Fringe-ology Read Online Free Page A

a people, our grip on reality itself is diminished. We are always being presented with binary choices, when reality is far more complex.
    This book isn’t going to provide a lesson in epistemology, the study of knowledge, which has gone on for millennia. It’d take a lot more space than I have to do that. But this is a book that asks the reader to recognize that there is a difference between knowledge and belief, and the bar for what constitutes true knowledge is set awfully high—far higher than we can attain throughout our society. So in court, for instance, we rely on eyewitness testimony when we also know, by scientific study, that eyewitness testimony is shockingly unreliable. What this means is that, as human beings, we traffic largely in belief. I think this fact could set us free if we let it. In not only admitting we don’t know but acting on it, we open a door to conversation—as opposed to debate—and the exploration of new ideas, a good-faith sifting through of the facts we have. I think, theoretically, most religious people can at least grope their way toward accepting this: in theological terms, doubt is often seen as a necessary part of real faith. Skeptics might have a harder time, because they usually profess that they deal only in facts. But as we’ll see throughout this book, the arch-skeptic is as capable of seeing things according to his or her biases as the believer.
    The result is that we don’t merely live in a world of false certainties; we live in a world in which people at either extreme try and get those of us in the middle to buy into their particular fairytale version of reality.
    This line of argument is normally waged solely against believers—the “old man with a beard” who takes away the sins of the world and greets us all in heaven with a sweetie. Psychologists also often talk in terms of the emotional or real-world payoff people receive in exchange for what we do—from the actions we take to the beliefs we hold. And for a long time, this sort of transactional aspect of belief was most evident in, well, believers. Those who believe in God or even a Godless afterlife have long been examined in terms of the benefit they receive for holding that belief: faith in the paranormal as a panacea for knowing death awaits us all, for instance. But if the New Atheists have succeeded in anything, it is in crafting a materialist fairy tale. Known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens have created a similar payoff for believing there is no God. In their view, the only immortality available to us is the legacy we leave behind; and because they are right they will be remembered and judged well by history. And here on Earth, while they’re alive, they get to feel smart while stupid goes on doing as stupid does.
    Religion tries to scare people into believing its tenets. Follow our rules or burn in hell. Dawkins declares a kind of intellectual fatwa against belief itself, swaying fence sitters to his position through fear of ridicule. Forswear belief or be called a superstitious dullard, a dangerous fool? Atheists shall be known as “brights,” and believers “dulls.” Is this an improvement? It all works out the same. Believers and unbelievers alike operating as mean, petty bullies. It also betrays a startling ignorance of human psychology. When people are attacked, they become defensive, stop listening, and cling to their views more aggressively. In this respect, Richard Dawkins isn’t fighting fundamentalism. He’s calcifying it. And so the New Atheists have succeeded in pointing out the sandy foundation of dogmatic religious belief; they have lent succor and courage to the secular humanists too long confined to our cultural closet. But their cartoonish one-liners have also brought the same sense of polarized opposites to our discussion of faith and spirituality