I doubt that any LW member would take all of his information about the value of atheism from Lewis. If you let yourself convince that atheism is wrong by reading Lewis than your belief in atheism was very weak in the first place.
I have a hard time imagine pushing anyone in LW into a crisis of faith about atheism in which we wouldn’t come out with better belief system than he started. If someone discovers that he actually follows in atheism because it’s cool and works through his issues, he might end up in following atheism for better reasons.
I agree that this attack would not convince a typical LW-er, but I would claim that an unconvincing attempt to mislead with the truth is still an attempt to mislead with the truth and as such is ineligible to be a good rationality quote.
This quote taken together with the basic LW wisdom can be useful. But taken separately from any LW context, it would probably just push the reader a little towards religion.
In other words, a LW reader has no problem to imagine a complementary and equally valid quote (actually he probably already did something similar before reading Lewis) like:
… Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him in the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that Christianity is true! Make him think it is morally good, or socially beneficial, or altruistic — that it is the traditional wisdom. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.
it would probably just push the reader a little towards religion.
The effects of little pushes are complicated. Vaccination is about little pushes.
Don’t waste time trying to make him think that Christianity is true!
The difference is that many Christians already argue that one should be Christian because it’s the moral thing to do and it’s socially beneficial. Christians don’t engage in the same behavior of trying to make people think it’s true than atheists do.
Christian missionaries actually do a lot of socially beneficial work in order to convince people of Christianity.
As far as “traditional wisdom” goes it gets interesting. I don’t think that Christianity grows in China because the Chinese consider it traditional wisdom.
Mormons argue that the fact that the religion grows as fast at it does is a sign that it’s true. They don’t see it as a religion of the past but as one of the future.
Despite talking about ancient wisdom New Age folks use the word ‘new’ as part of their brand.
I think it’s very useful to understand why certain movements win and move past your first stereotypes and actually seek understanding.
Even Hitler who wanted to bring back traditional values was very clever in painting the status quo as going to end soon and the future as either his nationalism or communism.
He made it the cool philosophy that the young people at the universities wanted to follow before he had success with elections.
I doubt that any LW member would take all of his information about the value of atheism from Lewis. If you let yourself convince that atheism is wrong by reading Lewis than your belief in atheism was very weak in the first place.
I have a hard time imagine pushing anyone in LW into a crisis of faith about atheism in which we wouldn’t come out with better belief system than he started. If someone discovers that he actually follows in atheism because it’s cool and works through his issues, he might end up in following atheism for better reasons.
I agree that this attack would not convince a typical LW-er, but I would claim that an unconvincing attempt to mislead with the truth is still an attempt to mislead with the truth and as such is ineligible to be a good rationality quote.
This quote taken together with the basic LW wisdom can be useful. But taken separately from any LW context, it would probably just push the reader a little towards religion.
In other words, a LW reader has no problem to imagine a complementary and equally valid quote (actually he probably already did something similar before reading Lewis) like:
Why would you want to do that?
The effects of little pushes are complicated. Vaccination is about little pushes.
The difference is that many Christians already argue that one should be Christian because it’s the moral thing to do and it’s socially beneficial. Christians don’t engage in the same behavior of trying to make people think it’s true than atheists do.
Christian missionaries actually do a lot of socially beneficial work in order to convince people of Christianity.
As far as “traditional wisdom” goes it gets interesting. I don’t think that Christianity grows in China because the Chinese consider it traditional wisdom.
Mormons argue that the fact that the religion grows as fast at it does is a sign that it’s true. They don’t see it as a religion of the past but as one of the future.
Despite talking about ancient wisdom New Age folks use the word ‘new’ as part of their brand.
I think it’s very useful to understand why certain movements win and move past your first stereotypes and actually seek understanding. Even Hitler who wanted to bring back traditional values was very clever in painting the status quo as going to end soon and the future as either his nationalism or communism.
He made it the cool philosophy that the young people at the universities wanted to follow before he had success with elections.