Essay On Good And Bad Reasons For Believing

In this paper, I will criticize Richard Dawkins’ paper entitled “Good and Bad Reasons for Believing”. To begin with, I will summarize the author’s paper. Then, I will explain the distinction the author displays between good and bad reasons for believing anything and why Mr Dawkins abides by these arguments. To continue, I will evaluate the author’s arguments, giving examples and my opinion on his reasons to believe.

Richard Dawkins’ paper is in fact a letter to his ten year old daughter explaining the good and bad reasons for believing. He is basically trying to teach her how to think critically. She will be exposed and confronted to various beliefs all of her life, which is why her father wants to give her a clear sense of logic. As a good reason, he promotes evidence by observation, so learning by direct or indirect seeing, hearing or feeling. On the other hand, the author exposes bad reasons for believing: tradition, authority and revelation. Tradition is believing something because other people have believed it for a long time. For example, religious beliefs take root in tradition because it has been passed on from parent to child for centuries. As for authority, it can be defined as believing in something because someone important says that it is true. The last reason he demonstrates for not believing in something is ‘revelation’. Revelation is when someone, often a religious person, listens to a feeling inside of himself that something is true. The person thinks and thinks and suddenly, an answer is revealed to him. As a good reason, Dawkins lists evidence based on observation. For something to be true, it must be proven, it must have evidence. Sometimes, evidence cannot be seen by common folk, the speed of light for example, but can be found in books where specialists lay out the proof. Other times, there is not one big piece of evidence but lots of observations that point towards the proof. Dawkins, among other bad reasons, exposes tradition. Traditional beliefs have often been believed for so long it is impossible to verify the source and check for liable evidence. People believe in one religion or another because their parents taught them when they were young enough to believe in anything. Stories were told, and after centuries, people started believing in them because they had been told for so long. Unfortunately, as Dawkins explains, stories are still stories and believing in them does not make them true. He also states authority as being a bad reason for believing. Often, followers will believe their religious leaders just because they have notoriety. Some Catholics will blindly believe in what the Pope says, for example, just because he is the Pope. Dawkins points this as being wrong because what people say cannot always be true, even if they are leaders and great ones at that. He bascally asks this question: why believe them more than anyone else? Finally, the author also states revelation as a bad reason to believe in something. As mentioned before, revelation is interpreting a feeling as something being right or true. Lots of religious people will influence their followers by saying that some information or feeling has been revealed to them. Like the author says: “ Different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right?” Without evidence, a feeling cannot be proven true. The main difference between the good and bad reasons is simple: evidence. If something has no proof, how can we know it is true? Dawkins evaluates what he believes in with these reasons by thinking critically, logically and rationally, disregarding all arguments that rely simply on faith or trust.

I agree with Richard Dawkins’s arguments because they invite people to think critically, analyze and question themselves before believing. If we do not do so, we simply rely on trust.

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