If you profess a irrational faith, you will believe in things supported by few sources (generally authoritative), that are hundreds or thousands of years old and that are unquestionable (in fact, questioning them denotes disrespect).
The problem is that almost all of our ideas are based on pillars of irrational faith, because we have no way of analyzing whether the data is correct or incorrect: we rely on our morals (or our moral disgust), which is the same as affirming that we rely on discretion.
Moral ideas
It is estimated that in Spain 19.5% of the population has had some type of mental disorder. Therefore, it is disturbing to think about the number of beliefs that have been born from sick minds, as the neurologist has explained. David Eagleman in a book of Michio Kaku titled The future of our mind:
It seems that a good part of the prophets, martyrs and leaders in history suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy. Let us think of Joan of Arc, a sixteen-year-old girl who changed the course of the Hundred Years' War because she believed (and convinced the French soldiers) that she heard voices of the archangel Saint Michael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Margaret and Saint Gabriel.
The point is that, leaving aside religious movements, our judgment (also moral) regarding almost all kinds of issues arises from assumptions, prejudices, fashions, authority biases, social contagion or, simply, as a way of fitting in. society. It doesn't matter if we talk about abortion, the death penalty, bullfighting, euthanasia, prostitution... except for the parts of our statements that we can measure scientifically (or at least objectively), such as, for example, how conscious a person may be or not through measuring instruments, the rest is just a capricious and capricious positioning.
The value of an idea must be measured with a ruler. That is, with objective experiments, with evidence. Not all things can be subjected to the rigors of the scientific method, either because we are analyzing subjective things. But not being able to measure certain ideas objectively should also inform us of something very important: that we have no way of knowing if those ideas are good or bad, better or worse..
And, therefore, they are mere opinions. And as such, be careful about defending them too fervently... because maybe, just maybe, you are defending them because they are your religion, or worse yet, you are defending them even though they can be proven false... with a simple rule.
The Seattle Chipped Windshield Epidemic of 1954 is a somewhat comical example of how social influence can affect what people think, even if no one has planned anything. You can see it in the following video:
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The news
Ideas that cannot be measured with a ruler are only good or bad if we agree on them as such.
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.