I find that viewing God as an agency somehow not unlike myself makes it easier to have a personal relationship and a sense of intimacy with the abstract foundations of my existence.
The problem with that kind of anthropomorphization that assumes agency on the part of a god is that it produces expectations of god preventing certain outcomes from happening.
As part of the sequences, Eliezer wrote Beyond the Reach of God, which describes the problems in more detail. When arguing on whether or not it makes sense to believe in God on LessWrong I believe that you should actually address the concerns made in the sequences.
For what it’s worth, let me just reply to your specific concern here: I think the value of anthropomorphization I tried to explain is somehow independent of whether we expect God to intervene or not. If you are saying that this “expectation” may be an undesirable side-effect, then that may be so for some people, but that does not directly contradict my argument. What do you think?
I think it’s hard to belief in an anthropomorphizated God and not expect him to do anything.
If you believe that God has agency and won’t do anything to prevent very bad outcomes, then that implies a lot of other beliefs about how God doesn’t care about you enough to prevent any suffering. That does reduce the value you might get from feeling a personal relationship with that agency.
The problem with that kind of anthropomorphization that assumes agency on the part of a god is that it produces expectations of god preventing certain outcomes from happening.
As part of the sequences, Eliezer wrote Beyond the Reach of God, which describes the problems in more detail. When arguing on whether or not it makes sense to believe in God on LessWrong I believe that you should actually address the concerns made in the sequences.
For what it’s worth, let me just reply to your specific concern here: I think the value of anthropomorphization I tried to explain is somehow independent of whether we expect God to intervene or not. If you are saying that this “expectation” may be an undesirable side-effect, then that may be so for some people, but that does not directly contradict my argument. What do you think?
I think it’s hard to belief in an anthropomorphizated God and not expect him to do anything.
If you believe that God has agency and won’t do anything to prevent very bad outcomes, then that implies a lot of other beliefs about how God doesn’t care about you enough to prevent any suffering. That does reduce the value you might get from feeling a personal relationship with that agency.