To believe or not to believe

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I’m fighting my way through Believing in Order to See: On the Rationality of Revelation and the Irrationality of Some Believers (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) by Jean-Luc Marion [Fordham University Press; Translation edition, April 3, 2017].

The book relates to Catholic reasoning but applies to belief (and non-belief) across the board and is presented here as an offset to my pal Zoam Chomsky (and Lance Moody, maybe) and as a favor to staunch UFO believers Dr Dee and Daniel, both regulars, battered by skeptics in this place.

Marion is no slouch when it comes to brilliant reasoning and erudition, as cognoscenti know and offers this in the opening to the book, in The Preface [xi]:

“Believe then! It doesn’t hurt.” – Ludwig von Wittgenstein

And he writes on Page 8,  “… Heidegger could legitimately say that ‘science does not think.'”

And on Page 9.Marion tells readers, “Reason, such as we know it … suffers two limitations that are linked to each other and can become real dangers. To reduce experience to objectifiable phenomena … can lead to the devaluation of all values and to succumbing to ideology. Thus it is today no longer a matter of saving reason from obscurantism or from superstition, but of saving it from its own dangers. It is no longer a matter of reasonably justifying all things [render raison de toutes choses], but of justifying the reason of rationality [render sa raison à la rationalité] … it is necessary that all those who can act, that is to say, first those who can think and think otherwise, do so.”  [Bold print by me.]

On page 13: “Reason so far has been content with interpreting the world hence with transforming into objects that it masters. It is time to respect [other things].”

“Why should one subject reason to questioning? … The answer, assuming it is accessible, requires an indispensable but elementary (even simplifying) detour through philosophy.” [Page 14]

“In fact, for at least a century, whether we like it or not, we have been living in the situation that Nietzsche diagnosed as nihilism.” [ibid]

I bolded “nihilism” because that is the crux of the problem with UFO skepticism; not the rejection of religious and moral principles but, in the philosophical sense, a total rejection of all things ufological.

My beloved buddy Zoam is the quintessential skeptic and proponent of UFO nihilism.

He is joined by such personages as Lance Moody, Tim Printy, Robert Sheaffer, the late Philip Klass, and maybe CDA (Christopher Allan) in my UFO circle(s).

(I will provide support material from the philosophical quarters I’m attuned to upcoming but not here, now.)

My point here is to show that there are viewpoints, from persons of intellectual and academic brilliance that counter my friend Zoam and dogged skeptics such as French anti-ufologist Gilles Fernandez.

The Null Hypothesis is set aside by reasonable men. To insist it is the summum bonum of thought or thinking is ridiculous.

There is room for belief, even seemingly irrational belief. As Marion would have it, Faith is as good as reason.

RR