Intellectual Honesty

I've had more than a few visitors snort derisively at my claim of intellectual honesty because I believe in God yet also cherish logic. These arrogant atheists think they're smarter than Kant, Pascal and Descartes; men who taught us much about logic yet still believed in an Almighty Creator.

My understanding of intellectual honesty is that you don't purposely distort or hide information in the course of communicating with others. Politicians do this all the time.

Their recent manufactured outrage over the AIG bonuses that their stimulus bill authorized is the latest example. Instead of explaining why the bonuses are needed to retain people to defuse this bomb, they fan the flames of voter anger. They know the real story but withhold information for their own political advantage. That is intellectually dishonest, as well as cowardly.

Here is the WikiHow definition of intellectual honesty that my God-scoffing critics cling to:

Keeping one's convictions in proportion to one's valid evidence

By this definition, an intellectually honest person cannot believe in God because there is no concrete proof. But going down the road of Human Logic Uber Alles eventually leads to absurdity. How do you know your wife is not cheating on you when you can't see her? How do you know your truck is still in the garage when you're laying in bed at night? How do you know the Battle of Hastings really happened? How do you know 2 + 2 doesn't conspire to make 5 when no one is looking? See where this leads?

I like the University of California at Irvine's definition much better:

Honesty in the acquisition, analysis, and transmission of ideas.

Jewish World elaborates:

One of the hallmarks of our great Torah scholars throughout the generations has been the uncompromising loyalty to the concept of intellectual honesty in their writings and commentaries. One would almost take this for granted, for the subject that is being dealt with is Torat Emet -- the Torah of Sinai itself, that to Jews represents ultimate and eternal truth and honesty.

Nevertheless, the temptation to falsify, exaggerate, deny, plagiarize and even commit forgery is a well-known affliction in general academic circles. As such, the unswerving path of intellectual honesty that one finds in the writings of the great Torah scholars is exemplary and inspiring.

This is the intellectual honesty I'm after. No matter how much I believe in some cause or idea, I will sincerely evaluate information that contradicts it, and I will never make stuff up or use dubious information to bolster my case. Cold, hard logic is beautiful to me, it is the clockwork of life, but it is not an end unto itself. Just because the human mind is incapable of apprehending something doesn't mean it's not there.

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~arvo/honesty.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigour
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Intellectual_Honesty.asp