Many people who hold mystical and magical beliefs try to defend them against skeptical inquiry by attempting to reduce science, skepticism, and the rules of logic to a faith or religion. They claim that as there is no absolute truth, science is just another question of faith.
Phrases such as: "that may be true for you, but it is not true for me"; "the material world is an illusion"; "we construct our own truth"; and the self-refuting, "there is no absolute truth", are often stated in debates.
Often longer quotations are used from some postmodernist, relativist philosopher. Quotes like: "There is no absolute truth. Science is just a collection of hypotheses which equates to the truth under its own particular system. Hypotheses that are waiting to be falsified and replaced with something else. To believe in these hypotheses is therefore just another faith; no different to any other" are encountered frequently.
This ill-considered philosophy goes under the name of relativism. Relativism is an "anything goes" way of looking at reality. Truth and knowledge are not absolute, but are dependent on the observer's perspective.
Relativism broadly states:
Relativistic thinking may have some merit when dealing with morals and ethics
to the extent that such values are often determined by the cultural beliefs
of those making the moral or ethical decisions. The problem with relativistic
thinking becomes apparent when it is applied to everything.
When people say things like, "It's true for me if I believe it, because there is no absolute truth" are using relativistic thinking to justify their beliefs rather than basing them on evidence.
Does truth exist?
Relativistic thinking states that we all construct our own reality. What is true for one person may not be true for another, and vice versa, but anything a person does believe is true for them. This is extrapolated to include science. Scientists may believe that they know the truth about many things, which is fine for them in their belief system, but if you don't believe in science then those "truths" will not be true for you.
Now, let's consider the chemical compound Potassium Cyanide. This is known by scientists to be lethal to humans in very small doses; about one quarter of a gram ingested is enough to kill most people. The critical question is: is Potassium Cyanide only lethal to those who believe it is lethal and is it harmless if you don't believe it to be poisonous?
The answer, of course, is that it is lethal whether you believe it to be or not. Relativists can all have differing views of what constitutes reality in relation to their own way of thinking, but no amount of faith, belief, or alternative reality is going to save them from Cyanide poisoning. Cyanide is poisonous to humans – a universal truth. It’s not a weak hypothesis awaiting falsification: it’s true.
It is the fact that there are universal truths which apply regardless of personal beliefs, which shows that truth does exist. Relativism may be an escape from critical thinking; belief justification; and the requirement of proof or evidence, but it is no escape from truth.
Are science and skepticism faith based?
Science and its cousin skepticism are evidence based approaches to beliefs: the exact opposite of the faith based approach.
Critics of science often state that science is just a group of hypotheses awaiting falsification and are therefore not "truth" in the real sense. The case of Newton's laws of motion being superceded by Einstein's relativity theories being the most commonly cited example.
The major assumption in that argument is that Newton was wrong. Newton was not entirely wrong: his equations approach the truth. He may not have been completely right, nor for that matter may Einstein be, but he was closer to the truth than anyone had been before. This is an example of how science works; how it hones in on the truth through an evidence based approach. The reason that that is not faith is because the ideas put forward were evidence based and/or testable by others: i.e. falsifiable.
Faith is simply belief without proof. Science, even where it is not completely correct, requires evidence and proof to justify its position. It is the requirement of evidence and the need for claims to be falsifiable, that disqualifies science as a faith.
Conclusion.
Faith, mysticism, new-age thinking, and relativism all go hand in hand. They are an anything goes free-for-all way of thinking that require no proof, evidence, or justification: you simply believe to be true that which you want to be true.
To compare science and skepticism, with their evidence based approach and self-scrutinising and correcting methods, to such a way of thinking is to misunderstand the scientific approach.
There are absolute truths which we can discover from nature through science. We may not always get it right first time and the knowledge may come incrementally, but things can be known both absolutely, and approximately. What is certain: nature can give up its truths to us, but we cannot impose our beliefs on nature.
