Seeing is Not Believing

It is common for people to assume that Atheists adhere to the principle of “seeing is believing”. I would like to argue that this is not the case, at least as far as Reason is concerned.

What the Atheist really should be adhering to is the scientific method, or simply, “no belief without proof”. There seems to be a connection that people draw between witnessing something and proving something. I argue that witnessing something is not a form of proof, not by a large margin.

Knowledge, or as close as we can get to it, is never derived directly from sense experience, let alone an individual’s sense experience. We know that the Earth is round. This is counter to what our senses might tell us. It is only through the application of a more thorough and trustworthy system (scientific method) that we are able to determine the truth.

This issue generally occurs when discussing matters such as ghosts, the soul, and divine beings. A Christian may say to me, “I have experienced God directly, I have felt Him.” I cannot discredit this statement. I cannot say that this person is mistaken or never actually had this experience. To attempt to is a fool’s errand. Our sense experiences are so intimate and vivid to us that I can never hope to dispel them. However, the above Christian has not proven to me that the God of Abraham exists, just as someone who informs me they saw a ghost has not proven to me that ghosts exist. Our limited and error-prone senses do not dictate the laws of reality. It is only through iteration, repeatability, and testability that we can arrive at knowledge.

I have been asked on multiple occasions: “What would you do if you saw a ghost?” This phrasing, of course, begs the question. A better phrasing would be “What would you do if you saw a transparent person who resembles what others have described as a ghost?” They assume that, once seeing it for myself, I will believe in its existence. I do not think this would be the case. I am more likely to assume that there is something wrong with me than I am to assume that ghosts exist. Will I be frightened? Assuredly. Will I think it proof of the existence of ghosts? No. Will it make me call my doctor and order a brain scan? Maybe. [for more information about Ghosts, see my previous post on that subject].

This very stream-of-consciousness essay is dancing around my overall point: I am not the arbiter of reality. The laws that govern nature are not dictated by me in any manner. My finite and erroneous senses can never derive knowledge on their own. At their best, my senses can point me in the direction of further inquiry. At their worst, they provide patently false data. I trust my reason far more than I trust my eyes.