Our Forefathers Forbearance

Craig sent me a blog post, linked in the title of this post, and pointed out that he agreed with the first comment. After reading both the article and the comment, I wanted to save my thoughts here and show how they apply to governance.

I think the commenter is describing a valid point but one that does not mesh with the intent of the original poster's reason for making the statement in question. When Pursiful says, "because there is no knock-down argument for the existence of God, then by definition people are going to disagree about God." he is speaking about forbearance. The quoted statement is just a way of reminding the reader that what constitutes "proof" to one person may not be accepted by another.

The commenter goes on to say

It's one thing if an atheist speaks as if *the atheist* doesn't find it to be conclusive proof of anything because he thinks it is make-believe, but it's another entirely for a Christian to speak as if *the Christian* doesn't find it to be a knock-down argument for God's existence either because of his own unbelief or someone else's.

First, I do not think that Mr. Pursiful is stating that Christ's resurrection is in question, rather he is admitting that what he himself accepts as fact can be held as 'not-fact' by someone else. Secondly, the commenter is falling prey to the same logical fallacy that the article covers.

Let me use an example. I believe that the Earth is round but my brother believes that it is flat. I use a Foucault Pendulum to prove Earth's rotates and thus is round. My brother refuses to accept my proof and instead of trying to convince him further I tell him that he's free to believe the world is flat. In doing so, have I turned my back on my own beliefs? Can it be said that I no longer believe in the Earth as Sphere? No, I do not. He being my brother, I take him as he is rather than harangue him for not agreeing with my beliefs. He's not stupid or evil, he just doesn't believe in something that I do.

An even better example may be the small group of people who deny the Holocaust which is described by the Wikipedia article thusly:

Holocaust denial is widely viewed as failing to adhere to rules for the treatment of evidence, principles that mainstream historians (as well as scholars in other fields) regard as basic to rational inquiry. The prevailing — and indeed virtually unanimous — consensus of mainstream scholars is that the evidence given by survivors, eyewitnesses, and contemporary historical accounts is overwhelming; that this evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubtthat the Holocaust occurred; and that it occurred as these sources say it occurred.

Even if you have perfect evidence to 'prove' God's existence, there would still be those who choose no to believe it. I'm tempted to go into a discussion on epistemology but I doubt the commenter would appreciate a discussion about how we know what we do, the distinction between truth and belief and the limitations of knowledge.

The point is that there are people who will refuse to believe in things easily proven with ample evidence available and instead of the common choices he describes, "we assume that those who disagree with us are either ignorant or evil" he offers a third choice, forbearance.

With regard to governance, the gentlemen who gathered to contemplate a new type of Republic had to deal with this subject head on. How to build a strong society that doesn't let the small divisions between individuals form the cancer that drives men to accumulate power so that they can use the force of the State to control what others are allowed to believe. The heart of the First Amendment is forbearance, the willingness to allow people to believe in things that others do not. The two main political parties engage in battle along this very fault-line every election cycle. Two parties who see the same evidence but reach different conclusions.

Forbearance.