Saturday, September 12, 2009

THINKING RATIONALLY

I was impressed by the comments of Mr. Peter Laurie in the Barbados Sunday Sun of 30 August 2009. What impressed me most was his call for “rational enquiry and discussion in the quest for objective truth”. It must be acknowledged that Mr. Laurie is no enemy of religion. In other articles, he has emphasised his Roman Catholic faith. This underscores what I have always stated: rational thought is not the enemy of religion - rational thought is the enemy of superstition. In the same article, Mr. Laurie states that “the meaning and value of human life cannot be derived from reason and science alone” This is, of course, his own point of view, but it happens to be one which I tend to agree with.

We need to wean people away from the false dichotomy foisted on them by some religious leaders that it is either science or religion, and that the scientific method of enquiry, experiment and peer review is anti-religion. A dichotomy does indeed exist, but it exists between the scientific method and blind superstition, and why should that be a problem?

I believe that it is possible to be religious and still be rational. I believe that it is possible to be a man or woman of faith and still be a rational thinker, one who rejects unproven assumptions and seeks evidence first and foremost. I am not saying that evidence exists for every hypothesis, but I am saying that evidence must be sought in all cases, and that if I chose to accept a hypothesis on faith, I must be willing to reject that hypothesis if new evidence arises which calls it into question. Fact must always trump belief. There must be no belief so sacred that no fact can overturn it.

Let me provide an example: in the Bible, Numbers 1:46, the number of men who wandered in the desert during the Israelite exodus is given as 603,550. Add to that the women and children, and we would have had over 1.5 million people wandering around in the desert, setting up shelters, consuming food and producing waste, and doing the sorts of things that people do on a daily basis. Yet, archaeologists have found not one single trace of such a massive movement of people. The Exodus happens to be a lynchpin of Jewish and Christian faith, but did it really occur? Perhaps, but certainly not in the manner described in the Bible.

It is issues such as this that need to be addressed, not out of a need to criticise for the sake of criticising, not out of a need to prove people wrong, but out of a need to champion truth and honesty over fiction and dishonesty. This issue goes to the heart of what our society stands for. If we set truth and honesty up as our highest ideals, then we must teach them, we must preach them, and we must live them. If it means saying "I was wrong" or "I don't know", then that is what we must do.

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