= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
aausch comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (1329)
Another good indicator (as djbc said) is the level of certitude : if someone expresses more certitude on a complex topic like gun control than on a slamdunk like God - then I won't trust their confidence much.
Does that mean only hardcore atheists are worth listening to? Maybe, but some claims about religion are not that obvious - for example, is religion good or bad for society in terms of enforcing moral behaviour, facilitating cooperation, raising children, etc. ? I don't consider that question a slamdunk.
Another red flag for me is "clannish" language, presenting issues in terms of "group A vs group B" ("this is a victory for us", "hah, that shows them", etc.). It's a sign that the wrong part of the brain is being used.
I wonder what you mean by "hardcore atheists"?
I'm guessing you don't mean hardcore as in "signaling group membership loudly", and Eliezer already argued the point that atheism is no longer a valid synonym for reliable, rational thought.
I'm not quite sure myself :D
I mostly meant "as opposed to agnostic" ("strong atheist" would be a better word then), but wanted to point out (as Eliezer had indeed already done) that extreme commitment (for example, blaming religion for all evils) was not necessarily a good signal.
I get it now, thank you.
You would expect rational thought to lead to a higher level of commitment on decisions about religion than gun control, but higher level of commitment on the topics is not a good signal for rational thought.
I think "hardcore atheist" generally means, "atheist who actively and loudly antagonizes religion." That is not consistent with the poster's usage, but I don't think any adjective would be - the point is that people who are not atheists may be worth listening to, not that some "not-hardcore" atheists are also worth listening to in addition to the hardcore atheists.
I assume we agree that atheism is not a signal for rational thought anymore - if that's true, are you getting any additional useful information by looking at how loudly someone antagonizes religion?
I would think that higher levels of overt religious antagonism indicate low agreeableness. It may be an indicator not so much of irrationality as of a sort of intellectual laziness or poor judgement, as it's an unconstructive behaviour that generates a great deal of self-satisfaction for not doing anything particularly difficult.
That said, I was rather closer to that kind of atheism when I was younger, so I'm decidedly biased.
I think I have a similar point of view to yours, on this.