thomblake comments on Bloggingheads: Yudkowsky and Aaronson talk about AI and Many-worlds - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 16 August 2009 04:06PM

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Comment author: thomblake 17 August 2009 07:11:55PM 5 points [-]

There is harm, because people who don't mean something vacuous by 'God' like to give the impression that they do to shield themselves against criticism. And thanks to 'pragmatism', it usually works.

If theists need to pretend to be atheists to be taken seriously, then we've already won.

Comment author: Furcas 17 August 2009 07:34:07PM 2 points [-]

I didn't think that by a vacuous God you meant a non-existent God.

Obviously, theists don't need to pretend to be atheists: Theism is respected by everyone except a small minority of neo-militant ultra-materialist fundamentalist atheists. To be taken seriously, theists merely need to be (or pretend to be, in the presence of critics) moderates, i.e. believers in a God that acts in a very subtle way and conforms to modern secular morality.

So no, "we" haven't won. The limited form of insanity we call faith is still the norm and is still respected.