Since the human being acquired the capacity to reason, he began a long journey to understand the world and himself as a means of survival and progress. It is supposed that at first the human individual had moments of rationality, that is, only occasionally he was able to use his still dull thinking ability. Faced with the innumerable challenges to survive in a rather hostile environment, the first groups of hominids, little by little, were trained in the use of language and continuous thinking. Thought is a necessary condition, but not sufficient to dominate the environment, since the accumulation of knowledge is gradually given with advancement and retreat. The need to understand and explain the phenomena of nature led man to formulate belief systems. Some belief systems, even misguided, may predominate in the common understanding and take a long time to change. In general, in the face of some problem, man tends to seek any explanation, rather than wait until he finds a good one. For example, faced with a difficult question in antiquity, to understand rainfall (rain), for a long time this phenomenon was explained as being caused by the action of gods. And in order to understand why the gods sometimes caused a lot of rain, it was "likely" to say that they were sometimes angry and that their moods depended on human actions. A system of beliefs was formed, which could be strengthened when eventually the offerings to the gods "made" rain, or "interrupted" the rain. When someone cleverer asked for explanations, he heard arguments such as "But did not you see that shortly after the offering the storm ended?"

Any temporal variation and even the magnitude between the offering and the "grace" could be attributed to the type of practice performed. It has been so long… and today even a schoolboy is able to answer questions about this phenomenon.

In an extraordinarily developed world in various areas of knowledge, does man in general still maintain illogical belief systems? If yes, why does this happen?

Skepticism and credulity

Throughout the evolutionary process, man seeks to understand how and why Nature, including himself work. The exchange of explanations with each other is a cultural process that provides knowledge about the world. To elaborate, disseminate, accept and reject explanations are healthy cultural practices. Rejecting and accepting explanations are called skepticism and credulity.

Skepticism is indicative of doubt, disbelief, mistrust, as opposed to belief. The skeptic has also been regarded as unbeliever and atheist, having in its opposite the credulous and deist. Even by adopting this dichotomous view, it is possible to assume an inherent breadth of each of these categories, that is, among the skeptics would exist, from contumacious deniers to, on the other hand, those who do not accept "truths" without submitting them to the sieve of reason. One striking difference between these positions is the benefit of the doubt. In the first case, one observes the preference for the certainty of negation, which is almost always peremptory, and in the second, the cautious position is adopted, selecting information and, if necessary, awaiting supporting data or not which will justify, deny or accept new positions. The same kind of reasoning can be used in relation to belief. On the one hand, we have a naive belief in which one accepts facts as true ideas that do not withstand a more careful analysis and, on the other hand, those that adopt a belief system, trying to reconcile them with each other. Having a belief system is important for the adjustment of the individual to the physical and social world and, of course, for their physical and psychological health. Therefore, no one is exempt from forming a belief system, not even the stubborn skeptic. In the case of denying the existence of God means accepting (believing) that the Universe has generated itself. The going from one belief system to another opposite one is called conversion.

It can be said that the two extremes, absolute skepticism and credulity, would be detrimental to both personal and collective progress. Believing has been extolled as a virtue and skepticism as a flaw in character and synonymous of arrogance. Let us recall that History preserved the doubts of Thomas, the Didymus, as a negative trait of his personality, a kind of skepticism to be fought against. It is quite evident that the emphasis of the historical narrative on some facts, more than on others, may have different motivations. Referring to the text about Thomas¹, everything seems to indicate that he intended to make sure that the apparition was actually Jesus returning. Considering that Jesus Himself had asked for caution, because many would present themselves as the Messiah, their doubt seems justifiable.

Jesus patiently submitted to the inspection of the skeptical disciple. Finally the Master would have said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed". Is Jesus praising acceptance without examination? Apparently yes, but we can also think that the phrase shows that not always the senses are sufficient for the confirmation of facts and to obtain knowledge. Seeing Jesus and touching His wounds was not enough to accept His appearance as real, but yes His actions and ideas from then onwards. The constructive question would be: was it the same personality or a mere simulacrum?

Creative Skepticism

The term above refers to a refusal to accept an explanation of some phenomenon, when it is incomplete or fails in some main points. Such a negative may occur even if no other explanation is momentarily available. Therefore, this concept is based on two corollaries. The first is that negation is accompanied by some reason and the second is that a possible explanation, better for a given statement, may be attempted or expected.

In this sense, skepticism would be creative and could become an impetus for progress through knowledge acquisition. Let us take as an illustration two paradigms that for a long time have influenced social organizations and behaviors. The first, called the geocentric, postulated that the Earth was the center of the Universe. Being the center of the Universe, everything else revolved around it and, by extension, life could only occur here. Many theories have been elaborated on the basis of this paradigm. Not accepting this position seemed to hurt common sense, since anyone could observe the Sun "circling our planet". The advances in cartography illustrated in a remarkable way the various positions that the Sun adopted "in its orbit" around our world. Theologians took advantage of this "scientific knowledge" to locate the various heavens and the dwelling place of God. But there were those who denied...

Objections arose, and gradually the paradigm as a whole began to be questioned. Simple experiments were tested, and space was scrutinized through new features. Such instruments, although precarious, were the embryos of the colossal modern observatories and allowed to search the skies, identify movements of stars and describe trajectories... The geocentric paradigm, and with it a whole system of beliefs, began to present fissures not capable of being fulfilled. A new paradigm was being developed...It seems clear that it was not the fervent believers, nor the contumacious deniers who advanced in knowledge, but those who doubted and, in the perspective of creative skepticism, patiently formulated alternative explanations, submitting them to as many possible checks.

Kardec: a skeptic

Many centuries have passed since the adoption of the heliocentric paradigm, which has enabled advances in different fields of knowledge. However, in the nineteenth century, amid numerous social problems, Europe, and in particular France was experiencing a period of turbulence, including new and not always successful experiences of alternatives of political and administrative power. In this scenario, very well described by Figueiredo¹, lived the professor Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail, disciple of Pestalozzi. Rivail, already with relevant services provided to Education in France, was a well-known name, with published monographs and books. On one occasion the professor met with a friend, Mr. Fortier, a hypnosis expert who told him about the well-known phenomenon of the tables, and proposed that the tables produced intelligent answers. To which the teacher would have replied: "I will only believe if you prove to me that a table has the brain to think and the nerves to feel". In this apparently banal conversation, the striking feature of that intellectual was evident: creative skepticism. It is not a question of denial by denial, but of the collection of evidence, of proof, of logical and objective argument. We can say that his initial formation, together with Pestalozzi, improved so much in his work as an educator, that the teacher was prepared for the arduous task that lay ahead, to offer the world the Doctrine of the Spirits. Tgere are uncountable striking examples of this characteristic of his creative skepticism.

His banner "True faith is one that can meet reason in any age of mankind", and the position that it is preferable to reject many truths than to accept a single lie was followed closely in his tireless work as the leader of a great movement of changing  paradigms regarding knowledge about life, beyond the physical body. Among countless examples, the reader must remember the theory of incrustation of Earth. Such a theory, though presented by many Spirits in different places, did not pass through the sieve of Kardec's analysis, which preferred to keep it indefinitely awaiting scientific knowledge. Waiting for a good explanation is a feature of the creative skeptic.

Another, apparently trivial, event was Kardec's query to six independent psychics about Jobard's supposed position (spirit) for a medium to accept "payments for his service work"¹ justified by distributing them to the most needy. Kardec already had a contrary position regarding the receipt of direct or indirect material benefits for the exercise of mediumship, but he used the episode to test his method of verifying communications again. Jobard (Spirit) communicated through the six mediums, keeping the same content contrary to receiving the benefit, varying the message in extent and form.

Closing these considerations with emphasis on the characteristic of Kardec's creative skepticism - which is nothing new for scholars of the life and work of the Encoder - it remains, however, the observation that we still have much to study about the basic works and about this extraordinary disciple of Jesus.
 

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[1] John: 20: 24/29

[2] See Figueiredo, Paulo Henrique de. Spiritist revolution: the forgotten theory of Allan Kardec. São Paulo: MAAT, 2016.

[3] See Souto Maior, Marcel, Kardec: The biography. Rio de Janeiro: RECORD, 2014.

[4] See Figueiredo (pp. 58, 59), already quoted.