"We’re never gonna win the world We’re never gonna stop the war We’re never gonna beat this If belief is what we’re fighting for" These are John Mayer’s words, I’d like to ask him just how strongly he believes that… Surely having the courage of this particular conviction would cause it to destroy itself? It’s the Achilles heal for the sceptic he ‘does not believe‘ so strongly that one has no choice but to call it belief! And to mute the effect of this obvious contradiction, he is forced to rely on pithy sayings, soft tone and intellectual superiority to try and down-play the strength of his opinion.
In a word he has to resort to his aesthetic. Logic would ask Mayer: How do we ‘win the world‘ without some form of competing? Who are we competing with? Is it those ‘religious people‘? What is the ‘this‘ that we are hoping to ‘beat‘? It’s so very self destructive as an argument, so base-line contradictory - no matter how good the guitar work. There is just so much ‘us‘ and ‘them‘ implied in the idealism of the sceptic, because the plain and simple truth shines through… worldviews are at war, they always have been, there is an ‘us‘ and ‘them‘.
Now a worldview war not a war to dominate (the birthplace of scepticism was not a reaction to the control of religion), and it’s not a war of numbers (Secularism has the least numbers of worldviews over time, but it carries great weight). It a war of accuracy, pinpoint truth. it’s a war in which all participants benefit at the expence of the weaker worldviews. All worldviews are not created equal; even though all mankind is created equal. The modern sceptic, seems to me, to be trying to absolve himself from the only battle he claims he can win! I was arguing a point with Jerrod on a post of mine Charity and Contradiction, he did the thing I dislike the most in a reasonable argument, he left when he was loosing.
My question to him remains unanswered: How is it that he holds that every view deserves a ‘charitable interpretation‘, except my view that every view must stand on it’s own or move over for the truth? Why is it that every view deserves to be understood, except the view which says, ‘nonsense‘? Just when either Jerrod or I could have gained a needed skill, I was left shadow boxing. If someone intimidates you it is helpful, I am told, to think of them in their undies. We all are reduced to our underwear at least twice a day, and although I have never tried this trick I can imaging that it works very well - I think I should try it, if I could just find someone who intimidates me (joke). It’s the same with belief. Everyone’s worldview can be reduced to belief, none more so than the sceptic.
It is such a happier more humane place to get to when we all acknowledge this, no-one was born in an intellectual suit and no-one dies in one. Then we can start to ‘win‘, to reason, to thrust and jab, and to loose what was weighing us down anyway; in the only war that can heal, the only battle that actually makes you stronger and builds you up… argument. Now some people will not agree with me on this point, and although I’d like to say that that is OK, it’s actually not OK at all! "The unbeliever is always apt to make a kind of religion of his aesthetic experiences." CS Lewis.
Yes, but the unbeliever is always apt to make a kind of religion of his sceptical experiences too. He equates Rational Faith with the last kiddies Sunday School class he attended; which is a bit like equating Norsemen with Norwegians. And no amount of reasonable argument will convince him to admit the reasonableness of the Faith that he, himself practices and believes every day of his life. No, first he has to admit that he believes, fundamentally. Before that he has not even entered this war he claims he’s winning. Happily, acknowledging that one believes is not the same thing as doing something with that belief. Which is the difference between trusting your spouse and flying a plane into a building; it’s an extremely significant difference - but both are beliefs.
