Question Hume showed that belief in induction has no rational basis, yet everyone believes it and in fact one can't help believing it. How then can one criticize religious belief, the person who says "I know my belief in God has no rational basis, but I believe it anyway"?

Accepted:
October 30, 2008

Comments

At least part of the answer to your question is hidden in the way you phrased it. Suppose that I'm wired so that there's really nothing I can do about the fact that I think inductively. As soon as I put my copy of Hume down, I revert straightaway and irresistibly to making inductive inferences. We usually 't think it doesn't make sense to criticize people for things they have no control over. If we can't help making inductions, then criticism is pointless. But we don't think that all non-rational beliefs are like this. On at least some matters, we're capable of slowly, gradually changing the way we think until the grip of the irrational belief weakens to the point where we can resist it. For example: someone might realize that they're prejudiced against some group. They might come to see that this prejudice is simply irrational. That might lead them to think they should try to change the way they think and react, and they might well succeed. Or to take a different example, when cognitive-behavioral therapy is successful, it's mainly a matter of helping people learn not to think in certain irrational ways that they once were prone to.

So... If a belief is irrational, and if it's the kind of belief that we can unlearn, then it might well make sense to criticize someone for holding it. It might make sense in a proactive way, as a means of moving them to change, and it might also make sense in a backward-looking way if we think there's no excuse for their having left themselves in the grip of the belief for so long. But if it's the kind belief that can't be unlearned, then criticizing someone for holding it is unreasonable.

Whether belief in God really is irrational is another matter. My answer would be that it isn't always. But we do know, at least, that it's a belief that some people have unlearned, and sometimes in part by way of thinking hard about it.

Question Hume showed that belief in induction has no rational basis, yet everyone believes it and in fact one can't help believing it. How then can one criticize religious belief, the person who says "I know my belief in God has no rational basis, but I believe it anyway"? Accepted:October 30, 2008