Why Seek the Truth? The Achilles’ Heel of Free Thought
Facing Reality.
One of the most attractive features of the free thought movement has always been its purported commitment to the truth. From the philosophical skepticism of the Enlightenment to the New Atheism of the early 2000s, atheists and agnostics have insisted that we ought to pursue the truth about reality without recourse to fairy tales, superstitions, or a divine Creator. Even if the idea of a meaningless, purposeless universe frightens and depresses us, we ought to face facts and accept reality as it is, not as we want it to be.
As I said, this uncompromising vision of the pursuit of truth at all costs may strike us as bracing and even heroic. But does it make sense if atheism is true? In other words, does atheism give us any reason to think that we ought to seek the truth instead of embracing comforting lies?
An illustration might help. My thirteen-year-old son loves chess and he’s rapidly surpassing me in terms of skill. However, I have just enough knowledge of the game that I could tell him “you ought to attack your opponent’s knight” or “you should sacrifice your bishop.” He might take my advice or he might decide against it, but both of us are working from the same underlying assumptions: we both accept the rules of chess and want him to win his game.
However, imagine that his younger sister is watching him play and says, “You ought to jump over your opponent’s king.” My son replies, “What are you talking about? That’s an illegal move and I’d be immediately put in check.”
They argue back and forth for a few minutes before he realizes that 1) his sister is following the rules of checkers, not chess and 2) she doesn’t want him to win, but merely wants to line up all the pieces in order from the smallest to the largest because it would “look cool.” In other words, they were working from completely different underlying assumptions about what “ought” means in the sentence: “You ought to jump over your opponent’s king.”
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