Here’s another way of evaluating the sanity of religious belief:
It’s arguable that the original believers of religion were insane (e.g. shamans with schizotypical personality disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, etc...), yet with each subsequent believer in your culture, you are less and less insane to believe in it. During past history, it would only take a few insane or gullible people with good oratorical skills getting together to make religion sanely believable.
If you are religious because you see spirits, you are insane. If you are religious because your friend Shaman Bob sees spirits and predicts the rainfall, you aren’t very smart, but you aren’t insane either. If you are religious because your whole tribe believes in the spirits seen by Shaman Bob and has indoctrinated you from birth, you are not insane at all, you are a typical human.
Evidence for the existence of God: my ancestors saw God and talked to him, and he did really great things for them, and so they passed down stories about it so that we’d remember. Everybody knows that.
Evidence for the existence of Jesus: same.
Evidence for the existence of Hercules: same.
Evidence for the existence of Socrates: same.
Evidence for the existence of Newton: same. Okay, we have a few more records of this one.
We are sure with 99%+ probability both were real people, it would be possible but really difficult to fake all the evidence of their existence.
We are sure with quite high but lesser probability that the broad strokes of their life are correct: Socrates was an influential philosopher who taught Plato and was sentenced to death, Muhammad was a guy from Mecca who founded Islam and migrated to Medina, then returned to Mecca with his followers.
We think some of the specific details written about them in history books might be true, but definitely not all of them. Muhammad might have lived in a cave during his young life, and Socrates might have refused to escape from his death sentence, etc.
When a coin comes out tails ten times in a row, you’ll bet on it being rigged strictly depending on your prior belief about how much you expect it to be rigged. Evidence only makes sense given your prior belief, inferred from other factors. If I hear a report of a devastating hurricane, I believe it more than if the very same report stated that a nuclear bomb went off in a city, and I won’t believe it at all if it stated that the little green men have landed in front of the White House.
It’s arguable that the original believers of religion were insane (e.g. shamans with schizotypical personality disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, etc...), yet with each subsequent believer in your culture, you are less and less insane to believe in it.
But this would be true only if the subsequent believers were not taking into account previous believers as evidence—if they had all come to the same view independently. Otherwise we have an information cascade.
If you are religious because your whole tribe believes in the spirits seen by Shaman Bob and has indoctrinated you from birth, you are not insane at all, you are a typical human.
The point is that a typical contemporary human is insane. The problem doesn’t go away if everyone is suffering from it. Death is still bad even if everyone dies, and believing in nonsense is still insane, even if everyone bends to some reason to do so.
Yes, there is a “problem” that everyone is suffering from. But the problem is stupidity, not insanity. There is no reasonable basis to assign insanity to typical contemporary humans just because their brains can’t achieve the rationality that a minority of human brains can, unless someone actually has some arguments showing some brain malfunction.
Believing in nonsense is not at all insane if your brain is hardwired to be biased towards certain types of nonsense, or if you aren’t smart enough to figure out that you are encountering nonsense. And this is exactly how normal human beings are.
The normal, healthy, and sane functioning of typical contemporary human brains is to be susceptible to certain biases. That’s the whole thesis of Overcoming Bias. The sooner that we atypical rationalists get used to this, the better, because myopically characterizing bias as insanity will disguise the fact that one of the biggest threats to rationality is certain perfectly healthy processes in the typical human brain.
Here’s another way of evaluating the sanity of religious belief:
It’s arguable that the original believers of religion were insane (e.g. shamans with schizotypical personality disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, etc...), yet with each subsequent believer in your culture, you are less and less insane to believe in it. During past history, it would only take a few insane or gullible people with good oratorical skills getting together to make religion sanely believable.
If you are religious because you see spirits, you are insane. If you are religious because your friend Shaman Bob sees spirits and predicts the rainfall, you aren’t very smart, but you aren’t insane either. If you are religious because your whole tribe believes in the spirits seen by Shaman Bob and has indoctrinated you from birth, you are not insane at all, you are a typical human.
Even better:
Evidence for the existence of God: my ancestors saw God and talked to him, and he did really great things for them, and so they passed down stories about it so that we’d remember. Everybody knows that.
Evidence for the existence of Jesus: same.
Evidence for the existence of Hercules: same.
Evidence for the existence of Socrates: same.
Evidence for the existence of Newton: same. Okay, we have a few more records of this one.
Mohammed is solidly part of history.
Certainly not more solid than Newton
No, around the same level as Socrates.
We are sure with 99%+ probability both were real people, it would be possible but really difficult to fake all the evidence of their existence.
We are sure with quite high but lesser probability that the broad strokes of their life are correct: Socrates was an influential philosopher who taught Plato and was sentenced to death, Muhammad was a guy from Mecca who founded Islam and migrated to Medina, then returned to Mecca with his followers.
We think some of the specific details written about them in history books might be true, but definitely not all of them. Muhammad might have lived in a cave during his young life, and Socrates might have refused to escape from his death sentence, etc.
When a coin comes out tails ten times in a row, you’ll bet on it being rigged strictly depending on your prior belief about how much you expect it to be rigged. Evidence only makes sense given your prior belief, inferred from other factors. If I hear a report of a devastating hurricane, I believe it more than if the very same report stated that a nuclear bomb went off in a city, and I won’t believe it at all if it stated that the little green men have landed in front of the White House.
This is one of the principles of rationality I’m proud to say I discovered on my own: http://heresiology.blogspot.com/2006/01/intelligent-design-1.html
Short version: An interesting formation on earth might be a sign of human involvement, and interesting formation on mars, not so much.
Exactly. These are all sane beliefs, even though only some of them are rational.
But this would be true only if the subsequent believers were not taking into account previous believers as evidence—if they had all come to the same view independently. Otherwise we have an information cascade.
Information cascades may be irrational, but they seem fully sane and neurotypical.
The point is that a typical contemporary human is insane. The problem doesn’t go away if everyone is suffering from it. Death is still bad even if everyone dies, and believing in nonsense is still insane, even if everyone bends to some reason to do so.
Yes, there is a “problem” that everyone is suffering from. But the problem is stupidity, not insanity. There is no reasonable basis to assign insanity to typical contemporary humans just because their brains can’t achieve the rationality that a minority of human brains can, unless someone actually has some arguments showing some brain malfunction.
Believing in nonsense is not at all insane if your brain is hardwired to be biased towards certain types of nonsense, or if you aren’t smart enough to figure out that you are encountering nonsense. And this is exactly how normal human beings are.
The normal, healthy, and sane functioning of typical contemporary human brains is to be susceptible to certain biases. That’s the whole thesis of Overcoming Bias. The sooner that we atypical rationalists get used to this, the better, because myopically characterizing bias as insanity will disguise the fact that one of the biggest threats to rationality is certain perfectly healthy processes in the typical human brain.
Taboo “sane”. “Neurotypical” might be a good substitute.