Most people make the unreasonable assumption that other people are pretty much like themselves (potentially) and if these others do not behave the way we believe they should (more like us) then there must be something wrong with them. One’s political preferences will often coincide with this belief.

Cataloging one’s beliefs is easier said than done. I am of the temperament that resists dogmatism. You could say I’m wishy-washy. Trouble is, for every firm conviction one might have, there is an equally firm conviction on the other side. Having the ability to understand both positions can lead to intellectual paralysis. Better to be skeptical of both positions and search for something deeper. My skepticism runs deeper than most, perhaps. I don’t find it particularly interesting to be skeptical about the usual things: superstition, the power of prayer, astrology, quantum physics and so on. Those are easy targets. My skepticism is of the more fundamental variety. Of what can I be certain? Lacking the genius of Wittgenstein, I’m kind of stuck with this persistent doubt about the things that of necessity are taken for granted.

The flip side of not being certain about most things, is that with little effort one can provisionally believe just about anything. I have exploited this phenomenon repeatedly. I have at least dabbled in multiple major religions. Multiple years of study have been sincerely devoted to both Buddhism and Christianity. These were not merely academic indulgences, but full blown conversions with all of the accompanying levels of activity necessary to be accepted among the faithful. One thing about religion is you really can’t understand it unless you are fully enmeshed in the whole “web of truth” that is spun and tended by the faithful. “Webs of truth” can be more or less permeable depending upon the density of the strands and the level of interaction that is allowed across the membrane. Different religions create different style webs. The Roman Catholic web, for example (another of my dalliances) has high permeability, but is made of incredibly strong strands. By contrast, certain evangelical protestant strains have dense webs of truth that resist permeability. Once inside, it becomes increasingly difficult to move in and out. Every human phenomenon becomes filtered through the web.

(Political affiliations have their own “webs of truth” also, but are of a different order from religion. I’m sure I’ll have some comment on that later).

I use the term “truth” in my formulation intentionally. I could say “web of belief” and that would be perfectly intelligible, but that these beliefs are “true” is itself more factually true. More on that later.

Back to what I believe. Given that I have already confessed to my propensity for vacillation anything I say about what I believe right now could change tomorrow. I do not rule out divine revelation as a source of belief. Maybe I will get struck by lightning. But what I am trying to do at present is unravel the “web of truth” within which I persist and see what’s at the bottom of it.

I believe that my existence has a definite beginning and that it will definitely end.

I believe that I am conscious at this time and I am not dreaming.

I believe that my intentions originate in myself and are not dependent on another being.

I believe that my ability to converse in a natural language is adequate to express my own experience.

I believe that other independent beings, similar to myself, exist and that I am able to converse with them intelligibly using natural language.

That’s a pretty paltry list, but represents those statements that I have the highest degree of certainty about. The last statement, obviously, blocks solipsism. The natural language stuff seems to be resistant to skepticism, but the other statements are not.

There’s a theory in philosophy of art pioneered by George Dickie and fully developed by Arthur Danto that attributes art-proper status to objects in virtue of those objects’ relation to a cultural entity known as the artworld. In this view, man-made objects attain the status of art (or Art) by having that status conferred upon them by this amorphous institution. I’m not a huge fan of the theory, but it points to a more interesting phenomenon.

As I have written previously, my own skepticism about what can be known about the world precludes a rich ontology for myself. I choose not to believe in gods and spirits and so forth because I have a difficult enough time just maintaining belief in other people! But that’s just me. It is, no doubt, a peculiar character defect of my own along with some philosophers of the past with a lot more brains than I have. However, it seems clear that a lot of people–the majority of people–believe in all sorts of strange stuff.

What I am interested in about all these beliefs is whether, and in what way, these systems of beliefs, these exotic metaphysical statements, might be true. And when I say true I mean that in the usual, common sense way that people use the term. I want to make the claim that utterances such as “Jesus is the Son of God” and “There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet” are true in precisely the same way as when I say “I am a forty-four year old white male.”

I am not talking about syncretism or relativism or secret meanings behind these statements. If these statements have any meaning at all, then they must mean pretty much what they say. (Logical positivists and early Wittgenstein regarded these statements as nonsense since they did not refer to “real” objects. But they can’t be nonsense. Entire lives are devoted to understanding them, following them, etc.)

So how can they be true, particularly if such statements are contradictory and mutually exclusive?

I propose that their truth value obtains in virtue of a conferral of that status by an appropriate configuration of believers in much the same way as the institutional theory of art makes Art out of artifacts.

But why make truth value the reward for the persistence of religion? We might go along with you if you stuck to some other predicate like beauty, but not truth for God’s sake!

“Why not?” I say. What gives the idea of truth such special privilige? I say you are stuck in the same rut as the theists. You want there to be a God perspective, and you imagine yourself seated upon the celestial throne observing the entirety of the universe with perfect apprehension and from that vantage you can say, with absolute certainty, what is real and what is true.

But there is no such place. And in this world belief precedes truth. I become certain of something when I am convinced that it cannot be otherwise. Truth begins with belief not the other way around.

How are we to avoid relativism, then? (My truth, your truth, what is truth? as Pilate said). This is where I have to make an ontological move. Belief by the appropriate configuration of believers as evidenced by its persistence and effects signify the existence of true facts about the universe that demonstrate the truth of the objects of those beliefs.

It will make no difference that the facts of one belief system contradict the facts of another. The two systems are incommensurable, as are the worlds within which these facts obtain. They are alternate universes created by the persistence of belief.

Now the holidays are over and I cast my mind to resolutions for the new year.

Here’s what I would like to be blogging about in 2011:

1. Catalog of beliefs. List of statements of the form “I believe that x is true.” (This could be a short list)
2. Persistence of contradictory truth. Can non-verifiable metaphysical statements acquire a status of “true” in the same way that created artifacts acquire status of “art”? This would not be relativism.
3. Establish criteria for the evaluation of political philosophy.
4. Read Merleau-Ponty. Looking for academic support for primacy of perception in the study of philosophy.
5. Begin defining religious categories (e.g. mythology, cult, dogma etc…)
6. Take an ethical position.
7. Religion as cultural art form.
8. Clear definitions of and relations between the following terms: chance/randomness/indeterminacy/causal opacity.

As always, your assistance is welcome and desired.

Stayed up to watch the lunar eclipse. Winter solstice. Discovered that my twelve-year old daughter was still up. We arched back our necks and peered up at sky. Through the fuzzy clouds we could see the edge of the moon begin to blur out and disappear. My daughter complains about God not letting us see the moon. Then she says well I’m not sure I believe in God really… not so much. She mentions catechism. Then she asks if it’s OK for her to not believe? No one can tell you what you have to believe I tell her.

We watch the moon some more. It will be five hundred years before there is another eclipse on the winter solstice. I feel warmth of pride at my daughter. Is it such a gift at Christmas for her to come to unbelief?

“You know Thomas Jefferson thought that every generation of US citizens should hold a constitutional convention and write a new constitution every generation! Religions need something along the same lines. My hope isn’t for religion as it is practiced now. The problem of all religions is that they tend to be very conservative.” From: http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-MISC/101794.htm

Thanks Stephen for that link. Interesting topic–consumerism as religion. But religion has always been for sale, so nothing too new there. The real problem there is superficiality, in my view. There are, in Japan and I would presume everywhere else, deeply religious and sincere people that practice their faith more or less in spite of their religion.

So as Loy says, religion is by its nature conservative. How could it be otherwise? To acknowledge fallibility, particularly about anything fundamental, is a form of self-laceration (from the religion’s perspective). Opening itself to interpretation becomes a path to a death by a thousand cuts. (The phenomenon of schism has done a great deal to prevent this demise among all the great religions).

Has there ever been a religion that was rigorously materialist in its metaphysics? Probably. But none come to mind.

Children are not metaphysical materialists. It is not of our nature to limit our beliefs to that which can be seen, tasted, touched or measured. The mind of a child easily accepts magical thinking of all sorts. (Early religious education tends to exploit this to maximum advantage). But most children at some point begin to doubt their naïve beliefs.

Most people retain some version of immature belief throughout adulthood. Some–certainly a small percentage–subject their beliefs to rigorous scrutiny and yet emerge with beliefs intact and even stronger. Another small group goes through the same process and its members reject their childhood superstitions and become non-believers. The majority, however, retains a childish form of unexamined belief that can be the foundation of intense religious devotion on one extreme or a vanishing support for an endless variety of ill-informed superstition on the other. Members of the latter group may believe in ghosts, angels, demons, the Law of Return, positive thinking, karma, charms, vibrations–the list goes on ad nauseum.

Few truly make an effort to reject all superstitious beliefs. The few who do often are so dismayed and disgusted by the rest of their species that they become arrogant and hostile to all forms of belief. Atheist apologists cannot help but feel superior. They are like people in a dark room that have opened their eyes but are crushed by the crowd around them that is blind. The blind don’t know they’re blind. They feel their way through the room touching each other and leaning on each other for support. The man who sees does not want to be touched; he wants only to have some space that gives him room to see more. What really vexes the man with sight is the realization that the crowd is penned in together on a vast ocean liner and the pilot of the boat is blind too!

So we are sympathetic to our atheist apologists. Few understand the burning frustration of their situation.

The atheists are right about the evidence. Therefore we begin this project as metaphysical materialists.