NQbass7 comments on Raising the Sanity Waterline - Less Wrong

112 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 March 2009 04:28AM

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Comment author: Daniel_Burfoot 12 March 2009 09:19:45AM *  8 points [-]

There are a couple of large gorillas in this room.

First, the examples of great scientists who were also religious shows that you don't have to be an atheist to make great discoveries. I think the example of Isaac Newton is especially instructive: not only did Newton's faith not interfere with his ability to understand reality, it also constituted the core of his motivation to do so (he believed that by understanding Nature he would come to a greater understanding of God). Faraday's example is also significant: his faith motivated him to refuse to work on chemical weapons for the British government.

Second, evidence shows that religious people are happier. Now, this happiness research is of course murky, and we should hesitate to make any grand conclusions on the basis of it. But if it is true, it is deeply problematic for the kind of rationality you are advocating. If rationalists should "just win", and we equate winning with happiness, and the faithful are happier than atheists, then we should all stop reading this blog and start going to church on Sundays.

There are subtleties here that await discovery. Note for example Taleb's hypothesis that the ancients specifically promoted religion as a way of preventing people from going to doctors, who killed more people than they saved until the 19th century. Robin made a similar point about the cost effectiveness of faith healing.

Comment author: NQbass7 12 March 2009 01:34:38PM *  1 point [-]

... shows that you don't have to be an atheist to make great discoveries.

I don't think anyone is making the argument that you do. Plenty of people get through life without basic rationality, and some even do interesting and amazing things. That's not an argument for being religious though - at best, it shows that in certain cases religion doesn't completely cripple your rationality. It's still a risk, however.

As for religious people being happier than atheists, ... In my experience, the average atheist is not at the basic level talked about in this post. Slightly more rational than the average theist I've met (and I tend to more time around the smarter, more rationalizing type of theist), but still not even close to this.

Obviously that's just anecdotal, so I wouldn't bet much on it at all, but it's enough for me to question the validity of applying murky evidence about happiness and religion to a discussion about teaching basic rationality. If anything, I would say that evidence seems to more strongly indicate that we should teach basic rationality, because leaving religion without it might make it more difficult to be happy.