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Furcas comments on Anticipation vs. Faith: At What Cost Rationality? - Less Wrong
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You seem to think that intelligent religious people are less crazy than dumb religious people. They're not.
Yes, and I would say actual faith is a cognitive error more akin to deja-vu than double think, in that it is a feeling of knowledge for which adequate logical justification may not exist. A friend of mine once said, "I'm sorry that I'm so bad at explaining this [the existence of God], but I just know it, and once you do too, you'll understand."
People can have experiences of faith in non-religious contexts, such as having faith (a sense of certainty or foreknowledge) that a critically ill loved-one will pull through. Intuition and gut-feelings maybe considered faith-light, but I think certainty is part of the faith experience, and just because that certainty is false, doesn't make the feeling any less real.
It looks to me like greater intelligence pulls people away from deja-vu faith and toward doublethink faith, but this is a generalization based on little data. Still, that little data seems to show that smart people who think about their religions end up with Escher-painting minds.
I don't have a large enough sample either, but I think what you interpret as doublethink and 'Escher-painting minds' may be the result of rationalizing a faith that at its core is an emotional attachment to a cognitive error. The friend I mentioned probably doesn't have an IQ much below the median for the readers of this blog-- double major in biochem and philosophy at an ivy-league school, head of a libertarian club (would probably agree with Robin Hanson on almost everything).
Well, yes, lots of rationalization is exactly how you end up with an Escher-painting mind. Even human beings aren't born that twisted.
See also: Occam's Imaginary Razor.
How is it crazy to cynically go along with rituals for the social benefits? Risky, maybe, but crazy?
It isn't crazy at all. I was saying that your intelligent, religious, and very drunk friend would never say those words, because there's no religious person who believes them. All these reasons may be the ultimate cause of religious beliefs, but that doesn't mean religious believers are aware of them, consciously or even subconsciously.
Just to clarify, what do you mean by "religious" here? Do you define it by whether they're active in a church?
If so, how much money would you bet I can't find you a counterexample?
I mean a person who holds self-deceptive beliefs that serve as the basis for a moral code of some sort. Church attendance is irrelevant.
I know there are some people who act religious and call themselves religious but aren't religious at all, but I don't think that's the kind of person you were talking about, since such a person couldn't benefit from the placebo effect. You're talking about the kind of person who has successfully fooled himself into holding religious beliefs, and yet is still so fully aware that it's all self-deception that he calls it "a load of garbage".
There may be real religious believers who would say something like what you've written, but I'm certain that it would just be a rationalization for them, a way to hide the ridiculousness of their beliefs behind a veneer of fake instrumental rationality.
Considering I'm currently unemployed and have very little money left in my bank account, I would bet a thousand Canadian dollars that you can't find a real religious believer who will say those words and honestly mean them.
EDIT:
And if you were talking about people who completely fake being religious, well, in my experience most of them don't ever admit to themselves that they're really atheists in their heart of hearts. I suppose there must be exceptions, though.
You can benefit from the placebo effect even if you know you're taking a placebo.
Relevant article in Wired: Placebos are getting stronger - researchers are starting to study the placebo response to see how it can be better utilized to aid in healing.
I'm guessing that by the word "know" you mean "acknowledge that the evidence is strongly in favor of", which doesn't necessarily entail belief, as many religious believers have demonstrated.
If that isn't what you mean, I have no clue what you're talking about
No. I mean you can swallow a sugar pill, in full knowledge of, belief in, and acknowledgment-of-evidence-for the fact that it is a sugar pill, and still improve relative to not taking a sugar pill. It's not obvious to me why psychological "sugar pills" wouldn't work the same way.
... and belief that sugar pills don't cure diseases / alleviate symptoms?
I thought the placebo effect had to do with belief.
Yup, that too.
If we really understood the placebo effect, it wouldn't be the placebo effect.
Okay, see, we're going in circles here: I'm trying to ask about the existence of someone who knows "it's all a load of garbage", heck, maybe even contributes to this very board, but cynically joins a church to get the social benefits.
And then you keep saying, no, such people don't exist, if you mean people who are also really religious. But that's the very point under discussion: how many people go through the motions of formal religions for the benefits, say the right applause lights, etc. for the social benefits while holding the conscious belief that there's no literally God in the sense the people there espouse, etc. ?
I don't see the difference. If you take the LW rationalist position on God, doesn't that mean you're an atheist? So what does it matter if you admit it to yourself. Is there some internal psychological ritual now? If you believe you're a duck, you're a duck...self-believer.
All right. I was misled by the fact that your first commend was a reply to Wei Dai, who was talking about real religious people. I thought you believed that (most?) intelligent people who say they're religious aren't really religious.
It's the difference between your average forthright atheist and someone like Karen Armstrong, who believes that God "is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence". If you look past the flowery language she's no more a theist than Richard Dawkins is. However, she likes to think of herself as a religious believer, so you'll never get her to admit the true reasons for her profession of belief, no matter how much alcohol she drinks, because she doesn't even admit it to herself.
Aren't religious in the sense of consciously taking it all literally, correct, that's my position.
So, let's see, she gets benefit of approval from the numerous religious groups by saying all of the applause lights, while maintaining rationality about the literal God hypothesis.
Does that count as intelligent or foolish? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.