• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Child-like faith in reason

Given current events and the hand-wringing about how to end violence and live in harmony with each other, it's worth remembering that this is never going to happen.

Proposing solutions that assume humans can be consistently rational in the pursuit of humanistic goals is folly, and the creation of the least bad world must start from this fact.

We never learn though, as we are not rational.

The best short essay on the subject, by John Gray:

The child-like faith in reason

...If human beings were potentially capable of applying reason in their lives they would show some sign of learning from what they had done wrong in the past, but history and everyday practice show them committing the same follies over and over again. They would alter their beliefs in accordance with facts, but clinging to beliefs in the face of contrary evidence is one of the most powerful and enduring human traits.

Outside of some areas of science, human beings rarely give up their convictions just because they can be shown to be false. No doubt we can become a little more reasonable, at least for a time, in some parts of our lives, but being reasonable means accepting that many human problems aren't actually soluble, and our persistent irrationality is one of these problems. At its best, religion is an antidote against the prevailing type of credulity - in our day, a naive faith in the boundless capacities of the human mind.

The belief in reason that is being promoted today rests on a number of childishly simple ideas. One of the commonest is that history's crimes are mistakes that can be avoided in future as we acquire greater knowledge. But human evil isn't a type of error that can be discarded like an obsolete scientific theory. If history teaches us anything it's that hatred and cruelty are permanent human flaws, which find expression whatever beliefs people may profess...

The refusal to see clear and present danger shows that the idea that human beings base their beliefs on their experience is just a fairy-tale. The opposite is closer to the truth - shaping their perceptions according to what they already believe, human beings block out from their minds anything that disturbs their view of the world. Psychologists who examine this tendency - sometimes called cognitive dissonance - have speculated that refusing to face the truth may confer an evolutionary advantage. Screening out unpleasant or disturbing facts may, in some circumstances, give some people a better chance of survival. But at the same time this tendency leads us all into one folly after another. Many regard science as the supreme embodiment of human reason, but science may yet confirm what history so strongly suggests - irrationality is hard-wired in the human animal.

Certainly unreason can be tempered by the hard-won practices of civilisation, but civilisation will always be a precarious achievement. To believe that human beings can be much improved by rational argument is to assume that they are already reasonable, which is obviously false. The old doctrine of original sin contained a vital truth - there are impulses of irrational destructiveness in every one of us...

There's something deliciously comic in the spectacle of people railing against unreason being themselves so obviously in the grip of a childish delusion... Evidently they need their simple faith in reason - it seems to be the only thing that keeps them going. That doesn't mean we have to take them seriously. The notion that human life could ever be ruled by reason is an exercise in make-believe more far-fetched than any of the stories we were told as children. We'd all be better off if we saw ourselves as we are - intermittently and only ever partly-rational creatures, who never really grow up.

A Point of View: The child-like faith in reason


Thoughts?
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
IMO, the unconscious mind is more in control of our lives than the credit given to it.

Our "impulses" are not conscious ones. Our actions/choices are driven by unknown factors.
Faith in reason is not the problem. Faith in conscious will is.

Unconscious reasoning is not rational. I suppose we are not all yet ready to question our feelings about what is right and wrong.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Given current events and the hand-wringing about how to end violence and live in harmony with each other, it's worth remembering that this is never going to happen.

Proposing solutions that assume humans can be consistently rational in the pursuit of humanistic goals is folly, and the creation of the least bad world must start from this fact.

We never learn though, as we are not rational.

The best short essay on the subject, by John Gray:

The child-like faith in reason

...If human beings were potentially capable of applying reason in their lives they would show some sign of learning from what they had done wrong in the past, but history and everyday practice show them committing the same follies over and over again. They would alter their beliefs in accordance with facts, but clinging to beliefs in the face of contrary evidence is one of the most powerful and enduring human traits.

Outside of some areas of science, human beings rarely give up their convictions just because they can be shown to be false. No doubt we can become a little more reasonable, at least for a time, in some parts of our lives, but being reasonable means accepting that many human problems aren't actually soluble, and our persistent irrationality is one of these problems. At its best, religion is an antidote against the prevailing type of credulity - in our day, a naive faith in the boundless capacities of the human mind.

The belief in reason that is being promoted today rests on a number of childishly simple ideas. One of the commonest is that history's crimes are mistakes that can be avoided in future as we acquire greater knowledge. But human evil isn't a type of error that can be discarded like an obsolete scientific theory. If history teaches us anything it's that hatred and cruelty are permanent human flaws, which find expression whatever beliefs people may profess...

The refusal to see clear and present danger shows that the idea that human beings base their beliefs on their experience is just a fairy-tale. The opposite is closer to the truth - shaping their perceptions according to what they already believe, human beings block out from their minds anything that disturbs their view of the world. Psychologists who examine this tendency - sometimes called cognitive dissonance - have speculated that refusing to face the truth may confer an evolutionary advantage. Screening out unpleasant or disturbing facts may, in some circumstances, give some people a better chance of survival. But at the same time this tendency leads us all into one folly after another. Many regard science as the supreme embodiment of human reason, but science may yet confirm what history so strongly suggests - irrationality is hard-wired in the human animal.

Certainly unreason can be tempered by the hard-won practices of civilisation, but civilisation will always be a precarious achievement. To believe that human beings can be much improved by rational argument is to assume that they are already reasonable, which is obviously false. The old doctrine of original sin contained a vital truth - there are impulses of irrational destructiveness in every one of us...

There's something deliciously comic in the spectacle of people railing against unreason being themselves so obviously in the grip of a childish delusion... Evidently they need their simple faith in reason - it seems to be the only thing that keeps them going. That doesn't mean we have to take them seriously. The notion that human life could ever be ruled by reason is an exercise in make-believe more far-fetched than any of the stories we were told as children. We'd all be better off if we saw ourselves as we are - intermittently and only ever partly-rational creatures, who never really grow up.

A Point of View: The child-like faith in reason


Thoughts?
When, someday, we humans invent a better decision-making model to govern our nations, I doubt whether humans with only average talent for reasoning will be part of it. We can test the ability to reason, one would think that such testing would be essential in a new model.
 

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
I think the article overgeneralizes too much. No human is capable of applying reason and principles of logic with perfect consistency, but there are many who are more often than not good at being reasonable.

The main problems I see can be summarized in two things:

1) Extremely unreasonable and/or unethical people end up in positions of power often enough to cause major disruption and suffering, and

2) sometimes even people who are reasonable in most cases could make deeply costly mistakes that end up leading to major disruption and suffering.

I think the answer to whether most humans are reasonable largely depends on which area or subject we're talking about. Are most people reasonable when it comes to identifying and avoiding logical fallacies? I'm not sure. Are most people reasonable when it comes to identifying immediately fatal actions or behaviors and avoiding them? Absolutely.

The nature of human reason (or lack thereof) seems to me too complex and multifaceted for it to be summed up in such a simplified statement as "humans are often reasonable" or "humans are often unreasonable" without elaborating on any details.
 
When, someday, we humans invent a better decision-making model to govern our nations, I doubt whether humans with only average talent for reasoning will be part of it. We can test the ability to reason, one would think that testing would be essential in a new model.

Commenting on his friend the logician and social reformer Bertrand Russell, Keynes observed: "Bertie sustained simultaneously a pair of opinions ludicrously incompatible. He held that human affairs are carried on in a most irrational fashion, but that the remedy was quite simple and easy, since all we had to do was carry them on rationally."

Today's believers in reason are caught in the same contradiction. To imagine that we can become much more rational than we have ever been, if only we want to be and try hard enough, is itself thoroughly irrational. It's an example of magical thinking, an expression of the belief in the omnipotence of human will that psychoanalysts identify as the fundamental infantile fantasy.
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
IMO, the unconscious mind is more in control of our lives than the credit given to it.

Our "impulses" are not conscious ones. Our actions/choices are driven by unknown factors.
Faith in reason is not the problem. Faith in conscious will is.

Unconscious reasoning is not rational. I suppose we are not all yet ready to question our feelings about what is right and wrong.

I agree 100%. I see we are all connected by mind and are influenced by the collective health of that mind.

We are asked to replace any impure thought or thought of war with purity and peace thoughts.

Regards Tony
 
I think the article overgeneralizes too much. No human is capable of applying reason and principles of logic with perfect consistency, but there are many who are more often than not good at being reasonable.

Who would you say are examples of these people?

But, the generalisation is really the point. Human society is not defined by any individual, but the emergent characteristics of mass human behaviour:

No doubt we can become a little more reasonable, at least for a time, in some parts of our lives, but being reasonable means accepting that many human problems aren't actually soluble, and our persistent irrationality is one of these problems. At its best, religion is an antidote against the prevailing type of credulity - in our day, a naive faith in the boundless capacities of the human mind.
 

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Commenting on his friend the logician and social reformer Bertrand Russell, Keynes observed: "Bertie sustained simultaneously a pair of opinions ludicrously incompatible. He held that human affairs are carried on in a most irrational fashion, but that the remedy was quite simple and easy, since all we had to do was carry them on rationally."

Today's believers in reason are caught in the same contradiction. To imagine that we can become much more rational than we have ever been, if only we want to be and try hard enough, is itself thoroughly irrational. It's an example of magical thinking, an expression of the belief in the omnipotence of human will that psychoanalysts identify as the fundamental infantile fantasy.

Today's believers in reason? I don't know what you're talking about. Reason is a useful tool. Some people are born with a natural talent for it but whatever talent they have can be improved upon.

Among other things, reason deals with cause-and-effect. It can build knowledge and knowledge is power.

Are many people overwhelmed by it. Of course. But so what?
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I have no doubt that billions of people can be peaceful, myself included.

That doesn't mean there is a shred of evidence that all people can be peaceful all of the time.

I offer the million of Baha'i that can.

I offer that many other organisations and groups also can.

Thus it is just a matter of organisation and implementation as a united effort.

Regards Tony
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I agree 100%. I see we are all connected by mind and are influenced by the collective health of that mind.

We are asked to replace any impure thought or thought of war with purity and peace thoughts.

Regards Tony

That the idea in Buddhism, right thought, right action. A conscious effort to replace wrong unconscious thought.
 
I offer the million of Baha'i that can.

I offer that many other organisations and groups also can.

Thus it is just a matter of organisation and implementation as a united effort.

A small number of people willing to use violence can defeat many more people not willing to use violence though.

That's the problem.
 
Today's believers in reason? I don't know what you're talking about. Reason is a useful tool. Some people are born with a natural talent for it but whatever talent they have can be improved upon.

Among other things, reason deals with cause-and-effect. It can build knowledge and knowledge is power.

Are many people overwhelmed by it. Of course. But so what?

It's not people are "overwhelmed by it", it's that humans are not collectively rational and many problems have no rational solutions.

As such thinking rationality is the solution to human irrationality is delusional.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Given current events and the hand-wringing about how to end violence and live in harmony with each other, it's worth remembering that this is never going to happen.

Proposing solutions that assume humans can be consistently rational in the pursuit of humanistic goals is folly, and the creation of the least bad world must start from this fact.

We never learn though, as we are not rational.

The best short essay on the subject, by John Gray:

The child-like faith in reason

---

A Point of View: The child-like faith in reason


Thoughts?

Sounds like an erudite and high falutin' way of saying "nice guys finish last."
 
Top