I find I have very little energy for debating religion nowadays. It could just be because I don’t know all that much about religion and don’t want to bother to learn. But I think it might just be that the truth of claims of religion aren’t really why people keep going to church, and arguing against those claims wont really have that much of an effect for people. Some relevant stuff was writ in Scott’s recent article about new atheism https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/30/new-atheism-the-godlessness-that-failed/
My impression right now, personally, is that the strongest anchors of peoples’ religions are probably
Grounding of morality. Some people don’t see a way to build a shared morality on a purely secular worldview. It’s not obvious that we even can (I believe we can, with a lot of talking and a bit of evolutionary psych, but have we, yet? Has that book been written?)
Community. You can’t argue someone out of wanting to be a part of a community of people who agree about what is good and bad. The best you can do is invite them to an effective altruist meet and try to make sure they have a good time, and then if they do, if you can make sure they understand that there are alternatives, other communities out there ready to embrace them, then maybe the prospect of leaving their spiritual community can become thinkable for them.
Welcome!
I find I have very little energy for debating religion nowadays. It could just be because I don’t know all that much about religion and don’t want to bother to learn. But I think it might just be that the truth of claims of religion aren’t really why people keep going to church, and arguing against those claims wont really have that much of an effect for people. Some relevant stuff was writ in Scott’s recent article about new atheism https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/30/new-atheism-the-godlessness-that-failed/
My impression right now, personally, is that the strongest anchors of peoples’ religions are probably
Grounding of morality. Some people don’t see a way to build a shared morality on a purely secular worldview. It’s not obvious that we even can (I believe we can, with a lot of talking and a bit of evolutionary psych, but have we, yet? Has that book been written?)
Community. You can’t argue someone out of wanting to be a part of a community of people who agree about what is good and bad. The best you can do is invite them to an effective altruist meet and try to make sure they have a good time, and then if they do, if you can make sure they understand that there are alternatives, other communities out there ready to embrace them, then maybe the prospect of leaving their spiritual community can become thinkable for them.