The Idea Shop

This was originally a facebook note by HotLikeaToaster:

Hey guys, I was just thinking about this, and I wanted to know what you think about the question of what Sanity is.

Hypothetical scenario:

Imagine that you wake up one day, and everyone around you believes in Santa Claus, and the existence of invisible unicorns, UFO's and sees ghosts. And they believe everything the fortune teller tells them about what's in store for Aquarius's next week.

What if you were the last sane person on Earth?

Would that make you the sane one or the insane one? If everyone else saw the flowing beautiful robes of the Emperor's New Clothes (or at least claims they do) and all you see is a naked guy, and you sane or insane? I really do not know the answer to this.


Now let me give you a twist on this hypothetical situation. Let's say you're an atheist. Let's say you're an atheist living in Kansas. Everyone around you can't help but bring up this deity, whenever they talk about anything. They believe that they are speaking to this deity, and the deity speaks to them, too. They know that the deity is Pure Good, and is all powerful. And there's an Evil Deity who corrupts people and buys their souls by selling witchcraft and sorcery. And they say when good things happen, it's because the deity is showing approval. And when bad things happen, it's part of the deity's Plan. And all this would be wonderful, except you don't hear the deity speaking to you. And you don't see the deity's actions in your life. When a tornado comes, your explanation is the convergence of a warm front and cold front, but they attribute the tornado to the deity. When someone wins the lottery, you see probability and chance, whereas they see a divine intervention or a miracle.

Being alone in your views, does that make you sane or insane? If no one backs you up when you talk about something you see, did you actually see it? Or were you just imagining it? What if you were imagining it, but so was everybody else? How could you confirm whether it's actually there?

If I said, "Religion could just be made up stories, and the voices you hear in your head could be from schizophrenia or hallucinations," to a bunch of pious Kansans, does that make me crazy? Or are they the crazy ones?

wow...umm i stopped reading the responses and responses to responses very early on so sorry if i'm repeating somebody's statements:

insanity does not deal with your agreement with majority of people although when people use that term loosely it seems to imply that. Instead, people should be thought of as computers. The sane ones take the input 2+2 and spit out 4 as they are supposed to. The "insane" ones spit out the color blue.

Now, the difference between this and Kevin's scenario is that math is supposedly a "universal truth", in that it doesn't matter where you are, or if there is a higher power or not...the definition of 4 is the sum of 2 and 2. You can call it "five", but it's still the sum of 2 plus 2.

So, Kevin's scenario is a scenario in which there is no "logical" answer. Both views considering the facts right now are possible. So, therefore, neither side is "insane" as both sides could be right. Defined and explained in this way, it doesn't matter if you're in a community where the inhabitants just escaped from Arkum (batman reference) and believe that 2+2 = blue or at Harvard...you're not insane in either case...which makes sense.

Now, the problem with this is that a person who continues to believe in Santa Clause has also been lumped into this group of Theists. So now one separates the naive from the "sane". Being naive means that you continue in your beliefs regardless of information in your environment to the contrary. Santa Clause does not have a lair in the North Pole...and if he did, relocation might be necessary because of Global Warming. Nobody has ever seen him, nor has he ever brought the faithful person presents. Rather, you see fake santa clauses everywhere and no candy canes on the north pole. This contrary evidence should tell the person that probability says that there is no Santa Clause.

Turning to God, one argues, ok, in order to have life one has to have reproduction and the ability to gather resources come together in an inanimate object that before this perfect combination of low probability comes together, will continuously fall apart. Imagine trying to build the Sear's Tower by throwing the building materials at the ground (from high up of course). You cannot build it from the base because in the biological case, if you don't complete it when you start it, it has no reason to stay together. Both cases are probably (no research) the same probability.

So atheists believe that given enough tries this would happen (and that Big Bang came from nothing). Theists believe that somebody was holding the structure together so it could be built (and that Big Bang came from something...namely someone). Is anybody insane here? No...but somebody might be naive.