Handicapping of Skepticism

How is skepticism at a disadvantage compared to romanticism?

The practice of skepticism entails the exploration of any possible argument that would debunk preconceived notion. While some of the arguments are often strongly supportive of a skeptical position, many are only moderately convincing yet still valid. In contrast, the shallow counter-solution that “God works in mysterious ways” is widely applicable and hardly attackable. The inclusion of the moderate arguments against Christianity weakens the perceived credibility of the person presenting them. Petty and Cacioppo explain that “providing a person with a few very convincing arguments may promote more attitude change than providing these arguments along with a number of much weaker arguments.” In effect, people are prone to believe that if they can argue against a moderate message, they would probably be able to spot the fallacies of the other messages if they considered them long enough. This can be an unfortunate aspect of human psychology because the addition of lesser arguments onto a pile of already strong arguments should only add credibility to the position and not affect the veracity of the stronger arguments.

People are motivated to defend their beliefs from attacks, particularly when they are forewarned of a speaker’s intent, and even more so when the belief is closely linked with identity. Not only are religious beliefs effectively synonymous with identity for a number of people, religious followers have been inoculated from skeptical arguments because they have been forewarned and exposed to weak or patently ridiculous arguments that are allegedly offered by disbelievers. This “poisoning of the well” modifies individuals to be more resistant to attitude changes toward the position that they already believe to be fundamentally weak. Examples might include the supposed atheism of harsh dictatorships, lack of morality in an atheistic worldview, absence of atheists in foxholes, atheism requiring enormous amounts of faith, atheists being unhappy, atheism being a childish form of rebellion, atheists being mad at God, etc. You can even find such ridiculous assertions within the Bible. If it were not for these inoculations, Christianity might otherwise be vulnerable to adjustment due to its cultural nature as a truism: a belief that is widely accepted, rarely defended, and consequently malleable.

The targeted audience for the skeptic is often very large, and people tend to be decreasingly persuaded by messages as the size of the potential audience grows. Petty and Cacioppo report that subjects are often motivated by strong arguments and discouraged by weaker arguments if the subjects are under the impression that the communications were intended to be heard only by a small number of people. In contrast, when subjects believe that a larger number of people are hearing the exact same arguments, the perceived difference in quality between the strong and weak arguments shrinks dramatically. In such a situation, listeners perceive weaker arguments as stronger, perhaps because the subjects feel that the arguments must contain merit since they are going to be heard by a wide audience; and stronger arguments are perceived as being weaker, perhaps due to the perceived decrease in personal importance. The difference would normally be a wash, but in mainstream culture, where arguments against Christianity are far superior to arguments in its favor (as anyone will attest as long as you replace the word “Christianity” with someone else’s religion), skepticism is at a disadvantage because there is less perceived difference in the strength of weak and strong arguments.

There is no pressure from society to understand or defend against the position of skeptics. Petty and Cacioppo report that subjects are often motivated to understand an issue when they are led to believe that, as a part of the study, they would have to discuss the issue with someone who took a contrasting position. Without this pressure, subjects are less likely to consider the position of the opponent. Since people do not have true interest in evaluating their innermost beliefs, those who have been conditioned to believe in a book with a talking donkey will never actively seek someone to challenge this position.

Society has painted a nasty picture of atheism and skepticism in general. Even though I left Christianity several years ago, the words still carry a sort of negative connotation with me – in the same sense that the meaningless word alaria sounds soothing while peklurg sounds irritating. It is of little question that people who do not believe in God are the least trusted minority in America. Petty and Cacioppo report that the likeability of the message’s source plays a major role in the message’s capability of persuasion. The disparity in the amount of attitude change resultant from identical messages provided by a likable source and an unlikable source is comparable to the disparity in the amount of change resultant from identical messages provided by an expert source and nonexpert source. In other words, you can obtain the same amount of perceived credibility by being likable as you can by becoming an expert. This is an enormous blow to objectivity, but I suppose we have to write it off as human nature and find some way to work around it.

Human beings are unbelievably gullible and illogical creatures. The ability to think skeptically is not innate; it requires practice. One-half of America believes that a person can use extrasensory perception to read another person’s mind. Nearly the same amount believes we can communicate with the dead. Otherwise sane individuals have been known to send death threats to meteorologists, not for inaccurate predictions, but for the actual weather conditions. Among other feats of incredible sheepishness, Cialdini reports that people are more likely to buy unusual items when priced higher, more likely to buy items with coupons despite no price advantage, more likely to respond to requests when empty reasons are given, more likely to agree to absurd requests if preceded by ones of greater absurdity, more likely to consider people intelligent and persuasive if they are attractive, and less likely to take an enemy prisoner during warfare if the potential captive offers them bread. If people are so prone to follow foolish patterns under such poor assumptions in order to help guide them through this complex world, should we be at all surprised when people hypothesize the existence of a personal god in order to explain intelligent life, distant galaxies, childbirth, universal physical constants, starving children, crimes against humanity, natural disasters, and suicide bombers?

(References omitted)