(click on the above title to view the full blog post)
We may have come across this advice: “follow the evidence wherever it leads you”.
We probably would consider this to be a good advice, and may regard those who refuse to follow evidence but simply want to hold on tightly to their beliefs as being dogmatic.
But following the evidence can lead us to much discomfort. Following evidence may result in the need to modify, or even abandon, our deep-seated beliefs. It would be psychologically painful for us to change or abandon our long-cherished beliefs which we have invested so much of our emotion, effort, time, money and life into. Just take a moment now to visualise yourself abandoning your deeply-held beliefs (whether it is atheistic physicalism or religious beliefs) and feel the psychological reactions.
As a further consequence, we may even be ostracised by our religious or atheist community for not conforming to what it regards as orthodoxy.
Given the above, we may want to ask ourselves: “Do I really want to follow the evidence? Do I value truth more than comfort and conformity?”
The following potential situations may help you to discover for yourself whether or not you would be prepared to be led by evidence.
What Following the Evidence May Mean for a Christian
If you are a Christian and you want to be led by evidence, then you need to be mentally prepared to accept these hypothetical or potential conclusions if evidence leads to them (non-exhaustive list):
– the Christian bible contains errors in the claims it made about history, ethics, afterlife and so on
– Jesus was not bodily resurrected from the dead (eg. if one day the bones of Jesus were discovered just like how the bones of James, a brother of Jesus, were discovered not too long ago)
– God does not exist
Are you prepared to accept conclusions that contradict your Christianity if evidence leads you to them?
What Following the Evidence May Mean for an Atheist
If you are an atheist who wants to be led by evidence, then you need to be mentally prepared to accept these hypothetical or potential conclusions if evidence leads to them (non-exhaustive list):
– disbelieving miracles is wrong; miracles have occurred
– disbelieving in the bodily resurrection of Jesus is wrong; it happened in history
– God exists (God understood as the Unconditioned Ground of All Existence)
– there is life after our death
– it is unwise to live and make decisions base on only a myopic perspective of our 99 years of life while not doing anything for the permanent life beyond our current short impermanent life
Are you prepared to accept conclusions that contradict your atheism if evidence leads you to them?
What Following the Evidence May Mean for a Buddhist
Similarly, if you are a Buddhist who wants to be led by evidence, then you need to be mentally prepared to accept these hypothetical or potential conclusions if evidence leads to them (non-exhaustive list):
– Gotama Buddha was mistaken to claim that there is no Unconditioned Creator
– the Four Noble Truth gives a distorted or unbalanced interpretation of reality
– the true goal of spiritual practice is not Nibbana but instead has something to do with God understood as the Unconditioned Ground of All Existence
Are you prepared to accept conclusions that contradict your Buddhism if evidence leads you to them?
(If you do not belong to any of the above groups, you can certainly conceive of hypothetical situations where your deep-seated existential beliefs are shown by evidence to be wrong.)
So, do you really want to follow the evidence to whatever conclusion it may lead you?
