It would depend on whether or not the happiness gains from theists not starting idiotic wars, arbitrarily disallowing pleasant/useful behaviors, discriminating against certain groups, or making irrational large-scale decisions would balance out the costs.
Suppose there’s no evidence for or against those improvements manifesting from the propagation of atheism. You can, for the purposes of argument, assume/hope that those improvements will manifest, but you do so without evidence that this will actually be the case, or that things won’t actually get worse in any of those areas.
Uh, then I would probably just keep it to myself, at least for the time being.
The reason I would consider otherwise is that “always strive for the truth, even when it seems like a bad idea at the time” might be a good pre-commitment to make. I definitely believe that it is on an individual level, but for society I’m not so sure. I definitely don’t think it’s a deontological moral rule to always seek truth, I just think that it’s a very good practical rule to have. This concept is laid out somewhere in the Sequences, I think.
It would depend on whether or not the happiness gains from theists not starting idiotic wars, arbitrarily disallowing pleasant/useful behaviors, discriminating against certain groups, or making irrational large-scale decisions would balance out the costs.
Suppose there’s no evidence for or against those improvements manifesting from the propagation of atheism. You can, for the purposes of argument, assume/hope that those improvements will manifest, but you do so without evidence that this will actually be the case, or that things won’t actually get worse in any of those areas.
Uh, then I would probably just keep it to myself, at least for the time being.
The reason I would consider otherwise is that “always strive for the truth, even when it seems like a bad idea at the time” might be a good pre-commitment to make. I definitely believe that it is on an individual level, but for society I’m not so sure. I definitely don’t think it’s a deontological moral rule to always seek truth, I just think that it’s a very good practical rule to have. This concept is laid out somewhere in the Sequences, I think.
You have to balance that against the loses from atheists doing those things.
What do you mean by “discrimination” and how is it different from using priors?
Muslims not letting women show their faces, drive, etc. and Christians thinking that gay people are evil were the two examples I had in mind.