Yes, but what I expected was...um...atheists who were better than most, who had arrived at atheism through two-sided discourse.
Bob Altemeyer asked college students about this, some of whom had a strong allegiance to ‘traditional’ authority and some less so:
Interestingly, virtually everyone said she had questioned the existence of God at some time in her life. What did the authoritarian students do when this question arose? Most of all, they prayed for enlightenment. Secondly, they talked to their friends who believed in God. Or they talked with their parents. Or they read scriptures. In other words, they seldom made a two-sided search of the issue. Basically they seem to have been seeking reassurance about the Divinity, not pro- and con- arguments
about its existence—probably because they were terrified of the implications if there is no God.
Did low RWA students correspondingly immerse themselves in the atheist point of view? No. Instead they overwhelmingly said they had tried to figure things out for themselves. Yes they talked with nonbelievers and studied up on scientific findings that challenged traditional beliefs. But they also discussed things with friends who believed in God and they talked with their parents (almost all of whom believed in God). They exposed themselves to both yea and nay arguments, and then made up their minds—which often left them theists. In contrast, High RWAs didn’t take a chance on a two-sided search.
Despite what he says at the end, this “RWA” attitude correlates with religion—and Less Wrong seems to have unusually low RWA in any case. We also have a certain tendency to read books. You should therefore expect some of us to know the ‘strongest’ arguments for religion, and consider them bad. Don’t just assert that we don’t. Name an argument and see if we know it!
On a related note, you seem statistically in danger of losing your faith. If you want to keep it, you should use some form of Crowley’s general method of religious devotion. While I failed to produce a vision of the Goddess Eris in the short time I allotted to this method, a kind of ‘sophisticated’ Discordianism did come to seem reasonable for a while.
Bob Altemeyer asked college students about this, some of whom had a strong allegiance to ‘traditional’ authority and some less so:
Despite what he says at the end, this “RWA” attitude correlates with religion—and Less Wrong seems to have unusually low RWA in any case. We also have a certain tendency to read books. You should therefore expect some of us to know the ‘strongest’ arguments for religion, and consider them bad. Don’t just assert that we don’t. Name an argument and see if we know it!
On a related note, you seem statistically in danger of losing your faith. If you want to keep it, you should use some form of Crowley’s general method of religious devotion. While I failed to produce a vision of the Goddess Eris in the short time I allotted to this method, a kind of ‘sophisticated’ Discordianism did come to seem reasonable for a while.