Recently I had the good fortune of viewing on French TV a detailed analysis of how doubt is exploited to discredit scientists’ proven data on a variety of dangers to which we are exposed. It has been proven, for example, that pesticides are the cause of the death of bees around the world. But certain scientists, financially backed by the enterprises that produce the pesticides, use both their knowledge and professional reputation and credibility to sow doubts about the validity of the arguments of their confreres become whistle-blowers who have spoken out in a massive “J’Accuse” against the companies in question. The famous controversy concerning Round-Up is dissected in detail, leading to doubts about the proven danger of the popular weed-killer, as are the arguments of tobacco companies by putting into doubt that the prime culprit causing lung-cancer is nicotine, rather than multiple other causes. The certitude concerning the human origin of climate-change is dismissed by the henchmen of nations and enterprises responsible for toxic pollution as the left-wing doctrine of fanatical ecologists, ridiculed as “watermelons”, green on the outside and red on the inside.
It was long thought that the gainsayers of objective scientific evidence in all of these domains were motivated by the bribes offered them by oil-companies, the coal industry and pesticide producers. The video suggests that research has revealed that while this may be true for some, the principal motivation of defenders of the capitalist status-quo has always been extreme right-wing ideology, rather than the sole financial interest of guilty corporate polluters and individual scientists prepared to betray their profession for thirty pieces of silver. The gainsayers define their task not as proving the honest ecologist-scientists wrong – which they cannot do – but in producing doubt in the minds of the general public.
Militant atheists might learn something from these shrewd, dishonest polemicists and ask themselves the question : should we concentrate on sowing doubts in the minds of believers, rather than launch a frontal attack on their theology ? We know that we cannot prove that they are wrong, although we also know that they are totally deluded and mistaken in accepting the claims of religions and their “holy” books. Our use of the dishonest scientists’ strategy in no way implies that believers are right, as are in fact the honest scientists. But getting Believers on the Brink to begin to question their faith could be more effective than trying to prove them wrong. This is why I have opted for trying to get them to realize how childishly credulous they are in gobbing the laughable fables, “miracles” and doctrines they were brainwashed to accept as certitudes. To make our convictions contagious, empathy is an essential ally, which is why I tell readers of this blog that for half of my 84 years I shared their certitudes, that I believed as they still do – until I found myself saying : “Believers have got to be kidding … themselves !”
I try to sow doubts by sharing those which forced me to recognize that indeed I had been conned (innocently enough) by the blind leading the blind. My unfounded “certitudes” were based on myths, legends and wishful, primitive thinking worthy of children, not mature adults. This is why – to quote a parable of Jesus – I have become a sower of seeds, the seeds of doubt that have bloomed into my present, very different certitudes.
I doubt, therefore I am … an atheist. I was a blind believer but “I can see clearly now that faith has gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day” (thanks, Johnny Nash).
RIDENDA RELIGIO
Blind Faith: Blind Folly 
If one’s enemy has a strength, one would be foolish not to acknowledge this and even adapt or co-opt it to one’s advantage.
The deniers understand human frailty’s desire for a life of ease, which more often than not opts for the line of least effort or resistance. They know that it is difficult to master the facts of climate science or vaccination or pesticide-induced biodeath; so rather than persuade by good hard evidence that their detractors are wrong, they exploit the common man’s weakness for a life of ease by merely sowing doubt about their detractors’ claims; they become merely the glib deniers of scientific facts and marshal their marketing mantras to confuse and obfuscate.
Does this augur well for the champions of scepticism and doubt regarding the claims of the “faith” community? Could it not be said that these detractors, these champions of scepticism are themselves merely the glib deniers of “truth”. Surely the common man, even in his desire for a life of ease, is entitled to rely on the “faith” experts and their litanies of religious “facts” .
Ah, we say. But who in fact are these experts and what in fact is their expertise and what are their facts? Could it not be said that these theologians and metaphysicians with their “refined” art of argumentation , eschatology, epistemology, hermeneutics and pseudo-logic are themselves the deniers of fact? Have not their high-priests themselves sought to shroud their mythology, their religious “facts”, with elaborate word-games and a rarified vocabulary and having successfully fooled themselves, set about fooling the common man who has no aptitude or even desire to master their “high” art.
And so the tables are in a sense turned. These purveyors of myth, fiction, pseudo-logic and non-sense are those who have to be exposed for what they are, the real deniers, the deniers of truth, the peddlers of claimed religious “facts”, with their elaborate marketing mantra of “faith”, complete with ritual, doctrine and dogma.
And their detractors, the champions of scepticism and doubt, have the harder task ahead because truth is often stranger than fiction.
It is and will be ever thus.
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My granddaughter Eléonore is laboriously trying to complete her third year of Law School at the Sorbonne. Lockdown has made her studies a nightmare. Alone in front of a screen all day is a challenge, however, she is courageously managing to cope with. She has, or had, a sideline academic activity : her “Eloquence Club”. I recommend that she persuse Thom’s comment, a paragon of the art of the eloquence she is dedicated to mastering.
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Frank, I must be one of those militant atheists. There are good reasons to actively oppose the delusion of religion in general, and the monotheistic faith in particular. Religions put forth a false narrative as to our place in the universe and the monotheists claim that we are the very reason for its creation.
The great scam is based on the grand delusion that humans are special and that heaven is real.
Religions would not be a problem at all if they gave up all of their supernatural claims! GROG
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“Short and concise, pithy and brief, as straight to the point as can be”. I’m pretty sure my Dad did not make that up, but it’s among other snippets of his advice I never managed to follow. You do, to perfection. G’donya, mate !
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Thanks, young man. As such it should always be; straight arrow and to the point. Stay safe. GROG
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GROG, I should have commented on your “grand delusion that humans are special”. The Universe choofed itself into existence and expansion and got along quite well without us for over 13 billion years. Then we popped on to the scene, just 200,000 years ago, that is to say in the blink of an eye ago. Moreover, in another five billion years our world will explode and return into non-existence – unless we succeed in destroying it long before that. At best we would be an after-thought, had there been a Creator capable of thinking, but certainly not the raison d’être of the Cosmos.
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So glad you noticed my overdue comment, GROG ! Most of us are given to omphaloskepsis (navel-gazing, for those who understandably would say, accurately, that the word is Greek to them). Tiny, fragile, momentary specks in a massive, billions of years-old Universe, so myopic – no, blind – to our insignificance that we imagine the whole bloomin’ thing was created FOR US ! As mind-blowing as the Cosmos itself !
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