Richard Dawkins is famous for the following
statement:
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet someone
who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or
insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that.)
At first blush, this seems like a pretty arrogant thing to
say. Richard Dawkins has found the truth, and anyone who disagrees with him is
either mentally or morally deficient. Then again, it also sounds like the
utterance of a paranoiac, someone who is convinced that aliens are messing with
his mind, and that the only reason others don't believe him is that the
aliens got to them first.
But the more I've thought about this statement, the more I've begun to think
that most people feel pretty much the same as Mr. Dawkins about the things they
believe. If we believe something, likely it's because we've examined the
evidence and have come to what we view as the only logical conclusion. Therefore,
if people disagree with us, we tend to classify them in one of the following
ways:
1. Stupid: They're not smart enough to realize the
truth.
2. Ignorant: They could learn the truth, but they just haven't bothered or
haven't had the opportunity. (We could also classify these people as lazy.)
3. Deluded: The truth is right in front of them, but due to some emotional or
mental deficiency, they're unable to accept it.
4. Evil: They know the truth, but they ignore or suppress it because it will
prevent them from carrying out their nefarious plans.
Take belief in God, for example. I come from a
Christian background, so I can speak quite authoritatively about how a Christian feels when he or she encounters someone who doesn't
believe in God. They typically assume one of the following:
1. This person simply isn't smart enough to know the
truth. Hopefully God will have grace on him/her.
2. This person could grasp the truth if only he or she would read this
book/listen to this sermon/have this experience.
3. This person could grasp the truth, but evil forces have blinded them to it.
We must save this person from these evil forces.
4. This person knows the truth, but they ignore or suppress it because it will
prevent them from carrying out their nefarious plans.
So I guess it's safe to assume that if Richard Dawkins is
arrogant or paranoid, so are the rest of us. Perhaps that's another name for
the human condition--"arrogant paranoism." This makes it a little
easier to understand why debates over things like Intelligent Design get
so heated and personal, because there's a lot more at stake here than science.
All of us make sense of the world in our own way, and we all
believe we have found THE TRUTH. When forces rise up against us, it's only
natural to assume that the people behind those forces are stupid, ignorant,
deluded or evil. Because if they weren't, why else would they disagree with us?
Unfortunately, that doesn't bode well for us ever finding a speedy resolution to this or any other debate. But perhaps knowing that we're all in the same epistemological boat will give us something to hold onto when it really starts to rock.
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