I Don't Believe In Beliefs

A friend of mine recently made the comment that my religious status on Facebook is a bit confusing. Rather than a declaration of my beliefs, I have a short quote from Nicholas Hassim Taleb: “I don’t believe in beliefs.” As my friend points out, not believing in beliefs IS a belief. This is all a contradiction, after all, he argues.

I actually took Taleb’s quote a bit out of context. It was taken from an interview where Taleb was trying to make a bigger point about how we view the world around us. We use our beliefs to justify our actions. In other words, most people believe out of convenience, not out of conviction. At best, we base their beliefs on what we know, but place too little value on what we don’t know. I think Taleb’s contention is that we tend to live life, then justify ourselves. Our only reason to believe anything is strictly to explain our own existence. We make the facts fit our beliefs, not the other way around.

That is a bit harsh, actually. People often mistake this line of reasoning as atheistic, agnostic at best. Really, Taleb has always been a bit shy at divulging his own beliefs, but one clue lies in his observations that we know less than we think we do. For instance, it is arrogant to proclaim there is no God when it has been consistently proved that whatever a society believes will always turn out to be short-sighted and incomplete when viewed through the spectrum of history. A great example would be to examine Thomas Jefferson in a historical context. One of the greatest writers on the subject of liberty was a slave owner. He may have seen the irony, but given the times he lived in, he had no problem justifying his actions to himself.

We suffer from incomplete thinking. All of us. It is important to come to that self-realization. It is important to recognize that we all suffer from beliefs that are derived from incomplete facts. Atheists and theologists both have their arguments. One side may be correct, but only by accident. Neither side actually knows all the facts, only the facts that THEY know -- what they believe to be the ultimate truth. They take what they “believe” and use it as their final, conclusive argument. There are still facts to be found, new beliefs to be created.

Therefore, to say I don’t believe in beliefs is inaccurate. I simply don’t believe all the facts have presented themselves yet. This is not to be confused with relativism. I don’t believe “truth” is whatever we perceive it to be. I am more of an objective thinker, but unlike the likes of Ayn Rand, who was a devote atheist, I am aware that I don’t know all the facts. Therefore, I can not proclaim something as profound as the existence of God, one way or the other.

Believing in beliefs closes your mind to new facts. It is the very definition of dogma.

So am I an atheist, agnostic or do I believe in God? Who cares? My beliefs should not be used to confirm or deny your own. Maybe it should be said more simply; don’t believe in my beliefs. Evaluate your own beliefs and recognize where they come from, the pitfalls in using them as justifications, and that, open to new facts, your beliefs can and will evolve. The only constant is change. The only way to properly deal with change is reason.