Man does not live by reason alone

One of the stranger paradoxes of our time is the death of the virtues of faith and reason among the Greatest Christians of All Time, and the surprising way it illustrates, often to unbelievers who believe in reason, the necessity of faith. For of course, in the past, ordinary people who knew nothing about the sciences took their information from those who had studied the relevant disciplines as they took their information from their priests: with the humble understanding that he who knows little should listen to him who knows much.

This was scorned as credulity and ignorance in the realm of faith and “sheep” were urged to “think for yourself” and “Question Authority.”

The problem is, such attitudes don’t remain contained solely in the realm of religious faith. They spread everywhere and have led to a massive epidemic of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome as utter morons, filled with certitude that they can “do their own research”, now refuse to trust those high priests and mediators of truth who wear lab coats and not vestments.

The result of that glib dismissal of trust in those who know more than we do is seen in stories like this. It turns out that faith–trust in the word of other persons of reasonable credibility–is necessary for other things besides the salvation of one’s soul. It is, in fact, a necessary binding agent holding together such things as our public health system, the sciences, and human sanity in a world increasingly ruled by flat earthers, vaccination deniers, and morons who believe The Liberals Control the Weather But Climate Change Is Not Real. And it is a plague that does not affect only far right kooks:

Another effect is seen as the Greatest Christians of All Time[TM], having abandoned faith in Almighty God believe, not in nothing, but in anything as their orange messiah again revs up the Stolen Election Lie and does his damnedest to destroy faith in the security of every election he loses. It turns out that the cure for false faith is not no faith, but informed and intelligent faith.

Faith, it turns out, is not mere blind credulity, but the healthy response of normal humans to one another on a host of matters–God included, but not God exclusively–without which we are surrounded by idiots who trust only themselves and who thereby wreak incalculable damage by ignoring those who are smarter and, yes, better than they are–because experts did the damn work of learning and knowing what they are talking about.