Oh, I was. Catholic. Why do you ask, do you suppose religious people aren’t prone to thinking that the “religious viewpoint” generally means their own?
Well, anyway, I was only religious until about the age of 9 or 10, so that doesn’t mean much. What should mean more is that later in life even as an atheist I had a lot of interest in religion and spirituality, and I became familiar with a lot of varied ideas; I’d read the Bible and Bhagavad Gita for pleasure, and debated with my religious friends avidly. It was all rather interesting, since at that time I wasn’t a strong atheist by any means and I suspected there might be something to it.
But eventually my views shifted towards strong atheism, and I felt I’d more or less exhausted the topic. Since then I notice my brain got lazier when it came to processing religious ideas. If by some chance I find myself in debate with a religious friend (not long ago I had a big one with a Jewish friend of mine who’s very unimpressed with Eliezer ;) and more importantly, has wrong ideas about evolution), it takes effort to actually listen to what he’s saying and make sure I understand where he’s coming from—rather than accessing my theist-viewpoint cache and arguing with that instead of my friend.
I think this is a general rule: we tend to spend fewer cognitive resources on processing ideas we regard as wrong. (Now that I put it that way, it seems trivially obvious). Just like so many religious people have preconceptions regarding what atheists think or believe, that atheists themselves repeatedly have to refute. Same thing. Brains are lazy.
Ex-religious people, who had previously conflated atheism and other religions, might be less prone to being binarians after becoming atheists.
Sample size of one, but I also have to remind myself as MarkusRamikin does. I was openly religious up until about 18, and was only someone I’d consider a serious doubter at 14, with relapses at 16 and 18. Prior to 14 and between the lapses, religiously pretty strong.
Perhaps it’s not a question of much. Maybe we’re awesome enough to detect even small variations in rationality and be alarmed if they’re in the wrong direction. ;)
I mean, obviously I never catch myself being literally “binarian”.
Uhm, because of everything else I said in this thread, before saying that. I should expect that any reasonable reader would by now find it highly unlikely that I literally assume all religious people believe identical things. Were you serious or just being clever?
In case I was genuinely unclear: I see “binarian” as a sort of anti-ideal, a severe case of cached thought reliance. Not something anyone of lesswrong level of sophistication would normally sink to all the way, more like a far away goal towards which you don’t want to take even small steps.
What’s the word for someone who sees errors as defining character attributes that only occur in “idiots” and not decent, sensible people like theirself and their friends and readers?
Three proposed derogatory labels from Dilbert creator Scott Adams:
Labelass: A special kind of idiot who uses labels as a substitute for comprehension.
Binarian: A special kind of idiot who believes that all people who hold a different view from oneself have the same views as each other.
Masturdebator: One who takes pleasure in furiously debating viewpoints that only exist in the imagination.
That’s something I have to occasionally remind myself not to be, as an atheist.
Were you never religious?
Oh, I was. Catholic. Why do you ask, do you suppose religious people aren’t prone to thinking that the “religious viewpoint” generally means their own?
Well, anyway, I was only religious until about the age of 9 or 10, so that doesn’t mean much. What should mean more is that later in life even as an atheist I had a lot of interest in religion and spirituality, and I became familiar with a lot of varied ideas; I’d read the Bible and Bhagavad Gita for pleasure, and debated with my religious friends avidly. It was all rather interesting, since at that time I wasn’t a strong atheist by any means and I suspected there might be something to it.
But eventually my views shifted towards strong atheism, and I felt I’d more or less exhausted the topic. Since then I notice my brain got lazier when it came to processing religious ideas. If by some chance I find myself in debate with a religious friend (not long ago I had a big one with a Jewish friend of mine who’s very unimpressed with Eliezer ;) and more importantly, has wrong ideas about evolution), it takes effort to actually listen to what he’s saying and make sure I understand where he’s coming from—rather than accessing my theist-viewpoint cache and arguing with that instead of my friend.
I think this is a general rule: we tend to spend fewer cognitive resources on processing ideas we regard as wrong. (Now that I put it that way, it seems trivially obvious). Just like so many religious people have preconceptions regarding what atheists think or believe, that atheists themselves repeatedly have to refute. Same thing. Brains are lazy.
That means you understand it.
Ex-religious people, who had previously conflated atheism and other religions, might be less prone to being binarians after becoming atheists.
Sample size of one, but I also have to remind myself as MarkusRamikin does. I was openly religious up until about 18, and was only someone I’d consider a serious doubter at 14, with relapses at 16 and 18. Prior to 14 and between the lapses, religiously pretty strong.
I often enough find myself with no plausible theory of mind for why a person says a thing that I don’t think I do that much.
Perhaps it’s not a question of much. Maybe we’re awesome enough to detect even small variations in rationality and be alarmed if they’re in the wrong direction. ;)
I mean, obviously I never catch myself being literally “binarian”.
Why would that be obvious?
Uhm, because of everything else I said in this thread, before saying that. I should expect that any reasonable reader would by now find it highly unlikely that I literally assume all religious people believe identical things. Were you serious or just being clever?
In case I was genuinely unclear: I see “binarian” as a sort of anti-ideal, a severe case of cached thought reliance. Not something anyone of lesswrong level of sophistication would normally sink to all the way, more like a far away goal towards which you don’t want to take even small steps.
What’s the word for someone who sees errors as defining character attributes that only occur in “idiots” and not decent, sensible people like theirself and their friends and readers?
I don’t think Adams thinks highly of himself or his readers.
Indeed. He often describes his motivation for posts as “Dance, monkeys, dance!”