The Ethics of Faith

Only one more, I promise! If people don't like these, I'll stop sending them.

This post will be about why faith is immoral. Some believe that it is okay (or, not immoral) to believe something even if all the available evidence points toward the falsity of that belief. Here's an example of what I mean: if you are holding a rock in your hand and you say to me, "I have faith that I am holding a rock in my hand," I would look at your weirdly. You don't need faith to believe that, every piece of evidence points toward it. Similarly, if my doctor tells me that my son will absolutely, 100% recover from his cancer scare (and shows me all the charts explaining how he knows this with great detail) and I say, "Honey, I have faith he will recover," my wife might take that as a sign of relief or something but not actually take it literally: I don't need to have faith in the recovery since every available piece of evidence points to the recovery.

The kind of attitude I'm speaking of is one where the doctor tells me that my son will not recover from the cancer whatsoever. Absolute zero percent, with every medical test pointing in that direction. If I now say that I have faith my son will recover, I mean exactly that: despite all the evidence pointing toward the truth of some proposition, I believe in it's falsity (or vice-versa).

What I want to know is: is this okay? You may say that what I believe is my own buisness. There is a counter-example to this. It's taken from W. K. Clifford's classic essay, "The Ethics of Belief."



Suppose your a shipbuilder. You've had this one ship for ages. Some company wants to rent your ship to send people out on a tour.

There's a lot of evidence that your ship is in bad shape and won't survive the journey: there are boards on the side missing, the rudder is failing, etc. Still, though, you firmly believe that the ship will make it across the ocean intact. You have faith that the ship will survive. The ships sets sail with 200 people... and sinks.

We'd all say that the shipbuilder did something immoral in this case. Now, let's change it around a little. Let's say the ship makes it across just fine! How does that affect our moral assessment of the shipbuilder? I'd say not one bit. Even though the ship did make it, he still did something immoral by sending the ship out since all the evidence pointed toward the vessel being unseaworthy.

The ships in this case can be equated to the beliefs we all have. Just as a ship potentially holds the lives of countless people, so any one belief you hold may lead someone to a course of action that wasn't open to them before. And if say you lead someone to kill themselves, lose a lot of money, etc., you had better be sure that you're belief is correct; just as the shipmaker is obligated to keep his ship in port if the evidence says he should, we are obligated to keep a belief to ourselves if the evidence for that belief is either weak or non-existant.

Conclusion: faith is immoral. Easy example, how many times have I seen this sentence on some poster: God Hates Gays. Well, you come to any belief in a number of different ways:

1) after reviewing the evidence as objectively as possible, you are lead to that conclusion;

2) your emotional or cultural leanings lead you to cherry-pick evidence in your favor;

3) your emotional or cultural leanings are your sole reason for that belief.

What's the evidence, in this case? A lone verse in Leviticus (or in the Koran). Now, if all that were at stake was a friendly bet, putting your money on God hating homosexuals wouldn't be wise on such flimsy evidence, but it at least it wouldn't be haremul. All you'd lose is some money. But that's not what is at stake. What's at stake is every gay who sees your bumper sticker, every lesbian who you have a religious discussion with, every heterosexual who becomes convinced that their homosexual roommate (or relative or friend) is hellbound. Many gays commit suicide because of this kind of religious tension, family strive or other sort of conflict.

Now, if a lesbian commits suicide because of your belief, you are partly responsible for that action. So, before you go spouting this stuff off, you had better be sure that the evidence for your belief is sound. If you're comfortable with the idea that someone's life will be miserable because you gave them your belief which you based on something written on a 2,000 papyrus scroll, go ahead and tell them that they are hellbound. I wouldn't go with 2) or 3) in basing beliefs that affect people around me like that.

This doesn't just apply to religious beliefs. Every belief you can think of (superstitions, politics, education, scientific) has potential effects like this. Just as the shipbuilder is responsible for every ship he builds, we are all responsible for every belief we choose to send out into the world. So, if you choose not to examine some of your most basic belief and apportion them to the available evidence, then you are an immoral person. Having blind faith in anything is wrong.

'"But," says one, "I am a busy man; I have no time for the long course of study which would be necessary to make me in any degree a competent judge of certain questions, or even able to understand the nature of the arguments."

Then he should have no time to believe.'

[BradyC]

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putting your money on God hating homosexuals wouldn't be wise on such flimsy evidence

[/ QUOTE ]

What Bible are you reading?

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Having blind faith in anything is wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't agree with blind faith, but just wondering under what authority you are declaring it wrong?

[txag007]

Blind faith is always dangerous. From a Christian perspective, Paul instructs us in 1 Thessalonians 5 to "test everything" and "hold on to the good". God gave us brains for a reason. He expects us to evaluate the evidence before making a logical decision on what we believe.

[PairTheBoard]

I tend not to read posts that have
been Wide Bodied by a big picture.
They are too hard for me to read.

PairTheBoard

[ QUOTE ]
I tend not to read posts that have
been Wide Bodied by a big picture.
They are too hard for me to read.

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]I have faith that you could do it if you tried.

The problem is not the shipbuilder's faith, but rather the shipbuilder putting his faith before the lives of others. Faith isn't intrinsically bad, but the places faith might take you can be bad (or good).

A better example for discussion, I believe, would be that of a Christian Scientist who does not believe in medical intervention. When he becomes sick, it is fine to deny medical treatment. If this person denies medical treatment for his sick child, that may be a different story.

[ QUOTE ]
The problem is not the shipbuilder's faith, but rather the shipbuilder putting his faith before the lives of others.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Now, in what ways do your beliefs affect others? I would agrue that every belief you hold has the potential to affect others. What you believe about the world manifests itself not only in things you do but in things you don't do. It's not as if you can partition off you beliefs about religion, politics, science, etc. when you interact w/ people on a daily basis.

Since every belief you hold has the potential to affect someone's life, and since there's no real way you can know which of your beliefs are affecting those around you, you have a moral obligation to only believe those propositions that are supported by the best available evidence.

The idea I take from this is that, if you do this, the ones around you are not being affected by your personal opinion but by actual reality. If I tell you "X" when X is true, then it's not me that's changing your life is some way but X, the true proposition in the world. If you tell me "Y" when evidence suggests otherwise, then reality is not affecting me but your own personal opinion.

We have an effect on the lives of others whether or not we have beliefs based on faith. But, it seems to be worth noting that those effects which come from faith may be beneficial to others, even to those who have no faith.

I admit to being a little lost, however. Your analogy between the shipbuilder's faith in his boat and a Christian's faith in god is a bit off the mark. The shipbuilder's faith has a physical manifestation; a Christian's faith does not usually manifest itself physically. An exception might be the faith in God's healing power.

[spaminator101]

there is one tough to grasp thing that i beleive
God does hate gays
while obvioulsy most christians beleive that "o, but God loves everybody", there are some of us who beleve in reformed theology and know that it is impossible that God loves everybody because he even said he hated esau in romans 9

[ QUOTE ]
there are some of us who beleve in reformed theology and know that it is impossible that God loves everybody because he even said he hated esau in romans 9

[/ QUOTE ]

Please tell me your not a Christian Reconstructionist.