First, I want to thank you for continuing to engage on this. Your feedback is very much appreciated. But we may need to agree to disagree on this.
“Some people get sick when they consume dairy products” would do pretty well.
Some people derive a net benefit from believing in deities, notwithstanding that their beliefs are objectively false. How’s that?
Dawkins
If you want to formulate a question to direct to Dawkins that is phrased in a way that you would accept his answer as definitive, I will forward it to him, thought it’s possible that his recent health issues might prevent him from replying in a timely manner.
In my conversations with him he more than once disagreed categorically with statements that were essentially equivalent (though not word-for-word identical) with the formulation I just gave.
Some people derive a net benefit from believing in deities [...]
Aha, a much more objectively stated thesis. It seems quite different from the one we started out discussing, though. This one I agree is neither obviously true nor obviously false. Since it still has the value-dependent word “benefit” in, disagreement about it might stem mostly from differences in values—e.g., how to trade off being happier against having more accurate beliefs. (FWIW I think I would agree with the statement, but I suspect my estimate of what fraction of religious people really are better off on net because of their beliefs would be lower than yours.)
his recent health issues
Yeah, I think he has other more important things on his plate than clearing up a side-issue in our discussion.
It seems quite different from the one we started out discussing
It is different, and I argued with myself over whether to include the explanation of how to get from A to B, but decided not to because the waters were muddy enough already. It’s one of these things that I thought would be obvious, but obviously (!) my intuitions about what is obvious are failing me in this case.
In any case, if you want to pursue this, I’m happy to elaborate. (Maybe I should write a followup post?) But this thread is already pretty long, maybe we should call it a day. Your call.
I have no trouble seeing a connection. If you think there’s more—an actual implication—then I may be missing something. (Or we may merely disagree, which I think is more likely.)
Feel free to elaborate or not as you please. I have no objection to calling it a day.
First, I want to thank you for continuing to engage on this. Your feedback is very much appreciated. But we may need to agree to disagree on this.
Some people derive a net benefit from believing in deities, notwithstanding that their beliefs are objectively false. How’s that?
If you want to formulate a question to direct to Dawkins that is phrased in a way that you would accept his answer as definitive, I will forward it to him, thought it’s possible that his recent health issues might prevent him from replying in a timely manner.
In my conversations with him he more than once disagreed categorically with statements that were essentially equivalent (though not word-for-word identical) with the formulation I just gave.
At least we can agree on that! :-)
Indeed :-).
Aha, a much more objectively stated thesis. It seems quite different from the one we started out discussing, though. This one I agree is neither obviously true nor obviously false. Since it still has the value-dependent word “benefit” in, disagreement about it might stem mostly from differences in values—e.g., how to trade off being happier against having more accurate beliefs. (FWIW I think I would agree with the statement, but I suspect my estimate of what fraction of religious people really are better off on net because of their beliefs would be lower than yours.)
Yeah, I think he has other more important things on his plate than clearing up a side-issue in our discussion.
It is different, and I argued with myself over whether to include the explanation of how to get from A to B, but decided not to because the waters were muddy enough already. It’s one of these things that I thought would be obvious, but obviously (!) my intuitions about what is obvious are failing me in this case.
In any case, if you want to pursue this, I’m happy to elaborate. (Maybe I should write a followup post?) But this thread is already pretty long, maybe we should call it a day. Your call.
I have no trouble seeing a connection. If you think there’s more—an actual implication—then I may be missing something. (Or we may merely disagree, which I think is more likely.)
Feel free to elaborate or not as you please. I have no objection to calling it a day.