Originally Posted by
geoff332
You've never defined it. I've not defined it either, but I use a standard definition, so saw little need: credulous as having a tendancy to believe based on little evidence. Whenever I've used the term, that's what I've meant. Most dictionaries use some variant on that definition. You may define it as something different.
The confirmation bias exacerbates credulousness: the confirmation bias explains that way we seek to support our beliefs by actively avoiding conflicting evidence (to put that another way: we don't want more evidence once we've made up our minds...). This is not the only cognitive bias that produces credulousness: but, as I said, it's one is easily captured in the wild.
I have defined it. I haven't specified the definition within this thread, which may be what you meant.
In any event, I reject your assertion that the definition you give is the 'standard' one.
Because I can't get at my OED, I used dictionary.com, which defined credulous as:
1. tending to believe too readily; easily convinced
2. resulting from or indicating credulity
and gave the following synonyms:
gullible, unsuspicious, simple, unsophisticated; naive, trusting
This is the sense in which I used the word in my original post: religion encourages people to be credulous; believers are told that they must not question the tenets of the faith; that they must do what they are told ("don't use condoms"); that the more difficult it is to believe something the greater the achievement when you are able to do it (the wafer and the wine literally turn into the body and blood of jesus, no matter how yukky that sounds and no matter that throughout the journey from lips to stomach they always retain the exact and identical flavour and texture of - um - wine and wafer), that other people's interpretation of the bible is to be accepted notwithstanding ("the good book says, give and ye shall receive, so you have to give me $1,000 and the lord will give you back a hundredfold - the good book doesn't lie!") and so forth.
This is opposed to a rational approach to the universe, which says: I'm prepared to accept the consensus view, that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics properly describes the behaviour of the smallest components of the universe, but I will be properly sceptical of anyone trying to sell me something who says that quantum uncertainty means they can imbue distilled water with magical healing powers.
My feeling is that your statements about tendency to believe in the absence of sufficient evidence are supporting a rather shallow analysis.
The human brain, amongst other things, is the most powerful pattern-seeking device known to humankind. One demonstration of this is visual illusions: the brain seeks to impose a pattern even when careful analysis shows the pattern is not actually there. Black and white squares have been painted on floors in such a way as to simulate the perspective of two matching levels divided by a much lower level (by changing the size of the squares). Animals placed on the floor will not voluntarily walk across what appears to be a chasm, a possibly fatal fall. Their brains have been confused by the apparent perspective of the pattern.
One can speculate on how patterns which we now take for granted - seasons producing growth and death of crops, flooding of river plains, and similar; low pressures producing high winds, warm wet air rising over cool dry air producing thunderstorms and lightning; infection producing fever and swelling, earth orbiting the sun and the moon orbiting the earth producing a waxing and waning moon and occasionally eclipses - must have been mysterious and often frightening for our long-ago ancestors.
That mystery and that fear must very often have been unbearable, intolerable. How to drag yourself out to the fields the day after the crop was destroyed by locusts, and wonder how you are going to feed yourself and your family this winter? Small wonder, then, that many would have grasped like drowning people at explanations, no matter how tentative, how tenuously supported, how fantastical - so long as they gave some hope of being able to influence the outcome. Pray to the gods, that the Nile may flood again this year; pray to the gods, that hailstorms will not destroy the crops; pray to the gods that the sun will come out again from behind the moon: anything is better than accepting that there is no rhyme nor reason, or that if there is we cannot discover what it might be. And if this year, we pray hard but there are still hailstorms, next year, we must propitiate the gods with concrete evidence of our respect and worship. And if all that fails, we must accept that some god of this land, or this river, is angry with us and that we must move elsewhere if we are to thrive and prosper.
The tendency to religion is at least as much an attempt to cope with the unknown as it is anything else, and probably more than that. I've seen pictures of an aboriginal australian, his arm slashed, holding the back of a boy's head so the blood would run down his back, mimicking water running out of the heavens and on to the ground - a 20th century ceremony to invoke rain. This isn't a question of a "tendency to believe based on little evidence", it's a desperate rear-guard action against an impenetrable and indifferent universe.
My criticism isn't that religion (defined here as a belief in magical or supernatural divinities) can never have produced any benefit for humans; my criticism is that it no longer provides whatever benefits may have provoked its creation and adoption. I say it encourages credulity and you have not shown that it does not, merely claimed that credulousness is "hard-wired" (whatever that means) into our brains. It could be (I do not say that it is) argued that promiscuous behaviour is 'hard wired' into human males. That wouldn't prevent anyone from criticising a (hypothetical) organisation set up encourage men to be wildly promiscuous.
Your argument that religion is a function of humankind is - irrelevant. Anti-semitism is a function of humankind, but I feel perfectly happy in detesting and scorning anti-semitism and slagging off anyone who espouses it. (Note to careless readers: the comparison with anti-semitism is a reductio ad absurdum, so don't explode thinking that I'm making a one-to-one comparison between religion and anti-semitism.) Amnesty International is a function of humankind and yet I think it is an excellent institution and would encourage people to support it.
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