Alicorn comments on Theism, Wednesday, and Not Being Adopted - Less Wrong

56 Post author: Alicorn 27 April 2009 04:49PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (320)
Tags: winning theism tolerance kids

Comments (320)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Alicorn 01 May 2009 05:16:54PM 3 points [-]

It would seem to follow from this that you don't think the following people can be "smart":

  • children
  • people who have not been educated on the subjects you mention
  • people who are good at partitioning, possibly because of a considered belief in fideism
  • people who have conflicting desires and have not worked out which they prefer to endorse on a second-order level
  • people who self-deceive on some level, or avoid thinking about the subject of religion very hard, in order to achieve a good quality of life, after having established that they consider the quality of life their top priority

Am I reading you incorrectly?

Comment deleted 01 May 2009 05:25:25PM *  [-]
Comment author: Alicorn 01 May 2009 05:30:01PM 3 points [-]

When I am inclined to call someone childish, it's because I want to express an opinion about their maturity, not their intelligence. Smart people can be immature and mature people can be pretty dim.

Some people really seem to be able to self-deceive without obviously weakening the belief they're deceiving themselves about. It's not a skill I have, but I shouldn't assume that no one has it. I don't think it's obvious at all that these people are necessarily dumb.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit