[Avodah] Being Sekptical About Skepticism

[Micha Berger]

From
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/when-atheists-stole-the-moral-high-ground/

> The Spectator
> Nick Spencer
> 9 November 2019

> When atheists stole the moral high ground
...
> Most of us like to believe that we believe what we believe because
> rigorous reasoning and reliable evidence have led us there. Most of us
> are wrong. It isn't that reason and evidence play no role in our religion
> or lack of it; rather that they are saturated with deeper emotional,
> social and practical concerns. As Julian Barnes writes in The Sense of
> an Ending: 'Most of us... make an instinctive decision, then build up an
> infrastructure of reasoning to justify it.' Du Perron was no doubt very
> devout. Today he may well have been devoutly sceptical. But in neither
> case is he likely to have been led to his dis/belief through reason alone.

> That the emotions matter is well established in the case of religious
> belief, as Stephen T. Asma's fine recent study Why We Need Religion
> explains. But it is less well recognised when it comes to unbelief, and
> particularly the history of unbelief. Here we are still wedded to the
> romantic fable of fearless sceptics hacking their way through obscurantist
> bigotry, armed with nothing more than their trusty sword of reason.

See epigram in signature.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 The mind is a wonderful organ
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   for justifying decisions
Author: Widen Your Tent      the heart already reached.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF