Decisions without evidence
A comment some time ago stated the following in response to a question I asked about what we put trust in:
Would you trust a surgeon to operate on you who has a history of accidents and mistakes, or do you want the surgeon whose track record is clean? You are still required to trust in the surgeon, but you only do so with evidence that it would not be dangerous to do so.
Would you put your child in the hands of the Catholic Church when they have been proven to have a history of child abuse?
You judge based on evidence every day. It's one of the most basic functions of the human mind, and we do it almost constantly."
"Would you trust a friend with your secrets who you don't have evidence to believe they are trustworthy?
Would you trust a surgeon to operate on you who has a history of accidents and mistakes, or do you want the surgeon whose track record is clean? You are still required to trust in the surgeon, but you only do so with evidence that it would not be dangerous to do so.
Would you put your child in the hands of the Catholic Church when they have been proven to have a history of child abuse?
You judge based on evidence every day. It's one of the most basic functions of the human mind, and we do it almost constantly."
I agree.
But the fact of the matter to is that you and I, everyday, make decisions and put our faith in many things for which we do not have any evidence.
When you drive down a street you have faith/trust the people in the other lane to not drive into your lane.
When we have work done on our cars, we trust people do not do harm to our car in hopes that we would return when the "fluid ran out".
When we park our cars in garages over long periods or when we board a plane, there is trust all around us. Most of which there is no evidence for.
And this is why, according to my theology, I do not understand why Christians are afraid of atheists. We all trust. We all have faith. Atheists have faith.
Attention my fellow Christians: There is no need to fear the Atheists.
Attention self describing Atheists: There is no need to fear the Christian.
Unless you put your faith in fear...
When we have work done on our cars, we trust people do not do harm to our car in hopes that we would return when the "fluid ran out".
When we park our cars in garages over long periods or when we board a plane, there is trust all around us. Most of which there is no evidence for.
And this is why, according to my theology, I do not understand why Christians are afraid of atheists. We all trust. We all have faith. Atheists have faith.
Attention my fellow Christians: There is no need to fear the Atheists.
Attention self describing Atheists: There is no need to fear the Christian.
Unless you put your faith in fear...
We interpret evidence differently
Just want to address the anonymous atheists/agnostics who take time to read this stuff that I post.
When I wake up in the morning and take in a breath. When my feet touch the ground and I am able to walk. When I taste the sweetness of orange juice at breakfast. When I see the sun rise in my rear view mirror as I drive to work I see a great amount of evidence for the existence for something greater than myself. I interpret all of these little moments through the lens and an understanding that there is a consciousness that is bigger than myself - and perhaps even that there is consciousness located outside the individual human being. I see the world work in a beautiful balance and harmony and a movement toward harmony and unity. This movement may not be evident at all times and there are definite times in which the world is taking steps backwards. However, I see evidence that the world, overall, is moving toward more unity and interdependence and harmony and respect and justice and love.
Others see these same things and do not interpret this as evidence for anything at all or for something else. Perhaps some see the sun rise as evidence for gravity and that is all. Perhaps some do not see an overall movement toward unity and only see evidence for isolation and destruction. Perhaps the beautiful balance I interpret from nature is evidence for another as the beauty of the evolutionary process only.
We all see evidence. We all use it as one comment stated the other day. I know this. However, I hope you know that Christians are not anti-evidence. Rather, we interpret the world differently.
You may call it naive or ignorant and we may call you blind. But we are both seeing much of the same things and we just understand them differently. I respect your interpretation and I am sure you respect mine.
So the next time I make a claim without sufficient evidence, I would argue that I am providing plenty of evidence - it is just how we interpret it.
When I wake up in the morning and take in a breath. When my feet touch the ground and I am able to walk. When I taste the sweetness of orange juice at breakfast. When I see the sun rise in my rear view mirror as I drive to work I see a great amount of evidence for the existence for something greater than myself. I interpret all of these little moments through the lens and an understanding that there is a consciousness that is bigger than myself - and perhaps even that there is consciousness located outside the individual human being. I see the world work in a beautiful balance and harmony and a movement toward harmony and unity. This movement may not be evident at all times and there are definite times in which the world is taking steps backwards. However, I see evidence that the world, overall, is moving toward more unity and interdependence and harmony and respect and justice and love.
Others see these same things and do not interpret this as evidence for anything at all or for something else. Perhaps some see the sun rise as evidence for gravity and that is all. Perhaps some do not see an overall movement toward unity and only see evidence for isolation and destruction. Perhaps the beautiful balance I interpret from nature is evidence for another as the beauty of the evolutionary process only.
We all see evidence. We all use it as one comment stated the other day. I know this. However, I hope you know that Christians are not anti-evidence. Rather, we interpret the world differently.
You may call it naive or ignorant and we may call you blind. But we are both seeing much of the same things and we just understand them differently. I respect your interpretation and I am sure you respect mine.
So the next time I make a claim without sufficient evidence, I would argue that I am providing plenty of evidence - it is just how we interpret it.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.