From a smart guy:
If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.
- Bertrand Russell
This explains why stories like the Garden of Eden are so easily accepted: we all understand the concept of temptation by the "forbidden fruit" and project onto God our own natures and characteristics. From the same smart guy, a warning not to fall on one's own sword with global, self-refuting skepticism:
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless. -- Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947
Quite right. As a friend of mine says, "Should you be skeptical of being skeptical?" The simple way to avoid this dilemma is to say that skepticism is a simple way to filter unreliable information from your own beliefs. Require more evidence to believe claims that are further removed from your own experience, instincts and contradict scientific thinking. Require less evidence to believe claims that line up with your own experience, instincts and follow scientific laws. These two presuppositions are not defended
a priori, but after seeing the empirical result of forming more reliable beliefs (knowledge).
