No, We Don’t Have To Agree With You!

Do you think everyone has to agree with you about something? Do they have to agree that God exists, Christianity is true, atheism is true, Islam is evil, libertarianism is true, socialism is true, Obama is the antichrist, or Harry Potter is satanist propaganda? Many people seem so confident that they’re right and they know that you need to agree with them. The other person might think that you’re an idiot for not agreeing. This attitude of certainty and confidence often leads to intolerance and insults. Of course, few people are perfect and almost everyone suffers from over-confidence and immodesty at one point or another.

Being Risk-Averse, Hedging Our Bets, and Secularism in Philosophy

We should generally prefer beliefs and theories that are well justified and don’t require ambitious metaphysical or religious assumptions. “Metaphysical” beliefs are beliefs about reality, and “ambitious” beliefs are difficult to justify in a satisfying way that would lead to anything resembling certainty. We attain absolute certainty when we have a belief that couldn’t possibly be wrong.