The rationalization of our own Belief Systems

Whenever the above topic comes up I am reminded by Woody Allen's remark that rationalization is even more important than sex.
His supporting argument for this position was ...."how many days can you go without rationalizing?:
I must tell my A2K friends here that this same question was posed a few years ago by me in an other Philosophy Forum and I am repeating it here because I truly expect that some
interesting positions will be offered herein.

Whether our belief systems were adopted by deliberate choice or by osmosis, challenges to them make us uncomfortable. We rely on beliefs to give meaning and stability to our lives in the face of uncertainty.

How open you are to conflicting ideas may be determined by how much you have invested in your existing beliefs. You might not care if the speed of light was found to vary, but you would be very upset if the "facts" regarding the existence of a god to whom you had devoted your life, heart and immortal soul (and 10% of your assets) were challenged. If your belief system is inflexible, any data that conflicts with it must be discounted or rationalized away.

It is not surprising that different people reach widely different conclusions from the same "set of facts" since each mind that processes them has unique experiences, skills, and biases. We tend to pick out a few facts (usually those that support our position) and ignore the rest. We assign greater weight to data from trusted sources (those on "our side") if we believe that opposing sources are inherently biased or fraudulent. We see patterns and correlations where none actually exist. We devise seemingly logical arguments to convince ourselves that we are right.

Given the fuzzy logic system that we use, I doubt if we will ever agree on fundamental truths. But as long as a belief system enables its followers to live a satisfactory life without harming others, it may not matter how illogical some of the beliefs are.

Excellent post, Terry. I am in complete agreement.

If I may, I'd like to comment on one point you make:

Investment often involves "due diligence". That is, we believe in a stock, but we scrutinize the financial statements, assess the competition, and analyze the market before we make a call to the broker. And if we are clever, no matter how good the equity looks on the face of it, we do not bet our life savings initially: we continue to investigate the company and monitor its progress.

If the broker pedals another stock, we take it under consideration (i.e., "we are open to conflicting ideas") but we require at least as much depth of knowledge in the competition as we have invested in our existing portfolio. Until then, we remain skeptical of the conflicting idea, of course. Unfortunately, it is often the case that the broker's understanding of the competition is considerably less than our own understanding of the stock of our choice.

But there is no question that we do, indeed, "rationalize the belief system we have adopted".

Hey now! I don't like this! :p
You're attacking the basics with which we hope to come to a general truth, which we all want to do here. The premise being that by rational thought uttered in words we can come to new and more accurate conclusions. Now, I was kidding, you're not attacking the basics of course. We're here to find both how and why.

Because they are interlinked and in some way, imo, the same thing. But if you want to differentiate their meaning, fine. Let's get back to the basics of how we're doing what and why(ok, not why, but this was a how and why discussion so I felt obliged to say why . So, you feel why is a potentially more import question than how.

Fine, let's see what other basic (grammatically speaking) questions we have. A list: Why, how, when, where, who and what. Ok, so why is when not important? Because time may not exist? Because it's relative? Excluding therefor on grammatical basis? Why(hihi) can't we do the same with why then? Which also refers to reason, just as much if not more(or less, WHATEVER. I DON'T KNOW) then how.

Next in line(yes, I'm not one to even obey my own order. I'm one chaotic mind): Who? Ok, we can't say, who does it work. But we can go over to the thread about consciousness or about god. Who being the question of entity. Perhaps this holds all answers. Perhaps not. Perhaps it's a part of the bigger picture (perhaps it also includes the full understanding when one makes an analogy).

What? I think this is the question we're all really asking ourselves. Unless you just look at what as matter and energy (and so on? If you must use other scientific concepts to explain everything)

Where? Time-Space continuum. Space problem as When. Want me to use hard words to make my point? I'm sure somebody will come along shortly with terms such as flux. The point it, they are dependant when used as concepts to measure our reality on a grander scale.

I'll stop right here for now, waiting for you all to correct and/or stop me
(Spellcheck didn't find anything and I don't want to reread everything, please contact me if I made some basic mistakes regarding the english language)

Re: The rationalization of our own Belief Systems
One might be hard pressed to make a case for any selective advantage provided by 'the "why" questioning mode' at all!

I suspect - and this is all fascinating, by the way, great topic - that evolution, as applying to the thought process, dropped off the map when the first 'why?s' began to become popular.

"the 'birth' of rationalization"!

the 'why' was a new kind of question; and the strangest thing about it was that even the most powerful and oldest of the tribe could not devise the answers.

here deception (back to evolutionary survival techniques) came into play - the answers must be 'invented'!

and one by one, there was a myth for every why!

true rational thought involves discarding every concept, idea, or even axiom, that is 'resident in memory', and starting from scratch, wresting reliable evidence from every 'how' available to be applied to the growing backlog of the 'why's.

A myth if ever there was one!

touche, eh!

Terry said it best; there will always exist differences of opinion, and that's okay as long as we do no harm on the basis of what we believe.

unfortunately, there will likely be differences of opinion about whether or not we are doing harm.

An oft-mentioned example of "harm done on the basis of belief" is that of missionaries to primitive peoples. However, if you weight the testimony of those primitive peoples higher than that of (say) James Michener, who has his own collection of axes to grind, you might discover that many primitive peoples are actually grateful for the gentle introduction to the modern world provided to them by missionaries. The exploitation of primitive peoples by missionaries sometimes occurs, to be sure; but the exploitation of primitive peoples who have the misfortune to encounter the modern world via developers or slave traders is of much greater likelihood. A great book to read for a "native's-eye-view" is The Spirit of the Rainforest

jnhof, There are pros and cons on whether missionaries have done harm or done good. It depends a great deal on which side of the fence you're on.

Indeed; I was using it as an example of how the "harm" might, in itself, be an subject of contention. If it were up to me, I'd go with the natives' side of the fence to make a decision on whether the good outweighs the bad, or vice-versa.

jnh, Your assumption about finding the answer from the natives is unrealistic. Once people are brainwashed into any religion, they will answer in the affrimative. Only outsiders will have a better crack at assessing harm or good. Is religion good? The majority will answer in the affirmative. Is that really truth and logic? I don't think so.

I fear that you are correct in the first, and less so in the second. Unrealistic, perhaps, but no less realistic than asking "outsiders", who are equally likely to be biased.

you should watch "the mission" (i think it's called) with robert deniro...it's a really good movie which focuses heavily on this issue.

alikimr, you asked me to give my feedback on this issue...but Terry already said everythign I could say on this topic.

Excellent movie

I find this a bit of a "null question" because the assumption of "same" as in "same evidence" ultimately implies "same social history" for interlocuters. Since this is unlikely (!) why are we surprised when "different" conclusions are reached ?

i.e Same/Different is a function of purposes and needs of the observer. The dimension has no objective reality.

fresco, And that's a fact.

one important point that has not been considered re: the "missionary/aboriginals" subject, is 'intent';
while the intent of the missionary is to ', in their deluded consciousness, improve the lives of the locals, who it could be argued, often have been having fuller, more meaningful lives than could be expected under the 'yoke of whatever religious beliefs are to be imposed upon them.
But secondarily the true cause of decimation, is not the 'well meaning missionaries, but the bacteria they unknowingly carry on their bodies, being a source of disease, for which the natives are totally medically, and immunologically unprepared for.
So while the intent might be noble, if misguided, the result is usually disaster.

[one might say the missionaries are 'rationallizing' the nature of their form of 'unintentional' genocide]