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Swimmer963 comments on Positive Thinking - Less Wrong
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If someone wants to deceive themself, and the self-deception makes them LESS likely to behave hurtfully towards others, I feel I have no right to condemn them. I have the right to condemn MYSELF for self-deception, because it's my choice to aim for greater rationality, but I wouldn't force someone else to take that choice any more than I would force them to be religious.
More Dark Arts. Now you're conflating condemning some beliefs with forcing someone to abandon those beliefs.
Is the self deception necessary or optimal to achieve that behavior though? It might be better for them to be religious and altruistic than irreligious and antisocial, but might there not be an alternative that's better than either?
If you really don't judge people for their failings, can you be happy for them if they improve?
Yes, that third alternative may be better (altruistic and irreligious), but it comes at a high cost (the individual usually loses that community, even if only from their own withdrawal) which will need a safety net prepared. And well prepared at that. I can vouch that a number of my religious friends, should they lose their religiosity, would likely fall closer to ethical nihilism, losing the altruism and being more bitter, which is all kinds of fun. So yeah, maybe it's better, but it's also significantly more costly, and the easier alternative is far from bad if it's strong on the altruistic side.
Which is why it's such a handy thing to have prosocial secular communities.
We are not in disagreement here; my point was only noting a possible large risk of deconversions, which should be counted in the third alternative if the major social group of someone is their religious group.