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This is a talk by Dan Dennett that got me thinking about the idea of being nice to believers. The talk hasn’t changed, but I keep hearing different things in it when I re-listen. Obvious Spoiler Alert: He doesn’t really provide good reasons for believing, but he talks about why people do. In a simple list, fear, love, guilt, witnessing and metaphor. The first three are pretty obvious, if you live in Afghanistan, you should probably go along with believers, if not, it’s still good to be nice to grandma and not hurt her feelings, or there is still social pressure.

He gets a bit deeper into the psychology when talking about the con games currently played, like the deference you’re supposed to give to someone who has had a personal experience, or you’ll hurt their feelings, or that “punishment” is a just a metaphor, you’ll just separate yourself from the feelings of love or something. It’s more sophisticated than that, and he compares to our secular fictions, like how we once believed we needed gold to back up our currency, and some still think we do. Or worse, when people actually do lose confidence in their currency, you can get runaway inflation and collapse. He ends with an interview of Dick Cheney who said, as an Empire, they make reality, and while you are all reviewing the facts, they’ll go on to make another reality. This is the real danger of sticking to non-fact based system of understanding reality.

So, my summary of this is, we are still arguing about this idea of scientific truth being the better choice, knowing that it does not always motivate people to keep in line with the establish order. What was once adaptive is now maladaptive but we still have not adapted to living without those old ways. This is where some compassion is needed for those who are choosing between being ostracized by their communities and speaking what they know is true. They may need that support. We can set barriers and point out how their words compare to a con game, without making insulting comparisons to evil old white men.