I’ve done some reading on this site (nowhere near enough, judging from my current situation)- the question is what methods I should use to account for bias problems when dealing with factual questions related to Christianity.
Well, you only said that you feel tense and tempted. While that can lead to wishful thinking, as long as you don’t act on it you are not technically biased.
If you want to deal with those gut-feelings, there are the mentioned litanys. I think most of How To Actually Change Your Mind would be relevant. What it says about politics is true about religion, too.
I’d say, don’t ask (or, rather, focus on) if you are biased. If you think you are biased and you try to compensate, you might end up overcompensating. Or you were wrong about being biased. This kind of thinking could lead to a lot of useless confusion. Just ask whether a factual claim is true (or not) and why is it true (or not). “Because it feels right” is not a good reason to believe something, but neither is “because it feels wrong and I have to compensate”
Of course, it would be ideal to completely ignore what position an argument supports and just judge it on whether or not it is factually correct. A lot of the rest of the sequences are relevant here. Just let me quote the wiki:
Map and Territory contains some of the most important introductory posts and essays.
If you don’t read the sequences on Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions and Reductionism, nothing else >on Less Wrong will make much sense.
The most important method that Less Wrong can offer you is How To Actually Change Your Mind.
But I’m not actually convinced that you have any problem.
I thought the issue of whether Christianity was actually true concluded- but given that I am now aware I’m biased, it’s difficult to be sure.
As I said before. I might be wrong about you, but I would guess the following: When you changed your mind you were biased against changing your mind. Therefore, your current position is not the result of a bias at all, but rather of even more evidence than a perfectly rational person would need.
Also, I’d like to recommend Twelve Virtues of Rationality. Mostly just because I like it a lot ;) and it’s rather general. Looking at your comments you seem to like HP:MoR? If you like Eliezers style, you might like the virtues.
I’ve done some reading on this site (nowhere near enough, judging from my current situation)- the question is what methods I should use to account for bias problems when dealing with factual questions related to Christianity.
Well, you only said that you feel tense and tempted. While that can lead to wishful thinking, as long as you don’t act on it you are not technically biased.
If you want to deal with those gut-feelings, there are the mentioned litanys. I think most of How To Actually Change Your Mind would be relevant. What it says about politics is true about religion, too.
I’d say, don’t ask (or, rather, focus on) if you are biased. If you think you are biased and you try to compensate, you might end up overcompensating. Or you were wrong about being biased. This kind of thinking could lead to a lot of useless confusion. Just ask whether a factual claim is true (or not) and why is it true (or not). “Because it feels right” is not a good reason to believe something, but neither is “because it feels wrong and I have to compensate”
Of course, it would be ideal to completely ignore what position an argument supports and just judge it on whether or not it is factually correct. A lot of the rest of the sequences are relevant here. Just let me quote the wiki:
But I’m not actually convinced that you have any problem.
As I said before. I might be wrong about you, but I would guess the following: When you changed your mind you were biased against changing your mind. Therefore, your current position is not the result of a bias at all, but rather of even more evidence than a perfectly rational person would need.
Also, I’d like to recommend Twelve Virtues of Rationality. Mostly just because I like it a lot ;) and it’s rather general. Looking at your comments you seem to like HP:MoR? If you like Eliezers style, you might like the virtues.