Eliezer, imagine you knew two people who both did embarrassing stupid things when they were young, and that one person you excused with “boys will be boys” or “the folly of youth”, while the other you told to anyone that would listen that you would never trust or associate with a person who did such a terrible thing. This would seem to be playing favorites, unless perhaps the difference is that one person repented of their youthful acts while the other did not.
Similarly, you seem to be playing favorites in allowing lawyers and academics to disavow their silly ancient practices, while insisting that religious folks today take responsibility for ancient foolish religious claims. Sure your criticism sticks to those who refuse to disavow those ancient claims, but I think we should treat differently those, like Unitarians, who to do so disavow.
My main problem is that I find it hard to understand what such people are in fact claiming. At least I understood the ancient foolish claims, mostly.
There is a peculiarity of religions that causes them to attract this sort of scrutiny. Religions are meant to be treated as package deals, as if claims about the efficacy of eating shrimp have some special correspondence to favoritism toward heterosexuality and premarital abstinence. As if the latter two things have any special correspondence! There’s no reason subscribing to some “core” values of a religion should require someone to accept the whole subscription. Seldom are a religion’s “core” values enough to reconstruct the rest of the religious system, or even anything vaguely similar.
It’s such a glaring fallacy, yet oddly it even sucks in religion’s detractors. As if we could demolish the entirety of a poorly-connected religion just by overturning a few of its claims.
Yet another result of this aspect of religion is the tendency for a shift in beliefs to require the creation of entire new sects, such as the Unitarians.
No, the folks who give me the most pause are the Indie-Christians. They take whatever beliefs they like from wherever they like (but usually with a focus on scientific anticipation-constraining beliefs and Christian non-constraining beliefs) and run with them. As far as I can tell, they’re doing it right, but winding up with far more intellectual baggage than I’d be willing to carry. Of course, I can’t talk them out of anything, because their only falsifiable beliefs are the reasonable non-spiritual ones, and their ability to interact smoothly with less reasonable Christians gives them more utility than would my Occam approach.
It’s such a glaring fallacy, yet oddly it even sucks in religion’s detractors. As if we could demolish the entirety of a poorly-connected religion just by overturning a few of its claims.
But of course, if you can’t test many of a religion’s claims, but those you can test have a tendency to be simply wrong, it suggests that the say-so of religious dogma shouldn’t be enough to accept the others either.
Excellent point. I suppose for some, the many shortcomings of their religion are enough to overthrow any intellectual authority that religion may have held over them. This does grant such individuals more freedom to evaluate the remainder of their beliefs. I do hold such freedom in high regard. “Your religion is demonstrably not a scientific authority. If some of it is wrong, it cannot all be the untarnished word of a supreme being. How then can it justify authority in other areas?”
There is, however, a certain temptation among those first realizing their own intellectual freedom from religion. It is a temptation to ardently maintain the language and customs and non-falsifiable beliefs from the religion they have otherwise abandoned. A simple stroll along the path of minimal required change. While there are many sub-optimal paths to optimizing one’s own reasoning capacity, I have personal associations which make this path particularly worrisome.
I wonder if there are methods to help others avoid this baggage-claim stage entirely, or if the religious baggage really does provide some utility for social interaction. I fear any utility it provides the holder will be at the cost of increased perceived support toward those who use that same religion as a justification for various kinds of oppression. I guess the whole problem comes back to in-group solidarity, pros and cons alike. Pro-baggage: I get to stay in my group. Con-baggage: Some members of that group are against various forms of freedom and reason.
Eliezer, imagine you knew two people who both did embarrassing stupid things when they were young, and that one person you excused with “boys will be boys” or “the folly of youth”, while the other you told to anyone that would listen that you would never trust or associate with a person who did such a terrible thing. This would seem to be playing favorites, unless perhaps the difference is that one person repented of their youthful acts while the other did not.
Similarly, you seem to be playing favorites in allowing lawyers and academics to disavow their silly ancient practices, while insisting that religious folks today take responsibility for ancient foolish religious claims. Sure your criticism sticks to those who refuse to disavow those ancient claims, but I think we should treat differently those, like Unitarians, who to do so disavow.
My main problem is that I find it hard to understand what such people are in fact claiming. At least I understood the ancient foolish claims, mostly.
There is a peculiarity of religions that causes them to attract this sort of scrutiny. Religions are meant to be treated as package deals, as if claims about the efficacy of eating shrimp have some special correspondence to favoritism toward heterosexuality and premarital abstinence. As if the latter two things have any special correspondence! There’s no reason subscribing to some “core” values of a religion should require someone to accept the whole subscription. Seldom are a religion’s “core” values enough to reconstruct the rest of the religious system, or even anything vaguely similar.
It’s such a glaring fallacy, yet oddly it even sucks in religion’s detractors. As if we could demolish the entirety of a poorly-connected religion just by overturning a few of its claims.
Yet another result of this aspect of religion is the tendency for a shift in beliefs to require the creation of entire new sects, such as the Unitarians.
No, the folks who give me the most pause are the Indie-Christians. They take whatever beliefs they like from wherever they like (but usually with a focus on scientific anticipation-constraining beliefs and Christian non-constraining beliefs) and run with them. As far as I can tell, they’re doing it right, but winding up with far more intellectual baggage than I’d be willing to carry. Of course, I can’t talk them out of anything, because their only falsifiable beliefs are the reasonable non-spiritual ones, and their ability to interact smoothly with less reasonable Christians gives them more utility than would my Occam approach.
But of course, if you can’t test many of a religion’s claims, but those you can test have a tendency to be simply wrong, it suggests that the say-so of religious dogma shouldn’t be enough to accept the others either.
Excellent point. I suppose for some, the many shortcomings of their religion are enough to overthrow any intellectual authority that religion may have held over them. This does grant such individuals more freedom to evaluate the remainder of their beliefs. I do hold such freedom in high regard. “Your religion is demonstrably not a scientific authority. If some of it is wrong, it cannot all be the untarnished word of a supreme being. How then can it justify authority in other areas?”
There is, however, a certain temptation among those first realizing their own intellectual freedom from religion. It is a temptation to ardently maintain the language and customs and non-falsifiable beliefs from the religion they have otherwise abandoned. A simple stroll along the path of minimal required change. While there are many sub-optimal paths to optimizing one’s own reasoning capacity, I have personal associations which make this path particularly worrisome.
I wonder if there are methods to help others avoid this baggage-claim stage entirely, or if the religious baggage really does provide some utility for social interaction. I fear any utility it provides the holder will be at the cost of increased perceived support toward those who use that same religion as a justification for various kinds of oppression. I guess the whole problem comes back to in-group solidarity, pros and cons alike. Pro-baggage: I get to stay in my group. Con-baggage: Some members of that group are against various forms of freedom and reason.
Yeah, what does it mean to be Unitarian, really? Are they even religious anymore?