I think it is possible in recognising bias to assess the ethical standing of contrasting positions.Interbane wrote:Regardless of the starting position(regardless of what you believe), when you search, you find. But those findings in my experience are primarily biased. If you recognize the bias, you can lessen the effects. Were you aware during your supportive reasoning of the bias that pervaded your thinking?
My bias is to say the universe seen by science is the only universe, and that all supernatural claims are untrue. I recognise this is a sort of faith position, in that science itself expresses uncertainty about claims (like Russell's teapot discussed earlier in this thread) for which there is no evidence and which conflict with all available evidence. However, my biased faith position is to express certainty that religious claims which are better explained as allegory actually are allegory, not real. For example, the virgin birth, the resurrection, and all other miracles are symbols for a deep understanding of nature, not real examples of an interventionist God.
I say that expressing certainty about known reality is a more ethical stance than traditional supernaturalism or than scientific uncertainty. The reason is that without a sense of certainty, we lack motivation to act. Once we are asymptotically certain about something, finding that all available evidence abundantly corroborates it, we should act as if we are absolutely certain. This is the meaning of the parable that faith can move mountains, and that faith the size of a tiny seed will grow into a mighty tree. It is not a source of fanatical ideology, because grounding views in contestable evidence is always open to review if new evidence comes to light.
Science is opposed on principle to faith and belief, and that is something that faithful believers cannot get their heads around. But I say if we have faith in reality and the evidence from observation and logic, we have a true foundation, a rock upon which to build our lives. Denying the centrality of evidence, in the manner of supernatural fantasy, builds a house upon sand, growing weeds rather than fertile crops. These Biblical parables can be turned against the orthodox to suggest the origin of Christianity was in an enlightened understanding, and that this original vision was lost and corrupted by the politics of the church and the psychology of the need felt by believers for a simple historical story.