Irrationality Among Secular People

Yglesias picked this up from Douthat, who picked it up from the Wall Street Journal. Apparently Baylor University commissioned Gallup to conduct a poll that showed that secular people credit non-religious superstitions more readily than traditional Christians. Yglesias isn't surprised, and neither am I, I suppose, but I do have some questions and observations to toss out as well.

I wasn't able to see the poll's sub-data, but the article suggested that the big dividing line between secular and religious voters is the difference in frequency of religious observance. That's okay as far as it goes, but how far does it go? My father is a believer, but isn't a churchgoer. There are lots of people out there who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" who eschew services but believe in a everything from astrology to Zoroastrianism. And there are lots of people who are "Christmas/Easter" Christians. Are they lumped in with people like me, or does the poll separate the "secular" with the same rigor that it sifts the "traditionally religious"? The article doesn't say.

The reluctance of traditional Christians to go in for tarot cards or communication with the dead doesn't shock me either. Traditional Christianity frowns on such practices, not so much because they are irrational, but rather because they're ostensibly Satanic. That's why some of the more Ned Flandersey Christians become such pains in the ass about Harry Potter and Halloween. They think that depictions of magical practices or of ghouls and goblins, even when done in fun, will lead them and their children to hell. Christian superstitions proscribe other kinds of superstition. That's all.

And in the end it should be said that everyone is, to some degree or other, susceptible to irrational beliefs, particularly when the belief touches on an area where the victim either has limited expertise or feels certain the belief can grant their long-held wishes. Bill Maher's rejection of conventional medicine and Frank Tipler's Omega Point are examples of both impulses. We're all of us capable of being conned, or of conning ourselves. And we all look a little crazy to each other. Here's Mark Twain to explain:

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.
Those of us who are not in the asylum, and not demonstrably due there, are nevertheless, no doubt, insane in one or two particulars. I think we must admit this; but I think that we are otherwise healthy-minded. I think that when we all see one thing alike, it is evidence that, as regards that one thing, our minds are perfectly sound. Now there are really several things which we do all see alike; things which we all accept, and about which we do not dispute. For instance, we who are outside of the asylum all agree that water seeks its level; that the sun gives light and heat; that fire consumes; that fog is damp; that six times six are thirty-six, that two from ten leaves eight; that eight and seven are fifteen. These are, perhaps, the only things we are agreed about; but, although they are so few, they are of inestimable value, because they make an infallible standard of sanity. Whosoever accepts them him we know to be substantially sane; sufficiently sane; in the working essentials, sane. Whoever disputes a single one of them him we know to be wholly insane, and qualified for the asylum.

Very well, the man who disputes none of them we concede to be entitled to go at large. But that is concession enough. We cannot go any further than that; for we know that in all matters of mere opinion that same man is insane--just as insane as we are; just as insane as Shakespeare was. We know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours.

That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic--for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his. All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad. To mention only a few:
The Atheist, The Theosophists, The Infidel, The Swedenborgians, The Agnostic, The Shakers, The Baptist, The Millerites, The Methodist, The Mormons, The Christian Scientist, The Laurence Oliphant Harrisites, The Catholic, and the 115 Christian sects, the Presbyterian excepted, The Grand Lama's people, The Monarchists, The Imperialists, The 72 Mohammedan sects, The Democrats, The Republicans (but not the Mugwumps), The Buddhist, The Blavatsky-Buddhist, The Mind-Curists, The Faith-Curists, The Nationalist, The Mental Scientists, The Confucian, The Spiritualist, The Allopaths, The 2000 East Indian sects, The Homeopaths, The Electropaths, The Peculiar People, The----

But there's no end to the list; there are millions of them! And all insane; each in his own way; insane as to his pet fad or opinion, but otherwise sane and rational. This should move us to be charitable towards one another's lunacies. I recognize that in his special belief the Christian Scientist is insane, because he does not believe as I do; but I hail him as my mate and fellow, because I am as insane as he insane from his point of view, and his point of view is as authoritative as mine and worth as much. That is to say, worth a brass farthing. Upon a great religious or political question, the opinion of the dullest head in the world is worth the same as the opinion of the brightest head in the world--a brass farthing. How do we arrive at this? It is simple. The affirmative opinion of a stupid man is neutralized by the negative opinion of his stupid neighbor no decision is reached; the affirmative opinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by the negative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman--no decision is reached. Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value any but a dead person knows that much. This obliges us to admit the truth of the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above--that, in disputed matters political and religious, one man's opinion is worth no more than his peer's, and hence it followers that no man's opinion possesses any real value. It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get around it: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions.

It is a mere plain, simple fact--as clear and as certain as that eight and seven make fifteen. And by it we recognize that we are all insane, as concerns those matters. If we were sane, we should all see a political or religious doctrine alike; there would be no dispute: it would be a case of eight and seven--just as it is in heaven, where all are sane and none insane. There there is but one religion, one belief; the harmony is perfect; there is never a discordant note.

You can listen to this part of Twain's Christian Science, and more besides, here. Where I'm concerned, I try to hew close to what I take to be objective reality, cognizant of the limitations of my grey cells and my senses, and aware at all times that I could be wrong. It seems to me the safest, most civilized course, and it frees my Sundays for football.