false_vacuum comments on Rationality Quotes: February 2011 - Less Wrong

13 Post author: gwern 01 February 2011 05:46PM

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Comment author: gwern 01 February 2011 05:52:07PM *  17 points [-]

"I submit that claims about God are of this latter sort. There’s simply no reason to take them more seriously than one does claims about witches or ghosts. The idea that one needs powerful philosophical theories to settle such issues I like to call the “philosophy fallacy.”

We will see that people are particularly prey to it in religious discussions, both theist and atheist alike; indeed, atheists often get trapped into doing far more, far riskier philosophy than they need."

--Georges Rey, "Meta-atheism: Religious Avowal as Self-deception" (2009)

(First version seen on http://www.strangedoctrines.com/2008/09/risky-philosophy.html but quote from an expanded paper.)

Comment author: false_vacuum 03 February 2011 11:57:06PM 0 points [-]

It's Georges Rey. I know because I sat through an entire class that he taught once. I think I also read his book, Contemporary philosophy of mind: a contentiously classical approach, during that time, but I don't recall learning anything from it.

Can someone who has actually read the paper (I don't feel like it) tell me whether it has the same upshot as the earlier version I seem to remember, viz. that people only pretend to believe in God? (It's possible I've got this mixed up with something else.)

Comment author: gwern 04 February 2011 12:31:31AM 2 points [-]

It's Georges Rey.

Thanks.

whether it has the same upshot

It does; as I said, it's an expanded paper.