It strikes me that this discussion of the benefits of religiosity, separate from its truth, is reminiscent of the placebo effect.

Do you find it plausible that if your atheist friends took up religion, they would become less negative? Perhaps to the degree obtainable by associating with those with a more positive outlook, but I don't think that's the predominant cause of the corresponding attitudes.

It sound to me that what you describe as a positive attitude is being high on the Agreeableness Big Five trait, which happens to be the strongest predictor of religiosity of the five:

"Kosek (1999), MacDonald (2000;0, and Taylor and MacDonald (1999) found that measures of Agreebalenes and Conscientiousness were positively associated with measures of religious involvement and intrinsic religious orientation.MacDonald found somewhat differet patterns of correlations acroos the Big Five, depending on the domain of spirituality examined. A factor labeled "Cognitive orientation toward spirituality" was related to Extraversion ad Openness only. A meta-analytic review (Saroglou, 2002) found that religiousness is consistently associated with high Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and low Psychoticism, where it is unrelated to other Big Five Traits." (Handbook of personality: theory and research)."

Going against this conclusion is the fact that the correlations aren't high. Agreeableness correlates with religiosity about r = .25. But your description makes it sound like your religious friends are at one pole of this trait and your atheist ones at the other.

No question that in general high Agreeableness is easier to live with, both for oneself and one's associates. (I say this while I'm low on Agreeableness.) But the Big Five Traits are bipolor: neither pole is an unmitigated benefit. I don't think it's unfair to say that low agreeableness is a trait more propitious for pursuing rational conclusions regardless of where they lead, that is, for epistemic rationality. You, however, seem obviously high on Agreeableness, you might say an anomalous atheist. Since similarity leads to liking it isn't surprising that you prefer the company of the Agreeable Christians. (Even low Agreeables such as I, might prefer Agreeables for personal association--Agreeableness is essentially "likability"-- although perhaps not so much that we'd be willing to go to church for the experience. When I was a child hereditary atheist, some friends brought me to a meeting of the "Ethical Culture Society," which tries to obtain the benefits of religion without supernaturalism. I didn't like it--the experience was too Agreeable for me.)

Despite my protestations, my girlfriend recently caught "The Secret" - a ridiculous flight from realism bordering on cultish, based on the believe that that quantum-mechanics proves we create our universe and wishes come true through messages sent out to it.

She has become significantly happier, more positive, and better at dealing with life, with no apparent negative effects or wacky bad decicions.

but it seems that according to lesswrong doctrine, they are above the sanity waterline while my first friend group is below.

No. Having religous beliefs places an upper bound on how rational a person could be, past a certain level of rationality, a person will necessarily discard religion. But this does not mean that any particular atheist became an atheist by achieving that level of rationality. Most have not.

The article Raising the Sanity Waterline proposes not directly arguing against religion, but to instead teach the skills that would enable people to level up to the point where they systematically reject religion on their own, in part because just getting someone to reject religion does not actually make them more rational.

I applaud you on your willingness to share this experience. I might even call it brave, because there is a strong sort of stigma against anything religious in most "rationalist" circles. I also congratulate you on finding a workable solution in spite of those stigmas, rather than sticking to absurd, self-contrived constraints on being Rational(TM). I hardly think that church-going is the best long-term solution to a chronic negativity problem, but when supposedly ideal methods are shown to consistently fail in some way or another.. Well, there's a word for doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The causes of this sort of thing have been discussed elsewhere, and I'm sure are being reiterated in other comments right now. Believe me, Swimmer, you’re not the first person to think of it. It always comes up sooner or later. We even have a few names for it: Reversed Stupidity, Being Half A Rationalist, or even Meta-Signaling. ;-)

Couldn't tell you what the answer is though, short of starting up a dojo for rationality and drilling the community into us. I would think that an actual Less Wrong group would be a better place to find that sort of positive community than just an assortment of nontheists, since we do seem rather dedicated to moving beyond developing a hard shell skepticism and into the greater realm of Luminous living and group rationality.

Note: Okay, you might notice some of this is jokingly taken from The Simple Truth. I had way too much fun with that reference to spoil it in text, but school has instilled in me a healthy fear of plagiarism so I'm just letting you know.

human beings need roughly value homogenous peer groups in order to activate the part of the brain that says "these are my allies". If that part of the brain pretty much never fires it will lead to the ennui, apathy, negativity and judgment mentioned here. We've been brainwashed to think diversity good, and it is, but it is not a monotonic good. There are lots of negative connotations around communities that share and reinforce strong values. They are often perceived to be xenophobic, and of course they sometimes are, but it is not a fair universal judgement.

Recently, I had a look around the internet's atheist/skeptic blogging community, which was new to me. I noticed that there tended to be a distinctive attitude among posts and comments: nice, for the most part, but embattled. There was an unspoken ideal of being the sort of person who faces tough truths, not being weak enough to seek comfort in delusions. There was a lot of snark and a tendency to feud. And the internet atheists/skeptics seemed to think it was really important to have the right opinions and win arguments.

This is all in contrast to the atheists I know in real life, who tend to be happy pragmatists. Usually, to them, it's kind of obvious that there isn't any God, and it's not even an interesting question -- they're more interested in science, or food, or something. And they're quite positive and generous. Because the mere act of not believing in God isn't taking up a lot of their mental and emotional energy, so they have plenty to spend on other things.

I think that most new "converts" to an idea start out being very focused on winning arguments, which probably correlates to grouchiness or at least excuse-making and the inability to get things done.

I don't see any reason why you can't hang out with Christians if the ones you know happen to be better company than the atheists.

I think you're talking about two different things here.

One is the "supportive positive social groups are beneficial, and church is the only one around"

and the other is "atheists are a grumpy lot but religious people are all happier from their religion"

I won't comment on the latter for now.

I can, however, attest that it is perfectly possible to find non-religious supportive social groups. Not just self-help groups - and I really think you should rethink your idea of stigma... a "single parents" group or an "ethnic expats" group has (or should have) zero stigma attached. There are also many other socially supportive groups.

I, personally, am not only a geek, but also a bit of a nerd. I belong to a group called the Society for Creative Anachronism. We're a bunch of people that use "medieval recreation" as an excuse for dressing up nice, eating feasts and learning ancient forms of crafts and/or sport. It's a hell of a lot of fun... it's also quite a thriving community. Totally non-religious.

With the principles of "Honour, chivalry, and service" it's also got its own morality...while I personally have never done a midnight rent-donation, I have seen more acts of effective charity than I ever did when I used to go to church (mainly because I don't consider evangelism to be a form of charity). We're a world-wide organisation and I recall the outpourings of help for friends and strangers in time of need (eg the Katrina victims), as well as locally (eg for the Aussie victims of recent natural catastrophes), but mostly for acts of individual, personal service.

I've personally seen countless personal acts of altruism of this sort. A lot of our events are outdoor camping events, run entirely by volunteers almost universally for zero profit (the few for-profit events I've seen were basically fund-raising for some other event for the group). But even the non-organisers generally help out too. From manning the registration desk to heading out back to the kitchen to wash-up. From helping a burdened woman carry a heavy load, to helping a newbie pattern a frock or build a helmet, or all pitching in to help raise somebody else's communal tent. I can't remember the number of times I've seen people give away their stuff to newbies to help them get started - with the general advice going with it of "just do this for somebody else some time".

I am constantly surprised at how well this philosophy works on bringing up honest, sharing children that actually help each other without being asked... (proof that it doesn't take fear- of hell to motivate ethics if ever I saw one).

So yes, it is possible to be part of a completely non-religious social support group.

I totally endorse tight-knit communities, ones in which bonds of friendship are formed and nurtured, ones that foster hope, ones whose members help one another out when needed.

And I certainly endorse the choice of being mindful about how you respond to criticism, how you respond to other people's behavior, how you respond to other people's emotions.

For my own part, I have been lucky enough to find such a community in my own life, and I value it enormously. I've seen that community help one another pay rent, take care of one another's children, help one another through periods of grief and join one another in periods of joy. When I had my stroke and was delirious in the ICU for a week, they organized a 24-hour heel-and-toe watch so I would always have someone I knew in the room when I awoke. Many of us spent much of this past weekend visiting a friend whose father died recently.

It's not a religious community, although many members are religious -- many different religions, both mainstream and non-mainstream. Many members are atheist. In most cases, I neither know nor care about their religious or spiritual stance, nor do they mine. It's not a much-of-anything-in-particular community, though it has its origins in several online and university communities.

Personally, I don't think I could find the kind of support you've found in a community that denounces my marriage, for example. Nor in a "relentlessly positive" community that discourages expressions of negative emotion. But if you've found support there, if it helps you be more mindful of your choices and to make choices that improve your life, then I'm happy for you.

I also endorse not confusing fundamentals with accidentals. What I endorse in your community is the reliable (within strict limits) mutual support, which is also what I value in my own. I assume you would similarly endorse that in my community.

That yours is a religious community, and mine is not, is beside the point.

Studies indicate that practicing religious people on average are happier than nonbelievers or nonpracticing religious people, and that the relevant variable is the church attendance. That's what motivated me to create this thread. More than having any particular set of positive beliefs, participating in a community that encourages prosocial behavior seems to account for the lifestyle difference; not particularly surprising when you look at the impact church attendance has on you despite the fact that you don't believe.

This occasionally involves a tricky kind of doublethink, for example a person who denounces homosexuality when asked directly but who holds nothing against their homosexual friends.

That combination isn't especially hard to do even without doublethink. But there are plenty of other examples (including other more incoherent combinations of beliefs related to homosexuality) that would demonstrate your point!

I went to church without being convinced that god existed for years, so I can kind of see where you are coming from with this. What made me actually decide to become openly atheist was probably that I got involved in competitive gaming, and met a large enough group of friends who were interested in rationality that I no longer felt it was necessary to be in a church to have that kind of tight knit community. I like seeing groups of people and having interesting discussions regularly, but it makes me even happier when the ideas we share are non contradictory and you don't have a wide range of topics you need to steer clear in case they are instrumental to someone elses identity.

Hopefully, if rationality becomes mainstream, even small cities like mine will have large enough numbers of people interested in rationality for the pressure to belong in a church to subside. A lot of the cynicism that I feel and notice in fellow aspiring rationalists comes from the isolation that it can bring.

Also, I have never been to a lesswrong meetup but I find the idea appealing. if there are actually other LW readers in winnipeg, that would be great.

As always, generalising from anecdotes can be dangerous. I am married to a christian, and have occasion to meet both non-religious and religious people. I see a wide variety of mental behaviours in them, with depressive and positive in both communities. In most cases these behaviours actually have their root in (I suspect) other parts of their background.

What I will agree with is that religousity can encourage people to be more altruistic than they might be otherwise. While a rationalist might carefully reach the same results, it is a more difficult course to enter without getting caught up in simple selfish action. That said, the bonus of group altruism brings with it distate for outsiders, and a slavish devotion to a set of behaviours that the group has decided are "good"

Swimmer963:

I wouldn’t describe many of them [my non-believer friends] as rationalists, particularly, but it seems that according to lesswrong doctrine, they are above the sanity waterline while my first friend group is below.

Am I the only one who thinks that this "sanity waterline" model is wildly inaccurate? The model assumes that false beliefs can be somehow ordered by the level of insanity, so that people who have achieved a given level of sanity are immunized against everything below that. This, however, seems to me completely remote from reality. Even if we can agree on some standardized "insanity ranking" for false beliefs -- already an unrealistic assumption -- there's no way people's actual sets of beliefs will conform to the "waterline" rule according to this ranking, not even as the roughest first approximation.

One essential reason for this is the signaling role of beliefs. When it comes to issues that don't have significant instrumental implications, people are drawn to beliefs with the highest signaling value rather than accuracy. High-status beliefs can be anywhere from completely correct to downright crazy, and outside of strictly technical topics, there is typically nothing that would systematically push them towards the former. And indeed, in practice we usually see people with an eclectic mix of correct and ridiculously false beliefs (and everything in-between), with nothing resembling a systematic "sanity waterline."

Atheists are a small minority in the United States, where society tends to give religious irrationality a pass. That alone is enough to make a person critical, judgmental, and sarcastic. It's not necessarily productive in changing society; it's a way for atheists to feel like at least they're not standing idly by.

Self-directed negativeness is not, in my experience, a trend among atheists. It may be a consequence of the atheists you know not having found their own coherent philosophies after rejecting religious ones, or maybe they haven't realized there's nothing wrong with having something to protect. The step from atheism to humanism (or rationality in general), from ceasing to believe in the afterlife to realizing just how valuable our lives really are, is a non-trivial one for most people.

Part of the difference between your religious and nonreligious friends may be their own attitudes towards self-improvement. To a religious person, a mistake you make is something God wants you to improve, and all of your religious friends will help you make that improvement. To the baseline atheist, it's just a problem, and there is no structure or real "cause" that will make you actually consider changing your behavior. Genuine rationalists, however, should notice that a problem exists, and figure out a way to change it, but it doesn't sound like your friends have this instinct. If, say a group of transhumanists were meeting regularly, and talking about what habits they needed to change and what improvements they needed to make in order to help make the world a better place, that could resolve the problem. However, transhumanists are somewhat few and far between, so finding that group might be difficult. A Less Wrong meetup might be a good place to start, though.

If I were to take all of my friends and divide them into two groups, there are plenty of criteria I could choose, but probably the most relevant slice would be between my friends who believe in God, and my friends who don’t...I find it so refreshing to be with a group of people who are relentlessly positive about life, who constantly remind one another to be positive, and who offer concrete help rather than judgement.

It seems that by "relevant" you meant something like "best at dividing my friends into distinct groups". However, the most relevant criteria to you are more likely attitude towards life and judgement. Therefore, you should try dividing people by those measures directly.

But what I’ve seen suggests to me that my church (a Pentacostal evangelical Christian group, by the way) served a function in our city that wasn’t being filled by anything else...Could the principles of rationality prompt a group of people to form this kind of community? I don’t know.

It's possible that the only principle needed for such a group to form is the absence of a similar group. It's not crucially important that a Christian group is doing something and rationality might not impel that thing, because humanity outside of Christianity might have caused it in the first place!

But until then, I’m going to keep hanging out with Christians and sharing their positive thoughts.

Wow, I cringed when I read that. Major Dark Side Epistemology at work here. This is precisely the problem with partially neutered religion, that is allowed to treat as normal an ideology formed specifically around (largely) recanted falsities. It was religion, in the first place, that told you it is wrong to hang out with people who don't share your beliefs. If not for religions' creating the idea of constraining relationships due to such things, you would not have thought you needed to defend associating with Christians.

Religions are organized falsehoods that depend on social restrictions to survive. Atheism does not depend on such an association and due to the Asch experiments I don't worry about you having any number of Christian friends provided that for most of their core propositions you have a friend who disagrees. One atheist could cover your bases, or a Muslim and a Taoist, etc.

This recalls some of Dennett's thoughts on religion from "Breaking the Spell". He wonders if there is something in religion that can't be replaced by secular institutions, and whether those are on net more helpful than the harms that seem to come along with it.

My intuition is that many newly converted atheists are just guilty of applying reversed stupidity to their social lives, and that a bit more practice in things like luminosity might go a long way once they start to get over their initial disillusionment.

I am not from the southern US (I presume you are, given the content of your post), but I would think this is especially true there, where a very huge majority of the atheists will be "new" ones.

Once, when another of our friends couldn’t pay her rent, my Christian friend and I got up at four, took out five hundred dollars in cash at a convenience store, and biked to her house to leave it anonymously in her mailbox before I left for my six am shift at work. The high lasted all day. I can’t think of any other community where this would happen, where it would even be socially acceptable.

I've seen people on the Internet ask for money when in trouble and get it.

I wouldn’t describe many of them as rationalists, particularly, but it seems that according to lesswrong doctrine, they are above the sanity waterline while my first friend group is below.

Woah there! I never signed up to any doctrine like that! Where is that one written down? (So that I can reject it explicitly in the right context!)

For a start, a lot of those non-believers that you know I would almost certainly consider below the sanity waterline. And some of your Christian friends probably come in above. My immediate family members, for example, are some of the sanest people I know yet most of them remain sincere Christians. Sane enough that I mean no insult at all to any of us when I declare them more sane than the average lesswrong user. I don't judge people as below the sanity line based off them believing one stupid thing. I mean, I don't outright consider Eliezer to be below the sanity water line just because he believes (or signals believing for some practical purpose) really dumb stuff here and there.

I don't think that rationality and Christianity occupy the same place in one's life -- rationality in itself is only a means to an end, not an end in itself, while following the principles of Christianity does seem to be an end in itself for Christians.

Rationality is an art which one follows to acquire true beliefs and take effective action, regardless of one's utility function. The question 'Could the principles of rationality prompt a group of people to form this kind of community?' feels like it's asking something of rationality that is completely tangential to its purpose.

I could better understand the question 'Could the principles of transhumanism and/or altruism prompt a group of people to form this kind of community?'

Are your nonreligious friends really above the sanity waterline? There are a variety of common insane delusions, and all that we clearly know is that they don't have one specific one.

By this question, I mean to cast doubt on the premise that, by the standards of this blog, your religious friends are less sane than your nonreligious friends.

I think all cities benefit from some kind of commonly shared activity: a festival or a carnival, a public concert, or an art show. Something that has very broad appeal. It seems to me what you are saying is that churches fulfill that need in communities (often by default) and therefore should be kept and/or celebrated.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of garbage that comes with the church community, namely religion. It seems a much better investment would be in actual culture (see above examples: art, music, games, etc...). If we stop accepting churches as default community centers, other more profitable (culture-wise) avenues will be explored.

It seems to me as though my mom has become more religious ever since her mother and aunt died. During her mother's funeral, she mentioned a study on mothers whose children were dying of leukemia that tried to evaluate different kinds of coping assistance; according to her, the only thing that actually worked (as measured by the level of stress hormones) was sending the mothers to religious services. The cynic in me wants to respond that, yes, if you fool someone who's dying into believing that they're perfectly healthy, of course they're going to feel happier than someone who is dying and knows it...

(Incidentally, when describing her religious beliefs, she's referred me to the works of Teilhard de Chardin several times...)

The way your post more or less conflates the need for a community, the need for 'positive thinking', and the need for self-deception feels like grade A Dark Arts to me, especially because you've managed to slip in a suggestion that there's something bad about condemning self-deception.

Communities built on a shared delusion are one thing, ones built on a delusion that entails harming others are another. I'd be a lot more okay with Christianity if it didn't so often imply such noxious positions about human rights or whatever.

The belief that complaining, casting blame, and making excuses are the preferred ways to deal with problems is probably less (instrumentally) sane than belief in god. But I don't see why a person without one must have the other.