Blind Faith and the Security of Doubt

Michael, from North Carolina, taught me to say "bleeve", as in "I bleeve I'll have another beer." Actually, Michael was a clergyman, so most of his bleefs had to do with religion. Michael also taught me that Yale was pronounced, "Yay-yull". (But, ah, hay-yull, I am getting off the point, here!)

I was taught to be a believer. The alternative was to be a doubter, as in Doubting Thomas, who when told that Jesus had gotten up from the dead, said he would believe it when he saw it. Thomas was said to have seen it, so he became a believer, too. It is said.

Religions train people not to doubt. Doubt is the enemy. Somehow, we are supposed to achieve a serenity that is impervious to questions. But how can one not wonder? As a consequence, the inner lives of many religious people is a terror of questions, never tamed.

Now we know that the absolutes are gone. Everything we know is provisional; some very durable, some short-lived. Everything we know has been achieved by doubt. The scientific "method" is to wonder what might make a claim--any claim--false. It is just to ask, "Will that stand up to scrutiny? To testing?" If it does, we use it, until we learn something better.

Knowledge welcomes scrutiny: doubts. It is to test the strength of our ideas. To demonize doubt--to see it as the enemy--is to live constantly in fear of good ideas, other ideas, new ideas.

That is what doubt is about: finding a better idea.

I bleeve that.

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