"The Will to Believe" by William James

I'm still reading Kant (I've read the Introduction twice, and I'm ready to move on to the actual Critique now), but I was side-tracked by this essay (which was originally a speech James gave in 1897). I'd heard of it, of course, but hadn't thought of it in years. When I was reminded of it recently, I realized that the ideas at its core were also the central ideas I address on this blog, and in the humor book I'm considering.

As with everything philosophical, I'll need to read it a number of times before I'm willing to start tearing it up. But there are some weak links in this argument, and they come up all the time even today, 111 years after James presented this piece.

This should provide fuel for some more interesting posts here.

New Guinea?

Since we moved to Oklahoma Michele and I have gotten along with most everyone we've met, despite the fact that we're both weird. Thankfully, we've found plenty of other weird people to make friends with, but with one exception (a guy in Michele's office) we haven't even had minor personality problems.

And we still don't, but today I had an interesting exchange. I started my office hours with three other adjuncts--two of whom I knew fairly well from last semester and another I'd talked to a few times. Monte's an older guy, a member of the Church of Christ. He's friendly and thoughtful, and really curious about both my nodding acquaintance with Buddhism and my budding pescetarianism. Tonya is a couple years younger than me and a recent convert to a nondenominational Christianity. I've had lengthy, comfortable, and valuable conversations with both about religion and related matters, though the three of us probably believe few of the same things.

Tom was the fourth at the table today. I've known for some time that he's also Christian, and that he's both emphatic and vocal in his belief. Even though he's in his fifties (I think) his demeanor reminds me of myself when I was about twenty-five--convinced, arrogant, and dismissive.

Tom brought up some topic today that got us talking about hostility about belief, which is one of the focus topics of the humor book I'm working on. I said something about the hostility between different kinds of religionists and between religionists and non-religionists. Monte said, "Why is that?"Meaning, why is there such hostility? This question is one reason Monte and I get along. We're both more curious than insistent.

Just after I said, "Well, there shouldn't be, but--" Tom interrupted and spent the next fifteen minutes monologuing about why he's hostile to those who don't believe in God. His speech was a constant stream, such that we other three couldn't even interrupt to try bringing the discussion back to the original point, let alone point out where his ranting departed from solid argument and strayed into irrelevance or incoherence.

At one point he looked at me and said, "You're like the man in New Guinea. When a student comes to him with a scholarship to a school in the United States, you tell him that the United States doesn't exist." The analogy bothered me, but he moved along to a new subject denigrating my nonbelief so quickly I couldn't frame my objections, or even figure them out.

The problem with his analogy (at least the first problem) is that it's a straw man. He's built a position that isn't mine in order to more easily dismantle it. Putting me in the position of the doubter in his analogy is effective, especially when using the crutch of an example for which the listeners must acknowledge the truth of the proposition being doubted, but it's wrong.

There are some atheists who will go as far as saying that it is a fact that God doesn't exist, but they are few and far between (at least thoughtful ones are). A larger number will say that they believe that God doesn't exist. That's the classic "strong atheist" stance. Still, that's not me.

My position, that I don't believe that God exists, differs both in proposition and in disposition from this stance. Rather than being the New Guinean who tells another that the United States does not exist, I'd be the guy who says he's never encountered any evidence for the existence of the United States.

The difference, I think, is that Tom is tying belief to truth and I'm not. He's comfortable using the words "knowledge" and "truth" as close corrollaries to his perceptions and apperceptions, and I'm not. We're speaking two different languages about one subject--which is interesting, because Tom has a PhD in Linguistics.

Am I a hopeless geek for being excited to bring this up when I see these people again on Thursday?

Probably.

On Choosing Belief -- A Scenario

Here's a scenario:

You work at Company X. You've been there for three years, and you've always gotten along well with your coworkers. You work with a man, Abraham, who every month runs out of money. Every month Abe asks to borrow $20 from you until payday. You've always lent Abe the money and he's always paid you back. Sometimes before payday.

But at any time you could decide to not lend Abe the money. It likely wouldn't have anything to do with whether you thought he'd pay you back. Maybe some month you didn't have enough to lend. Anyway, you don't lend him the money. That doesn't mean you didn't have faith that he'd pay you back if you had lent him the money.

This is part one.

On Choosing Belief -- An Analogy

Let’s imagine Jasper, a thirteen-year-old boy. Jasper lives in an average suburb and attends an average middle school which subjects him to average social concerns. He wants to impress girls, wants to be popular, wants to avoid getting pounded into his locker every time the football players pass by.

Jasper has a closet full of shirts. Jasper can wear any of those shirts any day he wants to, provided it’s clean. Luckily for Jasper, his dad does laundry every night, so Jasper can always wear any of his shirts.

There are a number of factors influencing Jasper’s choice of shirts: his mother likes him to wear the shirts with collars because they make him look responsible, a girl once told him he looks good in green so he thinks he’ll do better with the ladies if he wears green shirts, the football players pick on him less if he wears a Vikings jersey. The problem is that Jasper doesn’t like any of those shirts. Jasper likes his plain blue T-shirt, the one he wore to the zoo last summer, the one he wore when he won a chess match.

Long setup to get to this analogy: Jasper can choose to wear any shirt he owns for any reason, but he can’t choose which shirt will be his favorite. Likewise, a person can choose what they say about belief, they can choose what church to attend, they can choose whether to sing hymns, chant chants, or take communion. But they can’t choose what they believe.

Something could happen to change which shirt is Jasper’s favorite, but it won’t be an act of his will. He could have a great day while wearing his Adrian Peterson replica jersey—maybe the football players invite him to a party where they have soda and pie. However, he can’t decide that this morning he likes the football jersey better than the blue T-shirt. And so it is (it seems to me) with belief. Something could happen to change what I believe, but it won’t be my decision. I may be introduced to a new idea, a new perception, that changes what I believe, but I can’t decide to believe one thing instead of another.

Or is there something I'm missing?

On Choosing Belief -- Breaking It Down

For the moment I'll set aside the issue of religious faith and concentrate on more mundane instances of belief.

If a belief can be chosen, if it's a simple act of will, then it should be easy for me to choose to believe that George W. Bush is a lesbian. But I can't. I keep trying, but experience and definition get in the way, suggesting to me that my choices in belief--if they exist at all--are subject to my sense experiences and my ability to reason.

But I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong. Anybody have a nuance I'm missing?

On Choosing Belief

Here is a subject I'd like to discuss, but first I'll invite some ideas so I can better frame the discussion.

1. Christians often tell me that I can choose to believe in God and/or Jesus, as though this choice is as simple as guessing which checkout line will get me out of the grocery store more quickly. I'm still mystified, though, as to how a belief can be chosen. Can someone explain this process to me?
2. To arrive at a belief that God exists (in the way(s) in which He is understood to exist by at least a majority of Christians, if such a thing is possible), it seems to me one must have faith in a number of things that are not God: faith that the stories of the New Testament aren't fictions, that they were preserved in accurate form in the decades between the events and their recordings, that the Council of Nicea and the Council of Trent (as well as the earlier Church Fathers such as Irenaeus) accepted the true versions and rejected the false ones, that the various schisms through the Church's history were survived by the correct side, that the texts are translated in the proper contexts and that they are understood as intended. These things are not divine--how does one justify faith in all of these things just to get to the possibility of God?
3. Why is God's ego so fragile He needs my approval, and why would He create so many souls out of nothing just so He could eternally torment some of them based on this qualification? (I realize this one involves specific beliefs about more than just God, but I thought I'd toss it out there).
4. Anything you'd like to add to the pile?

I don't mean to pick on Christians, but they are the ones who insist most often that I need to believe a certain way.