Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - 1627 I Accept'
Aired: 2010-03-31
Duration: 10:22


=== I Accept, You Believe (10:22) ===

[00:00:00]  Oh, hi everybody. It's Steph. Hope you're doing well.
[00:00:01]  12.50 p.m.
[00:00:03]  On March 31st, 2010.
[00:00:06]  Hope you're doing well. Pinchy punchy.
[00:00:08]  End of the monthly. If you have some money, please donate.
[00:00:11]  Oh, look at that. It's almost like a haiku.
[00:00:14]  I would like to talk about the differences in these statements in terms of how you present your values and the three ways In general.
[00:00:30]  You say that there are four ways.
[00:00:31]  The fourth one just hit me.
[00:00:33]  The four ways that people talk about their beliefs are sort of along these lines.
[00:00:38]  They say, I am, it is, I believe, and one we will get to at the end.
[00:00:49]  Now the first one is if you say, I am an atheist.
[00:00:53]  If you say, what are you? I am an atheist.
[00:00:57]  The second way that people will talk about beliefs is they will say, it is true that there is no God, or it is that there is no God.
[00:01:09]  Atheism is true.
[00:01:12]  And the third way that people will talk about their beliefs is to say, I believe there is no God.
[00:01:20]  I believe in anarchism.
[00:01:23]  So you say, I am an anarchist.
[00:01:25]  Anarchism is true, or is consistent, or whatever.
[00:01:29]  And the third way is to talk about, I believe in anarchism.
[00:01:35]  I believe in, you know, whatever, right?
[00:01:38]  And I don't think any of those are particularly helpful or valid.
[00:01:42]  And the reason that I don't think they're very helpful or valid is, let's just take anarchism.
[00:01:49]  Someone says, are you an anarchist?
[00:01:52]  And you say, I guess you would say something like, yes, I am an anarchist.
[00:01:56]  And that is not a very, I think, helpful statement of belief.
[00:02:00]  It doesn't convey any information.
[00:02:03]  I always try to convey additional information to the sort of bold response of the moment.
[00:02:09]  What is the additional information that you could convey when you talk about being an anarchist?
[00:02:15]  So if you say, I am an anarchist, it is a statement of identity almost.
[00:02:20]  It is an attempt to co-join a belief with a personality or an accident or a circumstance.
[00:02:26]  You say, I am an American.
[00:02:28]  Well, obviously it's just coincidental where you happen to be born geographically.
[00:02:31]  Say, I am a Christian.
[00:02:34]  Then you are identifying a belief with a personality.
[00:02:39]  And that is a very post-modern, or in a sense pre-modern, thing to do, is to say, I am an anarchist, because it is associating belief with identity.
[00:02:48]  And what that does is it lets people off the hook in terms of their own responsibility for determining the truth about these things.
[00:02:57]  And I think that's interesting.
[00:02:58]  If you don't want to examine your beliefs, or if you feel anxious about examining your beliefs, you would love to associate somebody else's beliefs with their personality or their identity.
[00:03:13]  And I think that is not a very helpful or useful thing to do in the long run, or even in the short run.
[00:03:23]  I would not say I am an anarchist.
[00:03:34]  It is not a statement of a belief or a philosophical position.
[00:03:39]  It is a statement of identity.
[00:03:43]  And thus, it lets people off the hook.
[00:03:47]  Now, if you also say That anarchism, and this is a bit more, the world is round.
[00:03:58]  Anarchism is valid.
[00:04:00]  Then what you're doing is you're saying that, or you give the implication that beliefs push outwards.
[00:04:07]  You have a belief in anarchism and then you find out that it is valid.
[00:04:10]  And this may sound like semantics, but the way that people hear information is really, really important when it comes to conveying it.
[00:04:17]  So if you say, I am an anarchist, or anarchism is valid, then you're making a positive statement of belief out into the world.
[00:04:23]  The belief comes first, and then you look out into the world for the validation.
[00:04:28]  If you say, I believe in anarchism, or I believe that anarchism is valid, or I believe in atheism, then you're using the word belief, and the word belief is not, I think, a very good word for philosophers to use.
[00:04:45]  I believe is, you know, think of all of those cheesy movies with the stirring music.
[00:04:50]  Believe! You know, they always say that kind of stuff.
[00:04:54]  Belief is, says, somebody holds a position.
[00:04:58]  Somebody claims.
[00:04:59]  I mean, who knows what people really believe, right?
[00:05:01]  See the, what was it, the Republican Council has just blown a whole bunch of money on strip clubs and lesbo-simulated orgy fests.
[00:05:12]  So who knows what people really believe, but We do know what they at least say they believe.
[00:05:18]  So when you say, I believe in anarchism, what you're saying is, I have a position called a belief in anarchism.
[00:05:26]  That doesn't convey any information to anybody else.
[00:05:31]  All it does is it says, I hold this belief.
[00:05:33]  But I was trying to think of a way, or ways, that we could convey our values, but at the same time, Not, like, to convey additional information about how we got to those values.
[00:05:49]  And I thought, gee, you know, if we could, that would be, that would be great.
[00:05:53]  That would be really great. And I sort of molded over, molded over, and I think I've come up with something that is really useful, and hopefully it will make some sense, and hopefully you will see the value in it.
[00:06:08]  So how's this?
[00:06:10]  How's this? I accept I accept anarchism.
[00:06:20]  I think that is a very, very different place to be.
[00:06:24]  I accept atheism.
[00:06:26]  I think that conveys so much more than this other stuff.
[00:06:30]  I think that conveys a whole bunch more than I am, I believe, or even it is.
[00:06:36]  But when you say, I accept reason, I accept empiricism, I accept anarchism, I accept UPB, what you're saying is that the contents of the mind, or belief, or values that we hold, that these things,
[00:06:55]  these objects in the mind, are accepted or brought into the mind, in a sense passively, Through reality, through the objective evaluation of reality.
[00:07:11]  So to, you know, perhaps, as always, labor the point, to an extremity, what if we said about something like the shape of the world?
[00:07:22]  If you say, I believe...
[00:07:26]  That the world is round. That is a statement of one kind of information or one kind of perspective.
[00:07:33]  I believe that the world is round.
[00:07:38]  If you compare that to a statement like I... You can't say I am that the world is round, of course.
[00:07:47]  But if you say I accept that the world is round, that is different.
[00:07:52]  If you say the world is round, That is not a statement of empiricism.
[00:07:58]  It is an assertion.
[00:08:00]  If you say, I accept that the world is round, then you are automatically saying, like you're giving some of the methodology in the statement of belief.
[00:08:10]  And I think that's really, really important.
[00:08:13]  I accept that there is no God.
[00:08:17]  I accept that because there is no God.
[00:08:20]  I accept it passively, in a way, based upon what is in reality.
[00:08:25]  I accept that the world is round.
[00:08:27]  I accept it. Because it is.
[00:08:30]  And I think if you can take that approach.
[00:08:34]  I've been trying to take it for a spin.
[00:08:36]  Try to take it for a spin yourself.
[00:08:40]  And see what comes out of it.
[00:08:43]  I accept atheism.
[00:08:47]  I accept it. Because it is.
[00:08:50]  There is no God. It is valid.
[00:08:52]  I accept the scientific method.
[00:08:53]  I don't believe in the scientific method.
[00:08:57]  I am not...
[00:08:59]  I am not science.
[00:09:02]  I mean, when you say I am an anarchist or I am an atheist, it would seem quite discontinuous from the statement, I am a scientist.
[00:09:14]  A scientist is a job.
[00:09:16]  An anarchist and an atheist...
[00:09:18]  They're not jobs. And because they're not jobs, you can't really be those things.
[00:09:24]  I am a philosopher.
[00:09:26]  I guess it is my job. But you can't be those things.
[00:09:29]  So I would really suggest trying to dissociate belief with mere assertion, the world is round, is as Uninformative or unhelpful a statement as God exists.
[00:09:44]  It doesn't really mean anything to say God exists.
[00:09:47]  And it doesn't really mean anything in a way to say the world is round, because it's just a statement of assertion, not of proof.
[00:09:52]  But if you say, I accept that the world is round, then what you're actually doing You're stating the methodology of belief along with the content of belief.
[00:10:02]  And I think that's very, very important when it comes to talking about two beliefs.
[00:10:05]  Anyway, I just want to keep this short, but let me know what you think of this.
[00:10:07]  I think it's an interesting way. Give it a try.
[00:10:10]  I accept the non-aggression principle.
[00:10:11]  I accept that the government is morally wrong.
[00:10:15]  I accept the state of the society.
[00:10:17]  I accept it. It's not really up to me.
[00:10:20]  I just have to accept what the rational facts are.