing it into more religions.
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Well it’s an opinion supported by research. Again education isn’t the only factor that determines religiosity. All other things being equal, such as standard of living, freedom information, etc and educated populace will be more secular.
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I can also stand on research but then “who’s source is more correct or believable” I say we lean on bias and choose our own.
We will in the end anyway.
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You Stated — “I have faith that my wife will be there for me if I’m sick and need care”. Even in that casual usage, I am not sure how doubt fits in.
My Response — If you know someone will be there, that is a knowledge of a fact not faith or belief. If you have faith they will be there then you have some doubts due most likely to the normal obstacles of life, (time, devotion, truth).
You Stated — “Essentially almost anything we believe to be true may not be true”
My Response — That’s doubt and it’s nature persists through indoctrination and evidence.
You Stated — “So I guess I see doubt as something that erodes faith over building it up.”
My Response — Doubt has no limit to a persons bias. It erodes the believer and nonbeliever alike but the great thing about doubt is that it eventually forces you to push back hard or move on. (leap)
You Stated — “I’ve always seen the “leap of faith” as leaping over those inconvenience pieces of evidence”
My Response — And yet a person who takes a leap of faith either becomes a hardened atheist or hardened theist based on the outcome of the leap.
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If you know someone will be there, that is a knowledge of a fact not faith or belief. If you have faith they will be there then you have some doubts due most likely to the normal obstacles of life, (time, devotion, truth).
Absolutely not true. I can’t 100% predict the future. I have a history of support from my wife, that doesn’t guarantee that it will be there in the future. I am not building my faith on the doubt I have, I am building it on the empirical evidence I have collected about her being there.
the great thing about doubt is that it eventually forces you to push back hard or move on.
Again not true. It can simply leave you in a state of uncertainty, and that’s okay. It can make you actually search for more information confirming whether or not you should have doubt and how much doubt is reasonable. You can absolutely hold a position of I’m pretty sure this is true, but not 100% sure. There is no leap of faith required over a lack of certainty.
And yet a person who takes a leap of faith either becomes a hardened atheist or hardened theist based on the outcome of the leap.
So where does doubt come in here? Next this is not necessarily symmetrical. We might leap to any conclusion we like, but that says nothing about the rightness of the endpoint. Recent studies have demonstrated that doubt stems from the same area of our brain as disgust, it’s just a lighter version. Point is that it’s an emotion. Depending on which emotions are strongest, doubt may play a really small role. If you are religious, and by being not religious you stand to lose your community, friends and loved ones, it’s not really doubt that is keeping you in the faith, it’s your desire to remain connected to the people you hold dear.
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You Stated — “I can’t 100% predict the future. I have a history of support from my wife, that doesn’t guarantee that it will be there in the future. ”
My Response — Exactly, doubt! Now we are on the same page.
You have a belief that she will be there. If you close your eyes and fall back for her to catch you… that will be a leap of faith.
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Wow. It’s amazing how you read my argument as proof for your claim. As I said in the next sentence, my faith isn’t built on the doubt at all, it is built on evidence. My decision to fall in love with her could be said to be a leap of faith since I didn’t have evidence. But I also wasn’t worrying about doubt…I chose to let the joy and love dictate my faith, not doubt. And I have done this several times, and in several times I wished I had doubt because signs were there and I had a broken heart to show for it. No doubt came into play for any faith I’ve had in another person.
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You Stated — “My decision to fall in love with her could be said to be a leap of faith since I didn’t have evidence. ”
My Response — As Sam Harris would say, “That wasn’t your decision”, you have been indoctrinated from birth on what to like and who to love.
Let’s agree to disagree since the nature of what we are talking about is far more complicated than your original response.
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Whether I have free will or not is immaterial to the discussion. This is just another deflection.
You haven’t made a convincing argument that doubt is what faith is built on. This was the only point to my argument and provided several examples of how faith could be built on other things. Instead you have simply strawmanned the arguments to be about something else. I should have opted out the moment you tried to claim that indoctrination doesn’t work on children.
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You can opt out anytime you want but keep in mind you have not made a convincing argument and that is why we are still debating.
Let’s agree to disagree.
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I think it’s time for everyone to doubt that the way things have been done for many years is ok. The beliefs we’ve had have led us to where we are. As stated in the video, the gospel of doubt is to question whether anything at all we have believed has been even partly true. After all the promises of a better life through faith it has yet to display as such. The funny thing is the most faithful segments are after the ones that believe the hardest, and keep believing all the way through in spite of the failure of it.
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You Stated — “I think it’s time for everyone to doubt that the way things have been done for many years is ok. ”
My Response — I would go one step further and say that without doubt mankind is doomed.
Doubt is a survival instinct that has benefited mankind from the cave to the office.
I’m highly suspicious of anyone who lacks doubt in their own understanding of reality.
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Quote: ” If you are religious, and by being not religious you stand to lose your community, friends and loved ones, it’s not really doubt that is keeping you in the faith, it’s your desire to remain connected to the people you hold dear.” I know people here who are disgusted with the (right-winged) direction their church-religion is going but will not leave for the very reasons you state above.
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Yes I agree Sha’Tara that the past information are facts…for me the faith comes in for predicting future scenarios. Since I can’t be 100% certain that my wife WILL come through for me, but based on past evidence it seems likely. But that faith is built on evidence, not doubt, which was my only point.
And yes faith is governed by many things…doubt may play a role sometimes, but more often than not doubt is the rockfall that begins the avalanche away from the things you hold true, not the builder of what you believe to be true.
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You just made me think of something! I realize I’ve never actually stopped and looked back to “see” what it was, particularly, that made me finally abrogate all my previous commitments to religious organizations. Maybe it was, as said here, that gnawing doubt that kept eating away at my religious faith until common sense replaced it. I used to do “good things” inside religion but I never could have realized from within the institution that with personal choice through self empowerment I could do so much more without expecting some divinity to whisper, “well done, good and faithful servant.” Eventually I realized I was doing all the work; I wasn’t getting any divine help or support, in fact divine organizations, while working against me, were taking their share of my income and labour. The problem with religion (sorry, off the topic here) is that they are nothing but parasitic enterprises. You can get something from a gambling casino and men find some pleasure in a whorehouse, or a race track where you can actually see some people winning, but absolutely nothing from a church. “Faith is the substance of brainwashing, the evidence of mindlessness.” There, I think that’s a pretty good correction for a start.
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At best it seems to me that the Bible offers some general good advice, which can be found in many religions, but is also fairly observable given you are paying attention to how you work and how people work in general. We can say the Bible tells us to help the poor, but in what way? For that we need to do the work ourselves, to find effective means for relieving poverty and improving people’s lives. Religion often provides the organizational structure needed for cooperation, but doesn’t really have any incentive to act wisely about how to do anything, as long as they can check a box to say they are helping. And hey that may be better than nothing, but there are plenty of secular reasons for helping poor people, and the personal rewards are also apparent without any whispers from the divine. In fact it seems to me that organized activities whose goal it is to “do God’s work” as the primary reason to do it, skips over the real value of helping people and the benefits on this plane of existence.
“Faith is the substance of brainwashing, the evidence of mindlessness.”
This is essentially true, because what does evangelical Christianity teach? You alone are evil, born a sinner. Only through giving up yourself and by having the Holy Spirit working through you as a vessel are you redeemed. Your mind is a danger, your doubts a sign of the devil, and thus mindless obedience is your best path to heaven. It’s terrible.
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Thanks for that wonderful response. I think that any organization, even individual, whose goal is to ‘do God’s work’ can only result in hypocrisy – no way around that. The intent is not to help another but to take their freedom away by hoping to enslave them to a belief system.
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I actually don’t care for most TED talks but this one was, or seemed to be, quite honest. I’ve been operating on doubt and to be honest, raw distrust of everything ballyhooed by all aspects of the status quo since I became an environmentalist in the early 70’s, and since I once and for all quit all aspects of religion in the early 80’s. Believe all things, believe in nothing, that’s me. In my mind, capital, science and technology hold no superior positions to organized religion, often quite less. Same bullshit, same exploitation, same results. Religion needs no proof whereas science “proves” things only to have “science” disprove, replace and re-prove. Meanwhile, whether it’s tithing to a church of mega tax dollars to NASA and “research” it remains the same: the working stiff is being stiffed to fatten the fat cats. Religion continues to fuel insane wars whereas science and technology are plunging the planet into an inferno. Choices? Doubt, distrust and dump all of it, focus on becoming humane human beings. If we can’t do that, if we can’t become compassionate beings then we have no place here and the sooner we’re gone the better for all else concerned.
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