but it seems that according to lesswrong doctrine, they are above the sanity waterline while my first friend group is below.
No. Having religous beliefs places an upper bound on how rational a person could be, past a certain level of rationality, a person will necessarily discard religion. But this does not mean that any particular atheist became an atheist by achieving that level of rationality. Most have not.
The article Raising the Sanity Waterline proposes not directly arguing against religion, but to instead teach the skills that would enable people to level up to the point where they systematically reject religion on their own, in part because just getting someone to reject religion does not actually make them more rational.
I think you are approximately right here, but it’s important to think about just how high that upper bound is, and what activities can only be accomplished by people above that bound. It might help to think in more concrete terms about what someone who believes in religion cannot achieve, that a non-believer can.
With sufficient compartmentalization of religious beliefs, I would venture to say the answer is a pretty small subset of activities. They may be important activities on a global scale, but mostly unimportant in peoples’ day to day functioning.
It’s very easy to imagine, or better yet, meet, theists who are far more rational in achieving their goals than even many of the people on this board.
No. Having religous beliefs places an upper bound on how rational a person could be, past a certain level of rationality, a person will necessarily discard religion. But this does not mean that any particular atheist became an atheist by achieving that level of rationality. Most have not.
The article Raising the Sanity Waterline proposes not directly arguing against religion, but to instead teach the skills that would enable people to level up to the point where they systematically reject religion on their own, in part because just getting someone to reject religion does not actually make them more rational.
Thank you. You’ve provided the clearest explanation so far of why it was misleading for me to use that phrase.
I think you are approximately right here, but it’s important to think about just how high that upper bound is, and what activities can only be accomplished by people above that bound. It might help to think in more concrete terms about what someone who believes in religion cannot achieve, that a non-believer can.
With sufficient compartmentalization of religious beliefs, I would venture to say the answer is a pretty small subset of activities. They may be important activities on a global scale, but mostly unimportant in peoples’ day to day functioning.
It’s very easy to imagine, or better yet, meet, theists who are far more rational in achieving their goals than even many of the people on this board.