Most people seem to have difficulty with doubting - they much prefer certainty over skepticism and uncertainty. Why is this? I'm not exactly sure but you can see it in operation in religion, paranormal beliefs, and even politics on a very consistent basis.

At Philosoraptor, Winston Smith writes:

We seem to be poorly-equipped, cognitively speaking, to deal with doubt and uncertainty. The cognitive science literature is filled with findings that show that we jump to conclusions too quickly, stick to our accepted conclusions long after they have been disproven, and weigh confirming evidence more heavily than disconfirming evidence. These tendencies seem to explain, at least in part, why people are so bad at abandoning their current theories until those theories are replaced by new ones, even when the old theory has already been disproven. Although logically speaking disconfirmation is easier than confirmation, psychologically speaking things are just the reverse.

Consequently it might be easier to convince people of the truth of a theory which they perceive (rightly or wrongly) to be incompatible with the theory they now hold than it would be to simply convince them that the theory they now hold is unfounded. Strange but--perhaps--true.

One might think that the above was written about religion, but it wasn’t — Winston is writing about how the new evidence of Iran’s possible complicity with al Qaeda might get people to let go of their belief that Iraq was involved with al Qaeda. Once people latched on to that belief, they refused to let it go, regardless of the counter-evidence. Now that they may have an entirely new theory to adopt, though, letting go of the old one might be easier.

The above, though, is nicely written such that it could apply to so many different situations. There are a lot of people who, when approached with doubts about the existence of God, insist that atheists provide an alternative and comprehensive explanation for life, the universe, and everything. Most atheists recognize that an absence of such an alternative does nothing to suggest that any one religion is true, but maybe that’s not quite the point. Maybe this is an expression of an unrecognized mental need to have a certain explanation and, in the absence of alternatives, people will hold on to weak ones no matter what sorts of doubts and challenges are tossed their way. They need some belief, some theory — regardless of how bad it is.

Food for thought...

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