Do people here, in general, think it is productive and worthwhile to spend time and energy on deconverting friends and family (provided the religious beliefs in question are mainstream and not threatening to their physical or financial health)?
That’s a genuine question (not rhetoric) in case it wasn’t clear.
Do people here, in general, think it is productive and worthwhile to spend time and energy on deconverting friends and family (provided the religious beliefs in question are mainstream and not threatening to their physical or financial health)?
Setting out to change other people is almost always going to end poorly. Helping people who have set out to change themselves has a chance of ending well.
I don’t think so. Usually their beliefs are rather benign, and don’t come up in conversation very often, because of their irrelevance to reality. And when they actually do have a bearing on their action or their models of reality, it’s almost always far better to talk about the issue directly, and discuss their religious beliefs only within that context, so as to keep the discussion grounded, and avoid floating into ridiculous abstractions and word-based meandering.
If anyone ever brings up religion to me outside of a context like that, I just engage in the simplest, most charitable-sounding word-reductionism possible, by asking them what exactly they mean by some word, and whether we’re talking about a physical object, or a bodily sensation, or what, or what the utility of their beliefs are, or whatever. It takes a decent amount of practice to do well, but when done correctly it diffuses the situation really quickly and doesn’t destroy relationships.
It must also be emphasized that not all professed beliefs are actual “beliefs” in the literal, epistemic meaning of that word. They’re not always models of reality that are supposed to predict certain things or whatever. Often they’re just techniques for signaling group affiliation, or for avoiding destructive negative emotions (due to some oddity in human brain design), or whatever. Even the word reductionism I explained above may be nothing more than annoying pedantry, and literally off topic, if you’re dealing not with an epistemic belief, but with something else (which is perhaps usually the case). To be clear, I use that technique not because I think it’s on topic, but because I’ve found it to be a good firewall technique to avoid epistemic hazards to my own belief structure.
I know a lot of theists, but generally stick to expecting joined-up thinking of them, particularly when the topic strays to religion. (Though they will see me broadcasting a lot of atheist advocacy.)
Do people here, in general, think it is productive and worthwhile to spend time and energy on deconverting friends and family (provided the religious beliefs in question are mainstream and not threatening to their physical or financial health)?
That’s a genuine question (not rhetoric) in case it wasn’t clear.
Setting out to change other people is almost always going to end poorly. Helping people who have set out to change themselves has a chance of ending well.
I don’t think so. Usually their beliefs are rather benign, and don’t come up in conversation very often, because of their irrelevance to reality. And when they actually do have a bearing on their action or their models of reality, it’s almost always far better to talk about the issue directly, and discuss their religious beliefs only within that context, so as to keep the discussion grounded, and avoid floating into ridiculous abstractions and word-based meandering.
If anyone ever brings up religion to me outside of a context like that, I just engage in the simplest, most charitable-sounding word-reductionism possible, by asking them what exactly they mean by some word, and whether we’re talking about a physical object, or a bodily sensation, or what, or what the utility of their beliefs are, or whatever. It takes a decent amount of practice to do well, but when done correctly it diffuses the situation really quickly and doesn’t destroy relationships.
It must also be emphasized that not all professed beliefs are actual “beliefs” in the literal, epistemic meaning of that word. They’re not always models of reality that are supposed to predict certain things or whatever. Often they’re just techniques for signaling group affiliation, or for avoiding destructive negative emotions (due to some oddity in human brain design), or whatever. Even the word reductionism I explained above may be nothing more than annoying pedantry, and literally off topic, if you’re dealing not with an epistemic belief, but with something else (which is perhaps usually the case). To be clear, I use that technique not because I think it’s on topic, but because I’ve found it to be a good firewall technique to avoid epistemic hazards to my own belief structure.
I know a lot of theists, but generally stick to expecting joined-up thinking of them, particularly when the topic strays to religion. (Though they will see me broadcasting a lot of atheist advocacy.)