I’m not so sure. Some of the anti-religious stuff is specifically concerned with Eliezer’s upbringing, and so far as I know he wasn’t brought up to believe aliens are visiting earth. Some of it is concerned with the fact that religious belief is widespread among (otherwise) reasonable people, which isn’t so true of UFO theories. I would guess that most of what could be replaced with material about UFOs could about equally well just be removed; it’s the rest that’s difficult.
You’re probably right about the personal material, although I suspect you could make the theoretical points in another way. But it wouldn’t be a matter of easily substituting one thing for another.
One could make the points about religious beliefs relative to rationality without directly asserting that all religious beliefs are false, simply because it is obvious for simple logical reasons that the majority of such beliefs are false (because opposed religious beliefs cannot both be true), and even religious people will grant that this is the case. And the majority of such beliefs being false means that if you actually want to know the truth, you need to take a lot more care about such things than most people do, whether or not any religious beliefs are actually true.
The same general point is actually true about anti-religious beliefs as well, and this may be one reason why that wouldn’t be a book Eliezer could have written. For example, he said that he would rather push a button that would destroy the world if God exists, than a button that had a known probability of one in a billion of destroying the world.
It seems to me more reasonable to believe that Mohammed or Joseph Smith was a prophet from God, than to push that “destroy the world if God exists” button. In other words, Eliezer’s personal beliefs are unreasonable in a similar way, just in an opposite direction.
I suspect (but don’t know) that a lot of religious people would be almost as upset at “most religious claims are false” as “your specific religious claims are false” even though, as you say, the former is almost a triviality. I also suspect that many would fall back on claims along the following lines: “Yes, superficially my beliefs and my Muslim neighbour’s beliefs contradict one another. But we are fully agreed on the existence of God, and perhaps we are just seeing the same thing from different angles.” -- and then they would not be willing to agree that most people’s beliefs on religious topics are wrong.
I think I agree with you rather than Eliezer on the probability-of-God question, but the answer might well depend a lot on what range of possibilities we count as making “God exists” true.
I don’t think I’ve heard this particular response within my social circle, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to hear it from others. And in any case I do hear things which amount to, “That may be technically true, but saying it is suggesting that my religion is likely false, and implying that is really bad.”
In that sense I agree that religious beliefs tend to make people have a hard time even with general abstract truths about rationality, at least as soon as they realize the implications for their beliefs.
I’m not so sure. Some of the anti-religious stuff is specifically concerned with Eliezer’s upbringing, and so far as I know he wasn’t brought up to believe aliens are visiting earth. Some of it is concerned with the fact that religious belief is widespread among (otherwise) reasonable people, which isn’t so true of UFO theories. I would guess that most of what could be replaced with material about UFOs could about equally well just be removed; it’s the rest that’s difficult.
You’re probably right about the personal material, although I suspect you could make the theoretical points in another way. But it wouldn’t be a matter of easily substituting one thing for another.
One could make the points about religious beliefs relative to rationality without directly asserting that all religious beliefs are false, simply because it is obvious for simple logical reasons that the majority of such beliefs are false (because opposed religious beliefs cannot both be true), and even religious people will grant that this is the case. And the majority of such beliefs being false means that if you actually want to know the truth, you need to take a lot more care about such things than most people do, whether or not any religious beliefs are actually true.
The same general point is actually true about anti-religious beliefs as well, and this may be one reason why that wouldn’t be a book Eliezer could have written. For example, he said that he would rather push a button that would destroy the world if God exists, than a button that had a known probability of one in a billion of destroying the world.
It seems to me more reasonable to believe that Mohammed or Joseph Smith was a prophet from God, than to push that “destroy the world if God exists” button. In other words, Eliezer’s personal beliefs are unreasonable in a similar way, just in an opposite direction.
I suspect (but don’t know) that a lot of religious people would be almost as upset at “most religious claims are false” as “your specific religious claims are false” even though, as you say, the former is almost a triviality. I also suspect that many would fall back on claims along the following lines: “Yes, superficially my beliefs and my Muslim neighbour’s beliefs contradict one another. But we are fully agreed on the existence of God, and perhaps we are just seeing the same thing from different angles.” -- and then they would not be willing to agree that most people’s beliefs on religious topics are wrong.
I think I agree with you rather than Eliezer on the probability-of-God question, but the answer might well depend a lot on what range of possibilities we count as making “God exists” true.
I don’t think I’ve heard this particular response within my social circle, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to hear it from others. And in any case I do hear things which amount to, “That may be technically true, but saying it is suggesting that my religion is likely false, and implying that is really bad.”
In that sense I agree that religious beliefs tend to make people have a hard time even with general abstract truths about rationality, at least as soon as they realize the implications for their beliefs.