I increasingly think that for rationalists to use religion as their intellectual sparring partner is a form of laziness. I could barely be more confident than I am that religion is a load of bunkum, and so when I engage with it I know I am vastly better armed and virtually guaranteed victory, at least in my own eyes. This makes it very attractive to spar with as far as my ego is concerned, with almost a zero chance of discovering my own mistakes or the flaws in my own rationality. Religion really could not do more to flag itself as mistaken from a rational point of view—we should move on and start taking on harder targets.
I agree that religion is an easy target, and not much of a test for rationality.
However I would be wary about the choice of harder targets, because some of them (politics especially) are things that a lot of people feel strongly about, which could make things messy here.
I think politics is a subject where everybody should try to overcome his own biases, but I would also prefer if OvercomingBias and LessWrong stayed politically neutral.
I increasingly think that for rationalists to use religion as their intellectual sparring partner is a form of laziness. I could barely be more confident than I am that religion is a load of bunkum, and so when I engage with it I know I am vastly better armed and virtually guaranteed victory, at least in my own eyes. This makes it very attractive to spar with as far as my ego is concerned, with almost a zero chance of discovering my own mistakes or the flaws in my own rationality. Religion really could not do more to flag itself as mistaken from a rational point of view—we should move on and start taking on harder targets.
I agree that religion is an easy target, and not much of a test for rationality.
However I would be wary about the choice of harder targets, because some of them (politics especially) are things that a lot of people feel strongly about, which could make things messy here.
I think politics is a subject where everybody should try to overcome his own biases, but I would also prefer if OvercomingBias and LessWrong stayed politically neutral.
Hear hear! I can’t upvote this enough.