Everybody needs to believe in something….
Okay, I’ll bite – let’s examine the above a bit more closely. I have heard the claim that “we all need to believe in something” issue usually – and I’m not at all suggesting that it is so in this particular case – as a placatory affirmation made by believers whose position has suddenly become less secure. It is a statement that is often meant to smooth over any disagreements by blurring the edges between belief and disbelief.
First, it is not a falsifiable claim because even the most casehardened nihilist can be said to “need to believe in something,” even if that “something” is the belief that there is nothing one can or should really believe in. One can always construe anyone’s position as emanating from some belief or other, and in that sense the assertion is basically hollow, if not entirely meaningless, and it doesn’t therefore tell us anything useful.
Second, it could be argued that the word “need” is misapplied in this context. We do not “need” a belief structure in the same way that we need more basic necessities like food and shelter. Our beliefs are largely shaped by our surroundings and we “need” them only insofar as they ensure that, on the whole, we are reasonably successful when interacting in or with those surroundings, which include other people. Thus, our beliefs are “needed” in a weaker sense than some more basic essentials. By way of analogy, one could conceivably figure out that new TV’s remote control by a trial-and-error process without an instruction manual but such a manual makes the task considerably easier and so can be said to be “needed”.
Finally, it should be clear that with this utterance a card trick has been played, namely the one that seeks to place all belief on the same utilitarian footing. In other words, it surreptitiously attempts to aver that it doesn’t much matter
what one believes as long as one believes
something because, after all, we
need to believe something. But there are beliefs that are quite obviously useless, dangerous and/or harmful. History is replete with such examples, and so a supposed universal “need to believe in something” is not an adequate defence for any specific belief. The merits (or otherwise) of the belief, as well as its concordance (or not) with reality, will decide that.
'Luthon64
