“Consider this thought experiment—what could you teach people that is not directly about religion, which is true and useful as a general method of rationality, which would cause them to lose their religions?”
Teach people how to be happy, how to have high self-esteem, and how to flourish in their lives. Teach them what the pitfalls of human happiness are, what the evolutionary reasons for human misbehavior are, and what we can do about them. Also, as a second line of defense, create a rational religion-replacement.
I have some good experience in this area, because whilst at university I spent time around the university evangelical Christian society. Disturbingly, some members were better mathematicians than me, all were highly intelligent. What they almost all had in common was that they all had some good reason to be unhappy with their lives: they were socially awkward, ugly, mentally unbalanced or had self-confidence issues, etc. The attractive, socially adept, self-confident crowd spent their free time drinking, playing in the sports teams and socializing in a very ahem secular way.
Robin (elsewhere in this comment thread) says:
“They just don’t have enough incentives to apply those tools in these context.”
I agree completely, at least in the case of clever Christians.
“Consider this thought experiment—what could you teach people that is not directly about religion, which is true and useful as a general method of rationality, which would cause them to lose their religions?”
Teach people how to be happy, how to have high self-esteem, and how to flourish in their lives. Teach them what the pitfalls of human happiness are, what the evolutionary reasons for human misbehavior are, and what we can do about them. Also, as a second line of defense, create a rational religion-replacement.
I have some good experience in this area, because whilst at university I spent time around the university evangelical Christian society. Disturbingly, some members were better mathematicians than me, all were highly intelligent. What they almost all had in common was that they all had some good reason to be unhappy with their lives: they were socially awkward, ugly, mentally unbalanced or had self-confidence issues, etc. The attractive, socially adept, self-confident crowd spent their free time drinking, playing in the sports teams and socializing in a very ahem secular way.
Robin (elsewhere in this comment thread) says:
“They just don’t have enough incentives to apply those tools in these context.”
I agree completely, at least in the case of clever Christians.
harsh