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roland comments on Epistemic Luck - Less Wrong
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Upvote for this. I get really annoyed by atheists that keep criticizing religious people without being aware of their own irrationality.
Do you also get annoyed by people who don't believe in ghosts who criticize people who do without being aware of their own irrationality?
No because I don't read/hear from these people, I've never met an aghostist.
You've never met someone who doesn't believe in ghosts?
I should have clarified better. I usually don't meet people who make a big fuss about being aghostists and ridiculing ghostists and how irrational it is to be a ghostist and then enumerate all the pedophiles that are ghostists and how much money is stolen by ghostists and that ghostists fly planes into buildings and ghostists are the ones who are responsible for all kind of violence and human suffering and etc... etc... etc...
EDIT: Consider this slogan: "Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings." It was suggested to be used at the Bus campaign. There is just so much wrong with this, well I hope I don't have to explain what and you can figure this out by yourself.
Nobody bothers to make a fuss about ghostists because ghostism isn't particularly important.
I agree, but this comment is vapid unless you offer a reason why ghostism isn't particularly important.
No, that isn't so; it suffices that as a matter of fact ghostism doesn't wield very much political or other thought-shaping power in the countries in which we live.
Of course if we lived in countries where people get executed for being witches, we might have different priorities.
Details are tasty and good. A comment like Allan's ends conversations and there is nothing more to learn afterward.
A comment like yours can lead into useful conversations about the specific differences between ghostism and theism and the wonderful followup question: Is there something other than theism that qualifies as important but people don't make a big fuss over?
To ask that question we need to know the details about what is important.
Of course, if no one wants to ask questions, that is fair enough. But I consider those comments/discussions vapid.
Hang on, there' s a huge gap between "vapid" and "doesn't spark the particular discussion I'm interested in having". I think the things you raise would indeed be interesting to discuss, but AllanCrossman's comment is a specific and sufficient answer to the specific question that roland asks - "what justifies the decision to put more work into attacking theism than ghostism".
It's sufficient because no-one disputes the factual accuracy of the answer.
I prefer a slight variant: "Maybe science can make jet aeroplanes or tall buildings, but it takes religion to bring these things together."
Oh! Haha, I finally got it. :P
This is just the "tu quoque" fallacy. Read also No One Can Exempt You From Rationality's Laws.
This got pretty heavily downvoted (-4 points before I gave it an upvote), but I think it does have a good point. It doesn't need to mean (as I suppose the downvoters assumed) that religion and atheism would be an equal footing. Rather, it can be taken as a reminder of the fact that a person's atheism isn't yet enough to show that they're actually sane. See science as attire and related posts.
Exactly! And using your words I would add that a person's atheism isn't yet enough to show that they're actually saner/more rational than a religious person.
Perhaps relevant
I don't understand what you are saying.
Here's some metaphors I use; if it's bogus, someone please crush them.
Imagine a city with a slum. People ask why the police don't clean up the slum. The police know that if they come in and break up the slum, they'll decentralize the crime - better to keep it fenced in, under watchful eyes, than run wild.
I see a lot of people working roughly with the model that religion is an infection. Sometimes atheism is presented as antibiotics, but regardless of what the prescription is, there seems to be an impression that religion is some kind of foreign force, where once religious belief is removed, there has been clean removal, like surgically removing a boil, instead of getting some of the boil while the infection spreads through the bloodstream.
Religion is an easy target, but removing it, I think, has a tendency to take an army in a fortress and turn it into an army of nomadic assassins, everywhere and nowhere, decentralized and pervasive.
If religion is an infection, than removing the infection would solve the problem.
What you are describing is that something is causing the infection of religion. In this case, cure the cause and the infection goes away. Rationality is making the promise of curing the cause of infection, not just dressing up the infection and sending the diseased on their way.
To drift this backward into your police analogy, if you could get rid of the crime than the slum would disappear. If this doesn't make perfect sense than the analogy is broken.
It does make sense. I think it's as likely to get rid of crime as it is to get rid of the cause of religion.
Then when you ask the police to clean up the slums they will respond by saying, "We are," instead of, "But that will make it harder to fight the disease!"
And if I was a medieval commander then I'd certainly prefer to fight a tribe of nomads to fighting an army in a castle.
CronoDAS expressed some self-concern about his POV. Contrasting to that I notice that a lot of atheists have a self-righteous, arrogant attitude. I have already heard one suggesting that we would make the world a better place by removing religion. I think the problem here is that religion is more of a symptom, a product of irrationality and if you are an atheist that doesn't necessarily mean that you are more rational.
So the solution would rather be increasing rationality instead of attacking particular beliefs.
Okay. That makes sense. I read your first comment as strongly implying that atheists (or possibly atheists that criticize religious people) are irrational. This isn't even close to what you meant, so I am glad I asked.
Hmmm. Did you really mean to say that atheists are rational?
No, but nevermind. The point is that I am glad I asked what you meant because I wasn't even close to guessing correctly.