The article’s conclusion is that “people decide they want to convert for emotional reasons, but some can’t believe it at first, so they use apologetics as a tool to get themselves to believe what they’ve decided they want to believe.”
So we expect apologetic literature and speakers as a market niche wherever there are emotionally manipulative (claimed) rewards and punishments attendant on belief. Some rewards and punishments are quite real, like social status, praise, and condemnation. Others are fictional, like afterlives and the deep satisfaction of living according to divine law.
Similarly to mainstream religion, there is plentiful apologetic literature, speakers, and films for political ideologies. The social rewards of being in a political group are real; the future consequences that are promised if only enough elections can be won may or may not be real.
Given religions where beliefs are not rewarded or punished, we’d expect little or no consumption of apologetics. Shinto, neopaganism, and Unitarian Universalism fit that. However, there is certainly plenty of apologetic literature for secular humanist atheism, which also lacks the rewards/punishments. That looks to almost entirely undermine the hypothesis.
There is also basically no apologetic literature for believing in the greatness of particular sports teams, despite the large social rewards of being in a fanbase and the promised vicarious glory of psyching your team up for a win by your fervent support. OK, so to me the hypothesis is dead. Something more is going on than simple market response to rewarded/punished belief.
Any ideas what?
There were three times in my life when I consumed apologetics. First was when I was evangelical Protestant and it was a tool for the religious imperative of winning converts. Second was when I could no longer believe my childhood religion, but still believed in God and the importance of Jesus, and so I read the apologetics of other religions to see which was most likely true, and I ended up converting Catholic for a while. Third was when I became infatuated with the principled style of libertarian political ideology and needed the apologetics to “understand” why nothing fit.
Based on my own anecotal experience, then, my next hypothesis would be that apologetic argument and literature is demanded when people are (1) committed to a theory (for any reasons good or bad) and (2) also committed to acknowledging the facts, and (3) the facts don’t fit the theory in a straightforward way, and (4) complex fits of facts to theory are tolerated.
Religions that propose explanations would then be expected to have apologetics, and religions that don’t propose explanations would not. All political ideologies would be expected to have apologetics, because it’s an unfortunate fact of life that the consequences of politics are very complicated. Secular humanist atheists, insofar as they propose explanations for life, the universe, and everything, similarly end up occasionally faced with bizarre and extraordinary scenarios that defy simple explanation, and so they have apologetics. Some sports fans may, after a loss, blame the coach, the refs, the weather, and other factors, but at least in my experience most are willing to believe the other team played better. Oddly, we even end up with pro-science apologetics sometimes; at least I remember my physics and chemistry professors spending inordinate time mis-explaining phenomena when they were committed to the phenomena being explainable primarily by that week’s lesson.
It seems to fit. And it suggests that the process leading to apologetics can be interrupted at two places, as described elsewhere by Eliezer. First, don’t be committed to a theory. Don’t make a belief part of your identity. Let your beliefs be faithless and blown about by the winds of evidence. Second, count facts that require detailed explanations as contrary evidence even if the explanation is adequate. (This is not strictly Bayesianly correct but it seems like a good approximation.)
There is apologetic literature for sports teams, if you’re looking for it. Most of the time you can find some in your local paper, and it goes all the way up to book form. The difference is that a sports fan doesn’t think that everyone should root for their team; sports requires a loyal opposition. One major audience is those who move, and thus need to become convinced to root for their new home team. And indeed, most of the time it comes down to one of the following arguments:
This team has a long and honored tradition, thus the rewards of being a fan are deeper.
This team has a chance to win, Real Soon Now, thus you are more likely to be rewarded with victory. (This one is a large % of the sports section, and often is the back page of the New York Post).
This team’s fans are better in some way, thus you want to be one of them.
This team’s players are just dandy, awesome people, so root for them! The extent to which people change their arguments here after trades or free agent signings or drafts is staggering.
The article’s conclusion is that “people decide they want to convert for emotional reasons, but some can’t believe it at first, so they use apologetics as a tool to get themselves to believe what they’ve decided they want to believe.”
So we expect apologetic literature and speakers as a market niche wherever there are emotionally manipulative (claimed) rewards and punishments attendant on belief. Some rewards and punishments are quite real, like social status, praise, and condemnation. Others are fictional, like afterlives and the deep satisfaction of living according to divine law.
Similarly to mainstream religion, there is plentiful apologetic literature, speakers, and films for political ideologies. The social rewards of being in a political group are real; the future consequences that are promised if only enough elections can be won may or may not be real.
Given religions where beliefs are not rewarded or punished, we’d expect little or no consumption of apologetics. Shinto, neopaganism, and Unitarian Universalism fit that. However, there is certainly plenty of apologetic literature for secular humanist atheism, which also lacks the rewards/punishments. That looks to almost entirely undermine the hypothesis.
There is also basically no apologetic literature for believing in the greatness of particular sports teams, despite the large social rewards of being in a fanbase and the promised vicarious glory of psyching your team up for a win by your fervent support. OK, so to me the hypothesis is dead. Something more is going on than simple market response to rewarded/punished belief.
Any ideas what?
There were three times in my life when I consumed apologetics. First was when I was evangelical Protestant and it was a tool for the religious imperative of winning converts. Second was when I could no longer believe my childhood religion, but still believed in God and the importance of Jesus, and so I read the apologetics of other religions to see which was most likely true, and I ended up converting Catholic for a while. Third was when I became infatuated with the principled style of libertarian political ideology and needed the apologetics to “understand” why nothing fit.
Based on my own anecotal experience, then, my next hypothesis would be that apologetic argument and literature is demanded when people are (1) committed to a theory (for any reasons good or bad) and (2) also committed to acknowledging the facts, and (3) the facts don’t fit the theory in a straightforward way, and (4) complex fits of facts to theory are tolerated.
Religions that propose explanations would then be expected to have apologetics, and religions that don’t propose explanations would not. All political ideologies would be expected to have apologetics, because it’s an unfortunate fact of life that the consequences of politics are very complicated. Secular humanist atheists, insofar as they propose explanations for life, the universe, and everything, similarly end up occasionally faced with bizarre and extraordinary scenarios that defy simple explanation, and so they have apologetics. Some sports fans may, after a loss, blame the coach, the refs, the weather, and other factors, but at least in my experience most are willing to believe the other team played better. Oddly, we even end up with pro-science apologetics sometimes; at least I remember my physics and chemistry professors spending inordinate time mis-explaining phenomena when they were committed to the phenomena being explainable primarily by that week’s lesson.
It seems to fit. And it suggests that the process leading to apologetics can be interrupted at two places, as described elsewhere by Eliezer. First, don’t be committed to a theory. Don’t make a belief part of your identity. Let your beliefs be faithless and blown about by the winds of evidence. Second, count facts that require detailed explanations as contrary evidence even if the explanation is adequate. (This is not strictly Bayesianly correct but it seems like a good approximation.)
There is apologetic literature for sports teams, if you’re looking for it. Most of the time you can find some in your local paper, and it goes all the way up to book form. The difference is that a sports fan doesn’t think that everyone should root for their team; sports requires a loyal opposition. One major audience is those who move, and thus need to become convinced to root for their new home team. And indeed, most of the time it comes down to one of the following arguments:
This team has a long and honored tradition, thus the rewards of being a fan are deeper.
This team has a chance to win, Real Soon Now, thus you are more likely to be rewarded with victory. (This one is a large % of the sports section, and often is the back page of the New York Post).
This team’s fans are better in some way, thus you want to be one of them.
This team’s players are just dandy, awesome people, so root for them! The extent to which people change their arguments here after trades or free agent signings or drafts is staggering.