LUD disease

There's talk these days of a growing anti-religious movement. They make some strong arguments. There are some truly horrific events that have occured in the name of someone's god. However, I don't wholeheartedly agree with them. While anti-religious activists fight a noble fight, I find that they are often guilty of the same sin that fundamentalist christians are.

I call this it Loyalty to Unverified Data, or LUD disease. The problem isn't so much that people believe in the stories their parents told them or that they look down on people who don't believe the way they do. These are merely symptoms of a much deeper problem. The real issue has to do with the way we look at knowledge, and the way we choose our beliefs. We feel an overwhelming need to be right, and our brains will even fool us into believing that we are, even when we're not. Once we decide that something is right, we will fight with every ounce of strength to defend it, to uphold it, and to push it on others.

The reason I disagree with the anti-religious movement is that LUD disease applies to so much more than just religion . If all religion vanished tomorrow morning, would gays and homophobic hill billies join hands and forgive one another? Would the KKK disband and start volunteering at inner city schools? Would upper middle class middle aged men quit buying Hummers and start buying twisty light bulbs? Of course not. In each of those examples, the real problem is how attached people are to the stupid things they believe.

I am not an atheist. If I were, I'd be undermining my entire argument. I really don't have enough data to make a judgement call one way or the other. I hope I find out one day, but as of this blog post, I just don't have any idea. Frankly, I think that either belief, that there is a god or is not one, is just as good.

I'm certainly not saying that everything you believe needs to be proven in a laboratory or at a philosophical round table. I don't have much evidence that my method for taking a piss is the most efficient or effective. What I am saying, is that if I find a better way to pee, then I'm going to go with it. I believe in and fight for the case of science, but who knows, maybe some day we'll discover and even better system of distilling facts, and if we do, I'm not going to fight to uphold the weaker system.

Think about that way that republicans make their arguments. They don't speak in terms of data and logic. They speak passionately about what they know to be true, even though they really can't really back it up with any facts. It's a dangerous way to think, and it's contagious too. When you passionately fight for something that you haven't really ever considered might be wrong, you might be leading others down your own misguided path.

For example: The abortion issue. We know that abortion is bad. No one is suggesting that it's going to make everyone happy. But if you attach yourself to that one fact and never allow your brain room to consider all the complicated factors involved, then you'll just fail to see that there is a real problem that's a lot worse than dead fetuses. When you keep that fetus alive, chances are he will grow up to be the kind of person republicans have nightmares about. Welfare, prison, and all the other tax drainers that are put into place to take care of the people who grow up without enough money or resources.

Perhaps instead of convincing people not to have abortions, you could teach about safe sex practices. But wait, that would violate another pointless belief that is held onto by people who don't know any better (and refuse to learn more about).

What is it in us that makes admitting that we're wrong, and that we can improve, such a repulsive thought? What can we do to overcome LUD disease? Well, we can start by taking a look at what we believe. We can ask ourselves what we know with certainty, and then question it. We can look at the things we're pretty sure about, and see if we can look deeper and find certainty in it. We can explore the things we are unsure about, and find a better way. Most of all, every time we find a fact that stands out above all others, we can put it in our pocket, and keep it there for as long as we don't find a better fact. We show it to others and fight for it with the same fire and intensity that a hunter cries about gun control, and a creationist asserts the need for teaching the bible in school. And when we do find another, better fact, and we realize we've been wrong, we stand up, like men, and admit our mistake. And then we fight with the same passion with which we fought for our previous mistake.