Some of this I believe

I don’t agree with everything that Scott Adams posts on The Dilbert Blog. I don’t agree with everything he says in this particular post. But I do agree with these sentences, pulled out of context:

... We don’t know as much as we think we know. That’s the sort of idea that could end war and famine and poverty.

If you think about it, wars are generally fought because of a false sense of certainty. Usually some leader thinks he is a God, or talks to God, or descended from the Gods, or thinks God gave his people some particular piece of real estate. The leader’s opinion is the most certain in the land. People flock to certainty and adopt the certainty as their own. The next thing you know, stuff is blowing up.

Scott’s point has to do with free will; he doesn’t believe in it. I don’t have the answer to that question, although I suspect it has a lot to do with how you define “free will.” To me, the problem Scott describes results from a lack of humility — people who, unlike Dennis Miller, can’t acknowledge that they could be wrong.

Oh, and I agree with these sentences too (again, pulled out of context):

You can introduce some doubt into your life and still keep your religious faith, morality, and all of the social and psychological benefits you always enjoyed. Faith would be meaningless without a pinch of doubt to give it context. In particular, it would be helpful to doubt that your religious leaders know the mind of God. A little bit of doubt can be a healthy thing.

I say, “Amen to that.” As a former college roommate’s button used to say, “Question authority.”

Comments

[Brian]

So the Gnostics were right, then? :-)

[Ray Ward]

The Gnostics thought they were saved because they had some special, secret knowledge. See, e.g., the Catholic Encyclopedia. To me, that’s closer to having a “false sense of certainty” than to having healthy doubts.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.