You don’t have to precommit to not updating on another person’s arguments to anticipate not updating on their arguments.Would you precommit to not updating on the arguments of a Young Earth Creationist? It would be a pretty silly thing to do, but so would expecting to come away with a significantly higher confidence that the world is less than ten thousand years old. Besides, many if not most “new atheists” have greater familiarity with the arguments for religion than most theists. Whether or not they’re open to being persuaded by them, treating each dialogue as a new and unique opportunity to discover the reasons behind someone’s beliefs is not a very practical way to learn things; I’ve been there myself.
Aumann’s Agreement Theorem describes the behavior of ideal Bayesian rationalists, and acting on principles designed with the assumption that all the parties involved are ideal rationalists when neither you nor the parties you’re dealing with actually are simply isn’t sensible.
Which ‘new atheists’ would those be? Certainly the ones generally talked about—Dawkins and Hitchens—are frighteningly ignorant when it comes to actual religious arguments.
Most of the atheists in communities I frequented back when I felt that being an atheist was Important.
Hitchens I wouldn’t particularly disagree with. Dawkins is certainly not the most well acquainted person with religious arguments that you could find, but I find that he often tends to be be portrayed as ignorant in cases where he’s actually being reasonably dismissive.
Have a look throgh the essays I linked above (unfortunately the way Blogger works it starts with the end—find the first essay and work forwards). Rilstone pretty comprehensively destroys Dawkins’ book, and I say that as someone who should be on Dawkins’ side...
I read it; I wouldn’t remotely say that he “comprehensively destroys the book.” There are points on which he rightly points out ways in which Dawkins is misinformed, and points where I think his arguments are a complete tangent to Dawkins’ actual points. I’m a bit tempted to do a comprehensive run-down of the whole thing, but I doubt that it would be of much worth to many of the members here, so I don’t think that would be a very good use of my time.
You don’t have to precommit to not updating on another person’s arguments to anticipate not updating on their arguments.Would you precommit to not updating on the arguments of a Young Earth Creationist? It would be a pretty silly thing to do, but so would expecting to come away with a significantly higher confidence that the world is less than ten thousand years old. Besides, many if not most “new atheists” have greater familiarity with the arguments for religion than most theists. Whether or not they’re open to being persuaded by them, treating each dialogue as a new and unique opportunity to discover the reasons behind someone’s beliefs is not a very practical way to learn things; I’ve been there myself.
Aumann’s Agreement Theorem describes the behavior of ideal Bayesian rationalists, and acting on principles designed with the assumption that all the parties involved are ideal rationalists when neither you nor the parties you’re dealing with actually are simply isn’t sensible.
Which ‘new atheists’ would those be? Certainly the ones generally talked about—Dawkins and Hitchens—are frighteningly ignorant when it comes to actual religious arguments.
Most of the atheists in communities I frequented back when I felt that being an atheist was Important.
Hitchens I wouldn’t particularly disagree with. Dawkins is certainly not the most well acquainted person with religious arguments that you could find, but I find that he often tends to be be portrayed as ignorant in cases where he’s actually being reasonably dismissive.
Have a look throgh the essays I linked above (unfortunately the way Blogger works it starts with the end—find the first essay and work forwards). Rilstone pretty comprehensively destroys Dawkins’ book, and I say that as someone who should be on Dawkins’ side...
I read it; I wouldn’t remotely say that he “comprehensively destroys the book.” There are points on which he rightly points out ways in which Dawkins is misinformed, and points where I think his arguments are a complete tangent to Dawkins’ actual points. I’m a bit tempted to do a comprehensive run-down of the whole thing, but I doubt that it would be of much worth to many of the members here, so I don’t think that would be a very good use of my time.