In naming my blog "The Faithful Agnostic," I have used the Greek term "agnostic" to literally to mean one who does not know; as in the saying, "The more one knows, the less one knows" or as I would clarify, "The more one knows, the more one knows that one doesn't know anything; at least, not for certain." When combined with the term "faithful," my intent is to place faith beyond the certitude that frequently comes with knowledge based and derived from ideological beliefs.. In this and my next post, I am revisiting terminology that I have used frequently in my blog: Belief, Intellect, Faith, and Intuition.
One could say that there is little difference between belief and faith or intellect and intuition, or one could say that they have very little in common. I maintain that there are significant differences which are important in understanding how we relate to others, our world, and our sense of being. At the same time, I would also maintain that there is a great deal of interplay between these terms as in intuition informing intellect and faith informing what we believe.
BELIEF AND INTELLECT
In one of my earliest posts I examined the difference between ideological beliefs and non-ideological beliefs (to review click here). What we believe is absorbed as knowledge regardless if such beliefs are based on fact, speculation, or wishful thinking. Ideological beliefs are usually based on some factual evidence, a good amount of speculation as to what those facts mean, and a pinch or two of wishful thinking regarding the efficacy of such beliefs.
Knowledge in its simplest form is anything we learn, have some understanding of, and have an ability to use. Knowledge takes in and encompasses all we encounter, experience, and learn. Intellect is our ability to employ reason to what we know or what we believe we know. Reason can help us distinguish between these two types of knowing, and therein lies the rub to paraphrase Shakespeare's "Hamlet."
We humans believe many things. I am no exception. They shape our perspective of the world and we readily obtain them when something needs definition or explanation. The fact is I'm writing this post because I have beliefs about beliefs, knowledge, and intellect. We simply cannot avoid having them or expressing them in some manner.
I try to temper any certitude about the beliefs I entertain by maintaining a healthy skepticism about them. In fact, I could adapt the saying about the more one knows to the beliefs one entertains; as in, "The more I believe in something, the more I believe that I might be wrong about what I believe in."
I know - this makes me appear uncertain about almost everything - a true neurotic about life in general. And while I admit to having more than my share of anxiety about things, I'm not a complete and utter mess because intellect is helpful in this matter. By employing intellect, don't get me wrong. I am not claiming to be overtly intellectual or being some sort of a genius. I'm neither of those things, but I can reason, and reason is important in dealing with what I believe.
Without an ability to employ reasoned skepticism to our beliefs, what we believe, if unchecked will land us in a mess, and human history is proof of that. In fact, we appear to be in a time when our ideological beliefs have polarized the world, generally speaking, into two opposing ideological camps that foster either intellectual blindness perceived as idealized elitism or willful ignorance perceived as an irrational longing for an idealized past, both of which, has led humanity into the dangerous waters of irrational nationalism, selfish objectivism, exploitive capitalism, and intentional racism.
The intellect has its limitations; particularly, if it is disciplined by a strict adherence to ideological beliefs perceived and treated as absolute truth. Treating ideological beliefs as absolute truth invariably results in the distortion of reality.
REALITY
Reality can be fickle. As I have explained in other posts, reality is largely anthropocentric and geocentric. It proceeds from a consensus of perceptions. As such, reality is both a cultural and social construct. Nevertheless, within that construct, we humans have allowed for the notion of transcendence; of knowledge beyond fact, where our creative ideas, our imagination, and our abstract theories find a safe haven. The bottom line, which is important to hold on to, is that the reality we know and interact with is largely shaped by what we know and what we do with such knowledge.
It is an interesting and dangerous phenomenon, observed throughout history, that when ideological beliefs are treated as inviolable truths promoted as fact, intelligence in all of its forms becomes a target because intelligence, if allowed to function properly, will question belief. Throughout human history, demagogues and totalitarian regimes of every kind have systematically persecuted, imprisoned, and killed intellectuals of every kind because their being intelligent threatened and threatens the ideological beliefs such demagogues and tyrannical regimes wish to impose on the masses as a reality of their making.
It is not surprising then that the "Intelligence Community" within the free world is under attack by those who wish to change reality to fit their personal endeavors and personal gain, regardless of the empirical data and facts that counter such egotistical endeavors.
On the other hand, pure intellect can be soulless, unimaginative, irrational, and selfish. The evil genius comes to mind - The lone individual who sees no value in others, apart from something the individual can manipulate, The individual who lacks a social conscience and believes only in prowess of his or her mind, who denies having beliefs because the individual's intellect is completely ensnared by the individual's solitary, unquestioned belief about the individual's superiority. Such individuals are rare and largely diagnosable as psychopaths.
Fortunately, the vast majority of geniuses are not pure intellectuals in the aforementioned sense. Many are highly imaginative, creative, and possess a well-developed social conscience. But I suspect that pure intellectualism is being inadvertently or willfully pursued by some individuals who lack a stable intellect and are mesmerized by and believe in the variant alternate realities produced through the internet that is capable of feeding the realities searched for by the blind intellectual and the willfully ignorant.
In this post, we have examined the connection between belief and intellect as shaping knowledge. In my next post, we take a look at knowledge derived from faith and intuition.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm.
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