You’re right, I’m assuming that God doesn’t just tweak anyone’s mind to force them to believe, because the God of the Abrahamic religions won’t ever do that—our ultimate agency to believe or not is very important to Him. What would be the point of seven billion mindless minions? (OK, it might be fun for a while, but I bet sentient children would be more interesting over the course of, say, eternity.)
As I said at the time, it hadn’t been clear when I wrote the comment that you meant, specifically, the God of the Abrahamic religions when you talked about God.
I’ve since read your comments elsewhere about Mormonism, which made it clearer that there’s a specific denomination’s traditional beliefs about the universe you’re looking to defend, and not just beliefs in the existence of a God more generally.
And, sure, given that you’re looking for compelling arguments that defend your pre-existing beliefs, including specific claims about God’s values as well as God’s existence, history, powers, personality, relationships to particular human beings, and so forth, then it makes sense to reject ideas that seem inconsistent with those epistemic pre-commitments.
If you do assume that God can (and does) just reach in and tweak our minds directly, then being “convinced” takes on a sort of strange meaning. Unless we’re assuming that you remain in normal control of your own mind, the concepts of “choice,” “opinion,” and “me” sort of start to disappear.
I’m trying to talk about a deity in general, but you’re right, it often turns into the God we’re all familiar with. A radically different deity could uproot every part of the way we think about things, even logic and reason itself.
So in order to stay within our own universe, I think it’s OK to assume that any God only intervenes to the extent that we usually hear about, like Old Testament miracles.
A radically different deity could uproot every part of the way we think about things, even logic and reason itself. So in order to stay within our own universe, I think it’s OK to assume that any God only intervenes to the extent that we usually hear about, like Old Testament miracles.
Wait… you endorse rejecting the lived experience of millions of people whose conception of deity is radically different from yours, on the grounds that to do otherwise could uproot logic, reason, and every part of the way we think about things?
Wow. Um… I genuinely don’t mean to be offensive, but I don’t know a polite way to say this: if I understood that correctly, I just lost all interest in discussing this subject with you.
You seemed to be arguing a while back that our precommitments to “the way we think about things” were not sufficient grounds to reject uncomfortable or difficult ideas, which is a position I can respect, though I think it’s importantly though subtly false.
But now you just seem to be saying that we should not respect such precommitments when they interfere with accepting some beliefs, such as one popular conception of deity, while considering them sufficient grounds to reject others, such as different popular conceptions of deity.
Which seems to bring us all the way back around to the idea that an “atheist” is merely someone who treats my God the way I treat everyone else’s God, which is boring.
So it seems like what we were actually talking about here was how thoroughly God could convince a human of His existence, and you suggested he could just raise your faith level directly.
Here’s the problem I have with that: I don’t know about Odin, but the YHWH we were raised with doesn’t (could, but doesn’t) ever do that. I wouldn’t really call it faith if you have no choice in the matter.
But I recognize that free agency is a very important tenet of my religion and important to my understanding of the universe given that my religion is correct. (I still don’t quite understand free choice, which I’ll have to figure out sometime in the next few years, but that’s my own issue.)
Thus, a radically different deity is at odds with my view of the universe. This probably means that I ought to go looking for radically different deities which will challenge my universe, but for now I don’t know of any (except maybe simulation hypotheses, which I like a lot).
But for the purposes of this discussion—which, remember, was only about how spectacular a manifestation it would take to make you believe—I said it would be easier to stick to a God that doesn’t intervene to the point of directly tampering with our neurons. You had a problem with this. OK, sorry—let’s also think about a fundamentally different God.
I think that an effectively all-powerful being could easily just reach in and rearrange our circuits such that we know it exists. Sure it could happen. As I think I told someone, I don’t see why—having seven billion mindless minions would get old after a while—but I have no right to go questioning the motives of a deity, especially one that’s radically different from the one I’m told I’m modeled after.
I’m sorry, I never meant to dismiss the possibility of radically different religions. You’re right, that would be awfully silly coming from me.
Now then.
You seemed to be arguing a while back that our precommitments to “the way we think about things” were not sufficient grounds to reject uncomfortable or difficult ideas, which is a position I can respect, though I think it’s importantly though subtly false.
I recommend you prioritize clarifying your confusions surrounding “free choice” higher than you seem to be doing.
In particular, I observe that our circuits have demonstrably been arranged such that we find certain propositions, sources of value, and courses of action (call them C1) significantly (and in some cases overwhelmingly) more compelling than other propositions, sources of value, and courses of action (C2). For example (and trivially), C1 includes “I have a physical body” and C2 includes “I don’t have a physical body”.
If we were designed by a deity, it follows that this deity in fact designed us to be predisposed to accept C1 and not accept C2.
A concept of free agency that allows for stacking the deck so overwhelmingly in support of C1 over C2, but does not allow for including in C1 “YHWH as portrayed in the Book of Mormon, other texts included by reference in the Book of Mormon, and subsequent revelations granted to the line of Mormon Prophets by YHWH”, seems like an important concept to clarify, if only because it sounds so very contrived on the face of it.
This sounds very interesting, what do you mean?
Well, for example, consider the proposition (Pj) that YHWH as conceived of and worshiped by 20th-century Orthodox Jews of my family’s tradition exists.
As a child, I was taught Pj and believed it (which incidentally entailed other things, for example, such as Jesus Christ not being the Messiah). As a teenager re-evaluated the evidence I had for and against Pj and concluded that my confidence in NOT(Pj) was higher than my confidence in Pj.
Had someone said to me at that time “Dave, I realize that your evaluation of the evidence presented by your experience of the world leads you to high confidence in certain propositions which you consider logically inconsistent with Pj, but I caution you not to become so thoroughly precommitted to the methods by which you perform those evaluations that you cannot seriously consider alternative ways of evaluating evidence,” that would intuitively feel like a sensible, rational, balanced position.
The difficulty with it is that in practice, refusing to commit to any epistemic method means giving up on reaching any conclusions at all, however tentative. And since in practice making any choices about what to do next requires arriving at some conclusion, however implicit or unexamined, it similarly precludes an explicit examination of the conclusions underlying my choices. (Which typically entails an unexamined adoption of the epistemic methods my social group implicitly endorses, rather than the adoption of no epistemic methods at all, but that’s a whole different conversation.)
I ultimately decided I valued such explicit examinations, and that entailed a willingness to making a commitment to an epistemic methodology, and that the epistemic methodology that seemed most compelling to me at that time did in fact lead me to reject Pj, so absent discovering inconsistencies in that methodology that led me to reject it at some later time I was committed to rejecting Pj, which I did.
(Of course, I wasn’t thinking in quite these terms as a 13-year-old Yeshiva student, and it took some years to get fully consistent about that position. Actually, I’m not yet fully consistent about it, and don’t anticipate becoming so in my lifetime.)
Interesting. I’ll keep thinking about it. But just to clarify, what exactly was it I said that was subtly but importantly wrong?
This is what EY says about “uncomfortable or difficult ideas:”
“When you’re doubting one of your most cherished beliefs, close your eyes, empty your mind, grit your teeth, and deliberately think about whatever hurts the most. Don’t rehearse standard objections whose standard counters would make you feel better. Ask yourself what smart people who disagree would say to your first reply, and your second reply. Whenever you catch yourself flinching away from an objection you fleetingly thought of, drag it out into the forefront of your mind.”
But just to clarify, what exactly was it I said that was subtly but importantly wrong?
Like I said, I thought you were arguing a while back that our precommitments to “the way we think about things” were not sufficient grounds to reject uncomfortable or difficult ideas, which is an idea I respect (for reasons similar to those articulated in the post you quote) but consider subtly but importantly wrong (for reasons similar to those I articulate in the comment you reply to).
I’ll note, also, that an epistemic methodology (a way of thinking about things) isn’t the same thing as a belief.
You’re right, I’m assuming that God doesn’t just tweak anyone’s mind to force them to believe, because the God of the Abrahamic religions won’t ever do that—our ultimate agency to believe or not is very important to Him. What would be the point of seven billion mindless minions? (OK, it might be fun for a while, but I bet sentient children would be more interesting over the course of, say, eternity.)
As I said at the time, it hadn’t been clear when I wrote the comment that you meant, specifically, the God of the Abrahamic religions when you talked about God.
I’ve since read your comments elsewhere about Mormonism, which made it clearer that there’s a specific denomination’s traditional beliefs about the universe you’re looking to defend, and not just beliefs in the existence of a God more generally.
And, sure, given that you’re looking for compelling arguments that defend your pre-existing beliefs, including specific claims about God’s values as well as God’s existence, history, powers, personality, relationships to particular human beings, and so forth, then it makes sense to reject ideas that seem inconsistent with those epistemic pre-commitments.
That’s quite a given, though.
If you do assume that God can (and does) just reach in and tweak our minds directly, then being “convinced” takes on a sort of strange meaning. Unless we’re assuming that you remain in normal control of your own mind, the concepts of “choice,” “opinion,” and “me” sort of start to disappear.
I’m trying to talk about a deity in general, but you’re right, it often turns into the God we’re all familiar with. A radically different deity could uproot every part of the way we think about things, even logic and reason itself.
So in order to stay within our own universe, I think it’s OK to assume that any God only intervenes to the extent that we usually hear about, like Old Testament miracles.
Wait… you endorse rejecting the lived experience of millions of people whose conception of deity is radically different from yours, on the grounds that to do otherwise could uproot logic, reason, and every part of the way we think about things?
Wow. Um… I genuinely don’t mean to be offensive, but I don’t know a polite way to say this: if I understood that correctly, I just lost all interest in discussing this subject with you.
You seemed to be arguing a while back that our precommitments to “the way we think about things” were not sufficient grounds to reject uncomfortable or difficult ideas, which is a position I can respect, though I think it’s importantly though subtly false.
But now you just seem to be saying that we should not respect such precommitments when they interfere with accepting some beliefs, such as one popular conception of deity, while considering them sufficient grounds to reject others, such as different popular conceptions of deity.
Which seems to bring us all the way back around to the idea that an “atheist” is merely someone who treats my God the way I treat everyone else’s God, which is boring.
Have I misunderstood you?
Probably you have, unfortunately. Give me a few minutes to figure it out...this is getting confusing.
OK. No worries; no hurries… I’ll consider this branch paused pending re-evaluation. Take your time.
So it seems like what we were actually talking about here was how thoroughly God could convince a human of His existence, and you suggested he could just raise your faith level directly.
Here’s the problem I have with that: I don’t know about Odin, but the YHWH we were raised with doesn’t (could, but doesn’t) ever do that. I wouldn’t really call it faith if you have no choice in the matter.
But I recognize that free agency is a very important tenet of my religion and important to my understanding of the universe given that my religion is correct. (I still don’t quite understand free choice, which I’ll have to figure out sometime in the next few years, but that’s my own issue.) Thus, a radically different deity is at odds with my view of the universe. This probably means that I ought to go looking for radically different deities which will challenge my universe, but for now I don’t know of any (except maybe simulation hypotheses, which I like a lot).
But for the purposes of this discussion—which, remember, was only about how spectacular a manifestation it would take to make you believe—I said it would be easier to stick to a God that doesn’t intervene to the point of directly tampering with our neurons. You had a problem with this. OK, sorry—let’s also think about a fundamentally different God.
I think that an effectively all-powerful being could easily just reach in and rearrange our circuits such that we know it exists. Sure it could happen. As I think I told someone, I don’t see why—having seven billion mindless minions would get old after a while—but I have no right to go questioning the motives of a deity, especially one that’s radically different from the one I’m told I’m modeled after.
I’m sorry, I never meant to dismiss the possibility of radically different religions. You’re right, that would be awfully silly coming from me.
Now then.
This sounds very interesting, what do you mean?
I recommend you prioritize clarifying your confusions surrounding “free choice” higher than you seem to be doing.
In particular, I observe that our circuits have demonstrably been arranged such that we find certain propositions, sources of value, and courses of action (call them C1) significantly (and in some cases overwhelmingly) more compelling than other propositions, sources of value, and courses of action (C2). For example (and trivially), C1 includes “I have a physical body” and C2 includes “I don’t have a physical body”.
If we were designed by a deity, it follows that this deity in fact designed us to be predisposed to accept C1 and not accept C2.
A concept of free agency that allows for stacking the deck so overwhelmingly in support of C1 over C2, but does not allow for including in C1 “YHWH as portrayed in the Book of Mormon, other texts included by reference in the Book of Mormon, and subsequent revelations granted to the line of Mormon Prophets by YHWH”, seems like an important concept to clarify, if only because it sounds so very contrived on the face of it.
Well, for example, consider the proposition (Pj) that YHWH as conceived of and worshiped by 20th-century Orthodox Jews of my family’s tradition exists.
As a child, I was taught Pj and believed it (which incidentally entailed other things, for example, such as Jesus Christ not being the Messiah). As a teenager re-evaluated the evidence I had for and against Pj and concluded that my confidence in NOT(Pj) was higher than my confidence in Pj.
Had someone said to me at that time “Dave, I realize that your evaluation of the evidence presented by your experience of the world leads you to high confidence in certain propositions which you consider logically inconsistent with Pj, but I caution you not to become so thoroughly precommitted to the methods by which you perform those evaluations that you cannot seriously consider alternative ways of evaluating evidence,” that would intuitively feel like a sensible, rational, balanced position.
The difficulty with it is that in practice, refusing to commit to any epistemic method means giving up on reaching any conclusions at all, however tentative. And since in practice making any choices about what to do next requires arriving at some conclusion, however implicit or unexamined, it similarly precludes an explicit examination of the conclusions underlying my choices. (Which typically entails an unexamined adoption of the epistemic methods my social group implicitly endorses, rather than the adoption of no epistemic methods at all, but that’s a whole different conversation.)
I ultimately decided I valued such explicit examinations, and that entailed a willingness to making a commitment to an epistemic methodology, and that the epistemic methodology that seemed most compelling to me at that time did in fact lead me to reject Pj, so absent discovering inconsistencies in that methodology that led me to reject it at some later time I was committed to rejecting Pj, which I did.
(Of course, I wasn’t thinking in quite these terms as a 13-year-old Yeshiva student, and it took some years to get fully consistent about that position. Actually, I’m not yet fully consistent about it, and don’t anticipate becoming so in my lifetime.)
Interesting. I’ll keep thinking about it. But just to clarify, what exactly was it I said that was subtly but importantly wrong?
This is what EY says about “uncomfortable or difficult ideas:”
“When you’re doubting one of your most cherished beliefs, close your eyes, empty your mind, grit your teeth, and deliberately think about whatever hurts the most. Don’t rehearse standard objections whose standard counters would make you feel better. Ask yourself what smart people who disagree would say to your first reply, and your second reply. Whenever you catch yourself flinching away from an objection you fleetingly thought of, drag it out into the forefront of your mind.”
Like I said, I thought you were arguing a while back that our precommitments to “the way we think about things” were not sufficient grounds to reject uncomfortable or difficult ideas, which is an idea I respect (for reasons similar to those articulated in the post you quote) but consider subtly but importantly wrong (for reasons similar to those I articulate in the comment you reply to).
I’ll note, also, that an epistemic methodology (a way of thinking about things) isn’t the same thing as a belief.