This post raises a whole constellation of connected questions, so here are my thoughts on all of them:
If the question is "Can Wednesday be religious and still be a smart person who's good at using rationality?", the answer is empirically yes (eg Robert Aumann).
If the question is "Can we still call Wednesday rational if she's religious?" the answer is to taboo "rational" and let the problem take care of itself.
If the question is "Is it okay for Wednesday to be religious?" the question is confused in the first place and any answer would be equally confused.
If the question is "Should Wednesday choose to believe religion?" the answer is that you don't voluntarily choose your beliefs so it doesn't matter.
If the question is "Should Wednesday, while not exactly choosing to believe religion, avoid thinking about it too hard because she thinks doing so will make her an atheist?," then she's already an atheist on some level because she thinks knowing more will make her more atheist, which implies atheism is true. This reduces to the case of deception, which you seem to be against unconditionally.
If the question is "Should I, as...
If the question is "Should Wednesday, while not exactly choosing to believe religion, avoid thinking about it too hard because she thinks doing so will make her an atheist?," then she's already an atheist on some level because she thinks knowing more will make her more atheist, which implies atheism is true. This reduces to the case of deception, which you seem to be against unconditionally.
That's not necessarily true. Perhaps she believes Mormonism is almost certainly right, but acknowledges that she's not fully rational and might be misled if she read too many arguments against it. Most Christians believe in the idea that God (or Satan) tempts people to sin, and that avoiding temptation is a useful tactic to avoid sin. Kind of like avoiding stores where candy is on display if you're trying to lose weight, say. You know what's right in advance, but you're afraid of losing resolve.
Certainly whatever your beliefs, some people who disagree with you are sufficiently charismatic and good at rhetoric that they might persuade you if you give them the chance. (Well, for most of us, anyway.) How many atheist Less Wrongers would be able to withstand lengthy debate with very talented missionaries? Some, certainly. Most, probably. All? I doubt it.
Overall, though, an excellent response, and I agree with almost all the rest of it.
I used to think this way. "I won't read Mein Kampf because I might turn out a Nazi." This is actually a very insidiously bad mindset. You should believe any argument that can convince you (in fair conditions -- reading Mein Kampf in a calm frame of mind in your own living room, as opposed to under conditions of intimidation in Nazi Germany.) If Nazism is awful, it will still be awful even when you know more about it. And, indeed, most of us don't turn into neo-Nazis when we read Mein Kampf.
Sure, we have bounded rationality. But I don't see how, in probabilistic terms, you can be more likely to get it right without accumulating more evidence. (Maybe your priors are wrong.) If you really think you couldn't stand up to debate with a talented missionary, maybe you aren't really an atheist; maybe you should be glad to change your mind.
Psychologically, I think it's much better for people to trust their reason in this way. It makes it possible to live with more courage. I don't want to live with my head down hoping I won't be exposed to the wrong things.
As an ex-Mormon, I had to personally confront this issue. My family, extended family, friends, neighbors, and the large majority of my hometown are Mormon, so the social costs of leaving my church were extremely high. While in high school, I was primarily in the closet, but I'd express the occasional doubt. Just the suggestion that the church could be tested against evidence resulted in people avoiding conversation with me, my now-wife being warned by mutual friends not to date me, and my parents sternly lecturing me. Note this was merely because I considered the possibility of contrary evidence, not a public expression of disbelief.
In the counterfactual world where I chose not to explore the veracity of religion, my high school years would have been significantly happier, I would have avoided prolonged conflict with my family, I would have served a two-year religious mission, and I would likely be attending BYU right now. In some ways, it does genuinely feel like this would have been better, but I can say with confidence that I made the right choice.
I could easily pick out reasons why someone shouldn't remain Mormon specifically, but I want to engage the least convenient world fo...
I reject out of hand the idea that she should deconvert in the closet and systematically lie to everyone she knows.
I had to do this until I was able to sever myself from parental support at age 20. It certainly wasn't pleasant and sometimes I still have nightmares about being discovered breaking the Sabbath (though I've told my parents long since). But if you ask me whether I would have rather remained religious,
TEN THOUSAND TIMES NO!
Is it really essential that, as a community, we exclude or dismiss or reflexively criticize theists who are good at partitioning, who like and are good at rational reasoning in every other sphere - and who just have higher priorities than being right?
If Wednesday can partition, that puts an upper bound on her ability as a rationalist; it means she doesn't get on a deep level why the rules are what they are. She doesn't get, say, that the laws regarding evidence are not social customs that can be different from one place to another, but, rather, manifestations of the principle that you have to walk through a city in order to draw an accurate map of it. She can't understand the causality behind the rules, or she would simply know beyond all at...
if you can believe in God, you can believe in anything.
The trouble with that is that I believe in some pretty weird things. I believe in a universe with a hundred billion galaxies, each of a hundred billion stars, of the Earth being a globe rushing round the sun when it appears to be still, with the sun going round it. I believe these things not because I have worked them out for myself, but because I understand that Academe believes them, more or less, and people with whom I associate believe them.
Isn't this an argument in favor of her becoming an atheist, if the side effects to her are less than to me?
I'm not sure why you are so dismissive of your first footnote. The question of being adopted is a testable hypothesis. Whether you actually test it or not, you do not need to rely on your trust of your parents to know the truth here. Since the claim that you are not adopted is not particularly extraordinary there is little reason to actually go and test it. Also, knowing the truth here one or way or the other probably would change very little about how you live your day-to-day life.
Religious claims are extraordinary and if true would have a profound impact on how you should live your day-to-day life. Many "religious believers" are in fact so good at partitioning that this is not the case - they do not live as though their beliefs are true.
Yes, I will make value judgments concerning the merits and characters of both those people and people who "apply reason" in an irrationally discriminatory matter.
This is a great post because it shows just how hard one has to stretch the meaning of "win" to find a way in which atheism always "wins." In the example, it seems that Wedesday "wins" by remaining a Mormon, unless she just happens to place some kind of high personal value on metaphysical truth that can only be satisfied by holding the epistemically correct belief. There's no reason why that should be for everyone, though -- there's a pretty strong case both for not caring at all about these questions, as well accepting one's "default" view if it's too costly to shed. Say Wednesday never becomes a philosopher, but instead, goes into business, or becomes a journalist, or a doctor. It's difficult to imagine how the "less wrong" position of atheism would help her "win" in any of these endeavors, and, in all likelihood, the practical costs incurred by deconverting would swamp any marginal gains she'd get from changing her metaphysical stance on God.
I think people on LW are very hesitant to admit that their strong attachment to "true" metaphysical beliefs may have nothing to do with "winning," but rather, could just be an idiosyncratic personal preference (which is perfectly OK).
What would have to happen to her to get her to give up those beliefs? Well, for starters, she'd have to dramatically change her opinion of her family.
I don't really buy this line of your argument. I disagree with my parents about quite a number of issues, religion and politics included. I also in retrospect disagree with some of their choices about how to bring me up (school choice etc.). At no point did I have to dramatically change my opinion of them. I didn't have to stop thinking they had my best interests at heart, or stop thinking they were intelligent and educated people. Part of the process of growing up and being exposed to the wider world is the realization that people disagree on all kinds of issues and that you can't rely on any single authority as a source of truth. People can be wrong without being liars, stupid or ill-informed (by comparison to the general population).
Should you be Wednesday's "atheist auntie?" I would say yes.
You're asking, "What does she gain from being an atheist?" Well, there are several possibilities -- someone mentioned a happier sexuality -- but, in my opinion, what really matters is the end of the divided will. Sooner or later, most people find some tenet of their religion that they disagree with, or think is silly, or even horrible, but they're convinced that God wills it. How do you disagree with God? Well, in my case, for a long time, my basic moral premise was "I suck." That's no way to live.
Religion can work very well for people who can compartmentalize, or not take it too seriously. Most religious people treat it as a pleasant tradition and an impetus to do right, and that's pretty much okay in my book. Not everyone is a big fan of consistency the way I am -- I have a rather black-and-white personality. But if you are a stickler for consistency then religion will break you and terrify you, and actually prevent you from living well.
You do her no harm if you're her "atheist auntie." If she stays a Mormon she'll just be a cosmopolitan one who can say "some of my b...
I don't think there's much harm in that. It's what my parents and best friend do, and I admire them. They say they're religious, but when it comes to brass tacks they'll use their own common sense every time.
Religion, worn lightly in that way, is just clothing for whatever your beliefs are. If you believe in social justice, say, you may quote Jesus or Isaiah to that end, but your convictions are pretty much your own. Religion, if not taken at face value, is a pretty nice bundle of poetry, song, holidays, and moral precepts, which may not be bad as a component of one's life. I'm not entirely sure I don't want to keep up participating myself, just to be a member of the community.
Religion taken seriously is a completely different animal. If you're sufficiently literal-minded, you can't wear it lightly. You wind up like I did in high school, working in a genetics lab and seriously believing that my gel electrophoresis wasn't working because God was angry with me. I can look back on that time with some degree of amusement now, but it was hell. I was pretty damn close to drinking acrylamide on several occasions. (Happy ending of sorts: there turned out to be a physical explana...
It doesn't seem that it would make her any richer, happier, more successful...
Sounds like you weren't raised Mormon. :)
I was, so naturally what I'm about to say is extremely personal and important to me, and likely to be subject to the "what's true for me must be true for all Mormons", which is absurd, as most Mormons do not go one to become atheists as I have, but still...
...I cannot imagine how one could embrace the beauty and magnificence of this big world if one is stuck in the much smaller world of Mormonism. The contradictions mount and mount, until one of the following must happen:
I claim that giving up on the Extra-Mormon world does make one much less happy, and I just can't imagine being happy in a life of contradictions... but maybe that's just me?
Anyway, for the sake of their happiness, I want my children to have the whole world open to them, and I hope Wednesday will have the same.
Is it really essential that, as a community, we exclude or dismiss or reflexively criticize theists....
I don't think we should exclude them. But that doesn't mean we can't confidently inform them when we know they're wrong.
My favorite rationalist quote ever is "I don't have to agree with you to like or respect you" (Anthony Bourdain). Just because we know theists are wrong doesn't mean we have to be jerks about it. If Newton could make that mistake, anyone can, and we all know how hard it is to climb out of those sorts epistemic holes once you've found yourself in one.
But we shouldn't confuse "not being jerks" with "pretending not to know things that we do in fact know, so that people don't think we're jerks"
If Wednesday sees the argument for cryonics and dismisses it out of hand because her religion guarantees her an infinite life, and if a positive singularity occurs >100 years from now, Wednesday will lose nearly everything in that one moment of dismissal, because of her religion.
Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" books are fascinating in this regard. Meyer is Mormon and she doesn't inject her religion into her books any obvious ways (for example, theological issues are never mentioned and none of the characters attends church) but there is a fascinating "pro life" theme that includes both the desire to procreate and the desire to be an immortal vampire if and only if it is possible to be a vampire who restrains their innate urge to tear out the necks of mortals and feast upon their blood.
Once I started reading vampire chick lit with an interpretative frame that it was a sort of "publicly accessible" meditation on the real world ethics of transhumanist immortalism, these stories became a lot more philosophically interesting. I watched Vampire Hunter D after seeing the connection and found myself rooting for the vampire :-P
The critical thing I'm trying to point to is that Meyer's story appears to be anti-abortion and also pro-vampire. And then there's the existence of the Mormon Transhumanist Association...
Personally I think that the lesswrong community might have a phobic reaction to theism specifically because some religious peop...
I think it's far from clear that staying religious will make her happier than not.
What if she's gay?
OK, I'm guessing that your Mormon parent friend isn't very comfortable with those teachings of the church. Perhaps they even openly reject them, and will make sure their daughter knows they think anyone who says otherwise is talking nonsense, even if it's the preacher. Perhaps they'll make sure and do that long before they know anything about her sexuality. How will they be with the next boundary?
Maybe it's bisexuality, or SM, or polyamory, or trans, or ma...
I really don't think there is any "vanilla enough to be comfortable in Mormon culture" -- Mormon culture teaches overwhelming repression of fundamental sexual drives. It tries to make people feel guilty for masturbating, for Cthulu's sake.
I don't care who you are, what your orientation is, what your kinks are -- that kind of repression is damaging.
Yes, they are expected to have kids, but asexuals don't have to be repulsed by sex, it just doesn't interest them in and of itself. The one I mentioned plans to have children naturally if possible and doesn't talk about sex as a horrifying ordeal, just a neutral prerequisite. If she were going to adopt, I'd expect her to talk about the paperwork similarly.
It would make her right. And that would be all it would do - if she were lucky.
Huh. Do you need me to post a few dozen links to articles detailing incidents where Mormons did evil acts because of their religious beliefs? I mean, Mormonism isn't as inherently destructive as Islam, but it's not Buddhism either.
Anyway, even if Wednesday ended up living her life without once doing harm to others or to herself because of her beliefs, deconverting would still be a good idea: At the very least, theism will distort the rest of her priorities, because they wil...
Interesting post. Are your friends Jasper fforde fans? (Wednesday...)
Atheism tends to be treated as an open-and-shut case here and in other intellectually sophisticated venues, but is that fair? What about Wednesday? What would have to happen to her to get her to give up those beliefs? Well, for starters, she'd have to dramatically change her opinion of her family. Her parents care enough about honesty that they are already planning not to deceive her about Santa Claus - should she believe that they're liars?
That would be very uncharitable of her. ...
I find extremely few occasions when there's any need to be actually deceptive by not saying things. For the rest, no keeping track is required; a policy of the form "tell the truth, but don't say things that will cause too much trouble" suffices.
A difference between this and actually lying (in which category I include "lying by omission") is that in order to lie credibly and not get caught, you need to remember just what lies you've told to whom (in the best case, I suppose you can get by with just two "books", keeping track of the truth for yourself and a single set of lies for everyone else) and make sure it's all coherent. But any two subsets of the truth are consistent with one another.
The thing with atheism, or a naturalistic outlook generally, is not what it does for individuals but what it does for society generally to have more "out" atheists/naturalists. Maybe individually-speaking it'd make some peoples' lives harder but the more openly atheistic individuals we have the better off we all are. I think that's a good reason to both encourage others to become openly atheistic and to become openly atheistic oneself despite negative consequences.
Would giving up her religion help Wednesday win? [...] It doesn't seem that it would make her any richer, happier, more successful - especially if she carries on living in Utah. [...] It would make her right. And that would be all it would do - if she were lucky.
When asking if she wins it would help to understand what winning means. Is the contest being right? Than she wins by being right. Is the contest not pissing your family off? Than she wins by not pissing her family off.
If "winning" is maximizing value, what does she gain by being ...
I read this, and thought of Wednesday: "Among all American religions, Mormonism is the single most sexually guilt ridden. Mormonism scores 37%% higher in sexual guilt than even Catholics."
from here: http://www.atheismresource.com/2012/sex-god-a-new-and-fascinating-book-by-darrel-ray
I don't know how many ex-mormons you've talked to, but I've talked to quite a few, and in nearly every case we were miserable in the church, and much happier outside of it.
we exclude or dismiss or reflexively criticize theists who are good at partitioning
Well, yes. That heuristic tends to work, because partitioned theism is usually correlated with bleed-over into other spheres of reasoning, which can hurt people (immortal soul belief discounting cryonics thus leaving person-containing brains to rot in graves). Human partitions are never perfect, and so it is better from a mathematical standpoint to have none.
After all, we are required under pain of stupidity and becoming victims of clever fraudsters, to follow the mathematical theorems of bayesian reasoning.
In maybe 15 years of time, Wednesday comes to this place, or what this place has become by then. She is still a Mormon, and is welcomed. She is interested in participating, because she is open minded enough, educated, and the community is tolerant and helpful. So she gets to learn about rationality, and is taken into the process of becoming a rationalist herself, and a productive, healthy member of the rationalist community.
My question : and after a few months or years of that, does she still remain a Mormon, or a believer in the supernatural ?
If yes, how ...
When Wednesday has been born and has learned to read, it would be nice if there were a place for her here.
Well, I'm not Mormon (and not called Wednesday), but I'm not atheist either. I've never felt particularly unwelcome here. So I think that there is a place for Wednesday.
Wednesday will also be regularly informed that several of these people are in a position to have special knowledge on the subject via direct prayer-derived evidence
I don't think we can fault Wednesday for not challenging the anecdotal evidence of God if it hasn't occurred to her to do so. She might not be very interested in religion, and, having no desire to think deeply on the subject, is willing to take their word for it. In fact, she may really be agnostic about religion, and is a prime candidate for conversion.
It is when she is faced with evidence...
If everybody outside your state believed you were adopted, wouldn't that make you want to reconsider? That's one point where I don't accept the analogy.
When Wednesday has been born and has learned to read, it would be nice if there were a place for her here.
Maybe we should add an option to the next censur that asks whether people feel welcome to know whether the theists that exist on lesswrong actually feel unwelcome?
Wednesday is wrong. Yet it might well be better for an average Wednesday to remain religious.
The costs associated with remaining religious depend on how you'd live your life otherwise, on whether you'd realistically find something better to do with your attention and caring. In a perfect world, deconversion will always be worthwhile. Given the real-world overhead and apathy/blindness to opening opportunities, it may not be.
The case of Wednesday an excellent example of why I argued that religious belief can be perfectly sane.
Is it really essential that, as a community, we exclude or dismiss or reflexively criticize theists who are good at partitioning, who like and are good at rational reasoning in every other sphere - and who just have higher priorities than being right?
I think many theists criticized are not quite as immersed as Wednesday will be. Believing what you thinking is right doesn't require going out and alienating all your friends with it (though I've had som...
Almost everyone who thinks he or she has higher priorities than being right actually does not have higher priorities than being right, but doesn't place enough priority on being right to see that this is the case. This is why we should avoid the "rationalists should win" mantra -- figuring out what "winning" means is at least as essential as actually winning.
I reject out of hand the idea that she should deconvert in the closet and systematically lie to everyone she knows.
Rejecting options out of hand is bad, especially when the alternatives suck.
I reject out of hand the idea that she should deconvert in the closet and systematically lie to everyone she knows.
I tend to agree with you, but I'm curious: Why do you say that?
I think she shouldn't lie to everyone because it's hard to do and she's better off leaving town or maybe just not lying, depending on how Mormons treat non-Mormons in their midst. In Pennebaker's "Opening Up", he does a reasonably good job of demonstrating that systematic inhibition like that has negative health consequences.
Let's say we live in a world where it is not clear who is adopted and who is not. Most believe a Billion or less are non-adopted, and that they themselves are non-adopted. A few say everyone is non-adopted, some say being non-adopted isn't even possible.
If you believe just 13 million* people worldwide are non-adopted, you need good evidence to believe you happen to be one of them.
Believing you're not adopted based on little evidence makes perfect sense if you're in a world where the vast majority of people are not adopted (or know they are)
*13 million=LDS membership (wikipedia)
As an ex-Mormon, I had to personally confront this issue. My family, extended family, friends, neighbors, and the large majority of my hometown are Mormon, so the social costs of leaving my church were extremely high. While in high school, I was primarily in the closet, but I'd express the occasional doubt. Just the suggestion that the church could be tested against evidence resulted in people avoiding conversation with me, my now-wife being warned by mutual friends not to date me, and my parents sternly lecturing me. Note this was merely because I conside...
I'm reminded of the post a while back on whether an Atheist/Rationalist society would be effective in war.
I have trouble understanding why they wouldn't be (which seems to be the opinion of most of the others here). In an objective moral sense, if Truth doesn't matter more than Winning, then what does? Implicitly most here behave in accordance to that statement - I'd suggest that the amount of time devoted to this site exceeds the amount required for merely winning in contemporary society - but most seem to balk at the concept that Truth might require th...
Ok, slightly off topic. One of my best friends in eighth grade realized that his sister wasn't exactly his sister in our biology class. We were doing punnet squares, with the recessive blue eyes example. His parents both had blue eyes and blond hair, and his sister had brown hair brown eyes. A few decades ago, his mom might have gotten away with it. Deception is bad.
Wednesday will be informed that not only several but everyone in the entire world is in a position to have special knowledge on the subject via direct prayer-derived experience. She will also be informed to seek out these experiences for herself as ones persons experiences can not be applied to another person. Further those experiences should not be a general feeling of good-will, feeling at one with the universe, strong emotions, uncontrollable crying, etc. as those are not the characteristics of the spirit per LDS doctrine (or dogma if you insist). Inste...
(Disclaimer: This post is sympathetic to a certain subset of theists. I am not myself a theist, nor have I ever been one. I do not intend to justify all varieties of theism, nor do I intend to justify much in the way of common theistic behavior.)
I'm not adopted. You all believe me, right? How do you think I came by this information, that you're confident in my statement? The obvious and correct answer is that my parents told me so1. Why do I believe them? Well, they would be in a position to know the answer, and they have been generally honest and sincere in their statements to me. A false belief on the subject could be hazardous to me, if I report inaccurate family history to physicians, and I believe that my parents have my safety in mind. I know of the existence of adopted people; the possibility isn't completely absent from my mind - but I believe quite confidently that I am not among those people, because my parents say otherwise.
Now let's consider another example. I have a friend who plans to name her first daughter Wednesday. Wednesday will also not be adopted, but that isn't the part of the example that is important: Wednesday will grow up in Provo, Utah, in a Mormon family in a Mormon community with Mormon friends, classmates, and neighbors, attending an LDS church every week and reading scripture and participating in church activities. It is overwhelmingly likely that she will believe the doctrines of the LDS church, because not only her parents, but virtually everyone she knows will reinforce these beliefs in her. Given the particular nuances of Mormonism as opposed to other forms of Christianity, Wednesday will also be regularly informed that several of these people are in a position to have special knowledge on the subject via direct prayer-derived evidence2 - in much the same way that her parents will have special knowledge of her non-adopted status via direct experience when she wasn't in a state suitable to notice or remember the events. Also, a false belief on the subject could have all kinds of bad consequences - if the Muslims are right, for instance, no doubt Hell awaits Wednesday and her family - so if she also correctly assumes that her parents have her best interests at heart, she'll assume they would do their best to give her accurate information.
Atheism tends to be treated as an open-and-shut case here and in other intellectually sophisticated venues, but is that fair? What about Wednesday? What would have to happen to her to get her to give up those beliefs? Well, for starters, she'd have to dramatically change her opinion of her family. Her parents care enough about honesty that they are already planning not to deceive her about Santa Claus - should she believe that they're liars? They're both college-educated, clever people, who read a lot and think carefully about (some) things - should she believe that they're fools? They've traveled around the world and have friends like me who are, vocally, non-Mormons and even non-Christians - should she believe that her parents have not been exposed to other ideas?
Would giving up her religion help Wednesday win? I don't think her family would outright reject her for it, but it would definitely strain those valued relationships, and some of the aforementioned friends, classmates, and neighbors would certainly react badly. It doesn't seem that it would make her any richer, happier, more successful - especially if she carries on living in Utah3. (I reject out of hand the idea that she should deconvert in the closet and systematically lie to everyone she knows.) It would make her right. And that would be all it would do - if she were lucky.
Is it really essential that, as a community, we exclude or dismiss or reflexively criticize theists who are good at partitioning, who like and are good at rational reasoning in every other sphere - and who just have higher priorities than being right? I have priorities that I'd probably put ahead of being right, too; I'm just not in a position where I really have to choose between "keeping my friends and being right", "feeling at home and being right", "eating this week and being right". That's my luck, not my cleverness, at work.
When Wednesday has been born and has learned to read, it would be nice if there were a place for her here.
1I have other evidence - I have inherited some physical characteristics from my parents and have seen my birth certificate - but the point is that this is something I would take their word for even if I didn't take after them very strongly and had never seen the documentation.
2Mormons believe in direct revelation, and they also believe that priesthood authorities are entitled to receive revelations for those over whom they have said authority (e.g. fathers for their children, husbands for their wives, etc.).
3I have lived in Salt Lake City, and during this time was, as always, openly an atheist. Everyone was tolerant of me, but I do not think it improved my situation in any way.