DECISIONS ABOUT BELIEFS

We make countless decisions daily, although some are so inconsequential that they barely reach the level of consciousness. Some people make the first decision before opening their eyes. “Should I get up now or stay in bed another ten minutes?” Then, while still half asleep, “Which socks? Eggs or cereal? Do I start on the front page or turn right to the sports section?” Although trivial, almost automatic, and requiring minimal brain energy, the choices must be made—we have no choice. We occasionally face momentous decisions that may require days or years of agonizing internal debate: “Should I accept the offer? Ask her to marry me? Take him off life support?” Yet, even those are dwarfed in importance by one decision—that of an overall worldview. Everybody forms one, even agnostics, although their decision is to claim ignorance.

Overall worldview encompasses beliefs ranging from the nature (existence?) of God to proper administration of justice to whether the Beatles were the greatest rock group of all time. The beliefs are central to our lives and have far-reaching consequences. They determine whether a person spends Sundays speaking in tongues, or prays five times a day facing Mecca, or refuses medicine for a dying baby, or never eats pork, or bombs abortion clinics.

It may seem strange to discuss beliefs as products of decisions. If we could choose what to believe, lie detectors would be useless. The spy or axe murderer could decide that he was playing Scrabble at the time. Each person could believe that she or he was the richest, wisest, best-looking person in the world. And, while they were at it, could put an end to human misery. Yet major philosophers such as William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty argued that a belief is true if and only if it is useful to hold that belief.

Although objective events usually play the dominant role in shaping beliefs, some beliefs are maintained despite the flimsiest of evidence. People watch a televised trial and become certain which party is lying. They hear an interview and assume they have direct access to the respondent’s inner thoughts. They buy a lottery ticket and make vacation plans. He sees her breasts jutting out underneath a flimsy top and becomes convinced he’s found a lifetime soul mate. Religious convictions have even shakier foundations. They are at the core of our being, yet most people expend little more cerebral energy on developing and evaluating them than on “Eggs or cereal?”

The last sentence, just words on a page, indicates bizarreness of the highest order. After all, we humans take pride in the giant forebrain that distinguishes us from other animals by giving us the ability to think deeply. Nevertheless, many people form their most important beliefs as young children, before that forebrain is fully developed. Later, they speak with certainty about what happens after we die and which one particular bible, of the more than 1,000 available around the world, speaks the literal truth. Answers to such questions stumped the likes of Aristotle, Einstein, and Bertrand Russell, yet these people “know”— typically within a few years of being toilet trained and disabused of the reality of Santa Claus but before learning the multiplication table.

“Man is what he believes.” ~ Anton Chekkov

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