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A willingness to bet everything on the hope that those propositions are true, to me, seems essentially equivalent to deliberately attempting to be more certain

by kup0 8y ago

A willingness to bet everything on the hope that those propositions are true, to me, seems essentially equivalent to deliberately attempting to be more certain about something than the available evidence warrants And it does seem willfully intellectually dishonest to do that, no matter how you frame it. I say this as someone that was a believer for 20+ years and is no longer. That said, I am not ascribing a value to whether "being intellectually dishonest" is always dangerous or bad for everyone. Overall I'd be inclined to say yes, at some deep/base level. But, it depends on the person and the way they use it. There are plenty of caring people I know that are religious, and in some ways, they use that faith to inspire them to do good things. There is always another side to that coin, though.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
> And it does seem willfully intellectually dishonest to do that, no matter how you frame it. That's really interesting to me. Can you elaborate on what about that strikes you as dishonest? To me, that kind of decision in the face of uncertainty is a normal occurrence. For example, in college I had to pick some major, and despite uncertainty regarding what would give me the happiest life, I went with computer science. Or to use a more well-worn example, when my wife tells me that she loves me, I admit there's the possibility that she's wrong, but as far as making decisions in life, I'm willing to assume she's telling the truth. Neither of those two examples strike me as dishonest in any way, and the seem to fit the definition I gave.
- kup0 8y ago
  Questions of evidence and trust (or trust vs. faith) complicate our conversation, I think. If you have consistent, major evidence that your wife does not love you, then it would be intellectually dishonest to believe she does. Some religious faith does the equivalent of this- believing in spite of evidence. The way you're framing "faith" to me is closer to what I would consider "trust" which IMHO is basically faith of future truth based on current evidence of said truth. Of course, the final wrench, is believers have sources that they think are evidence (holy books)- but that faux-evidence is not the kind I am referencing.

by kup0 8y ago

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

> And it does seem willfully intellectually dishonest to do that, no matter how you frame it. That's really interesting to me. Can you elaborate on what about that strikes you as dishonest? To me, that kind of decision in the face of uncertainty is a normal occurrence. For example, in college I had to pick some major, and despite uncertainty regarding what would give me the happiest life, I went with computer science. Or to use a more well-worn example, when my wife tells me that she loves me, I admit there's the possibility that she's wrong, but as far as making decisions in life, I'm willing to assume she's telling the truth. Neither of those two examples strike me as dishonest in any way, and the seem to fit the definition I gave.

kup0 8y ago
Questions of evidence and trust (or trust vs. faith) complicate our conversation, I think. If you have consistent, major evidence that your wife does not love you, then it would be intellectually dishonest to believe she does. Some religious faith does the equivalent of this- believing in spite of evidence. The way you're framing "faith" to me is closer to what I would consider "trust" which IMHO is basically faith of future truth based on current evidence of said truth. Of course, the final wrench, is believers have sources that they think are evidence (holy books)- but that faux-evidence is not the kind I am referencing.