On Behalf Of Len Kennedy,
Esq.
Sent:
Did I miss something? Did anyone
actually say faith was useless. Considering that
you’ve put the word “useless” in quotes, I’m assuming
you’re quoting someone.
I, for one, can
see how faith may prove useful by helping people to cope, albeit
by believing comforting lies. And I can see how groups of people,
including the U.S., can benefit if their armies are comprised of people
who foolishly believe that when they die they’ll be rewarded for their
sacrifice—and people with that kind of belief are far more likely to
throw their lives away “for the greater good” than are people who
would be hesitant because they realize that after they die they’re
probably actually going to be dead. So, no, faith isn’t useless
from an evolutionary perspective—whether we’re talking about
genetic or memetic evolution—and sometimes it
can even be pragmatic . . . but the things in
which people tend to have faith are dubious at best: horoscopes, prayer,
politicians. . . .
I think it’s
sensible to have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow (from our perspective,
anyway), because that’s been happening for quite some time now, and
there’s no reason to expect the earth to stop rotating on its axis or the
sun to go supernova anytime soon. And it makes sense to have faith in
people whom you know—based on their past behavior, among other
things. But to have faith in things like God, Satan, Santa Claus, pixies,
fairies, leprechauns, life after death, or the healing
power of crystals is just silly.
[Blunderov] “Daily
Philosophical Quotation ”(quotes@philosophersmag.com) today
seems apt:
An ideology is a complex of ideas or
notions which represents itself to the thinker as an absolute truth for the
interpretation of the world and his situation within it; it leads the thinker
to accomplish an act of self-deception for the purpose of justification,
obfuscation and evasion in some sense or other to his advantage.
Karl Jaspers
--The Origin and Goal of
History