https://nukeexcathedra.jottit.com/2011-08-01%3A_the_inherent_immorality_of_religions

The moral obligation to truth

William Clifford's essay The Ethics of Belief illustrates how it is every human's moral obligation to assure himself of the truthfulness of his beliefs. Highly recommended reading!

Alan Sokal says similar things in a different way:

If you are sloppy about evaluating evidence, then you are ethically liable for the mistakes that you’ve made. (~45:00 mark) The main point is … it’s important when you make claims about factual matters in the world, to understand clearly what is the evidence on which those claims are based and to and try evaluate that evidence as impartially as possible. (~45:50 mark)

Source: http://colinmarshall.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=404357

So if someone ignores or rejects the best available evidence -- or worse, they preemptively reject it -- then they are making an ethical error, not just a factual one.

How to find the truthiest truth

How can we arrive at the "truest" truth possible, the most credible assertions about reality? Let's look at what epistemology has to say about our mechanisms of quality control for beliefs. This is pretty standard philosophic fare, but I'm taking the following list from Sense & Goodness (pp. 53-60). Here, in descending order of reliability, are the methods of discovering truth, with summarized explanations:

The method of reason. Within the realms of logic and mathematics, reasoning leads to the broadest, most complete and most consistent success. Basically, a proof based on reasoning, unless it contains errors, leads with certainty to a solidly correct result. Alas, pure reason only works this way on abstract concepts. Out in the real world, we need other methods:

The method of science. Science is actually a collection of methods that take all the other methods of finding the truth and works very hard at quality control to achieve the highest standard of truth about reality attainable outside the method of pure reason.

The method of experience. "Seeing is believing," so this method is "better" than anything that comes below. But human observation is open to some errors, such as hallucination or misperception, that make one's own experience less reliable than experience validated by scientific investigation.

The method of history. If we can't observe an event ourselves, as is the case with historic events, our best bet is to apply critical historical analysis on reports from the past. We look for the most reliable sources and corroborate their information with other information, and that's the best we can do for past events.

The method of expert testimony. If we don't ourselves have direct access to sources of information, we can consult experts for their knowledge and interpretation. That's essentially applying methods 2 through 4 second-hand. This method can be strengthened by ensuring our expert has the qualifications, agreement with other experts and so forth.

The method of plausible inference. If we have incomplete facts, it's permissible to try to reach generalizations from those, if we're careful. Inductive logic, extrapolation, and interpolation of evidence and facts is how this is done. Sometimes this is the best we can do, but where one of the above methods is available, we should scrap our results for those from the "better" method.

The method of pure faith. To quote Carrier: "... refers to basing beliefs solely on tradition, hearsay, desire or mere speculation. That is, faith in this sense is trusting what we are told, or just 'guess' or want to be true, without requiring any proof. In other words, believing an ungrounded assertion."

The wording of this last and least trustworthy method of arriving at ideas about the world of course leads us into... religion.

Notice in the illustration below, the door is closed?

Should I come to prayer group 7 and tell them they are ignorant animals?

Why are you here? What more about this subject, rational proofs, do you have to add?

Or do you wish to explore the reasoning behind religion being excluded from a discussion of rational truthiness?

Or do you wish to derail the topic from that specified to that which is specifically, pointedly, excluded? Because we have been here, done this. Is getting its ass handed back to it your only pony's one trick?

I like you better when you are covering your ass, instead of showing it.

Do you want to know what the “truest” truth is? I’m not basing it on “tradition, hearsay, desire or mere speculation.” I’m basing it the words inspired by the Holy Spirit. He is trustworthy – “But (I) have received the Holy Spirit, and He lives within (me), so (I) don’t need anyone to teach (me) what is true. For the Spirit teaches (me) everything (I) need to know, and what He teaches is true—it is not a lie.” And YOU will NEVER understand that truth unless you have a change of heart. I really don’t care what you think but Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, couldn’t have said it any better…

“But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”

And on that day, when you are kneeling in front of the God of the Universe declaring him Lord, you will realize that He indeed is…and then it will be too late.