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RichardKennaway comments on What Can We Learn About Human Psychology from Christian Apologetics? - Less Wrong
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Some of Eliezer's writings played a significant role in my deconversion. By the time I found Less Wrong, I could not have been described as anything like devout, but still mostly alieved the religion I was raised in. Any decent atheist writer might have had a similar effect, I suspect: for me, the key was seeing how an atheist thinks about things, and noticing that it made perfect sense.
On my own, I might have fumbled to atheism eventually, but almost certainly a shakier and lower-quality form of it.
I answered this poll with "LessWrong has had no particular impact on my beliefs regarding religion" but that's not really true.
Reading LessWrong actually made me less antagonistic towards religion, since I didn't start reading about cognitive science and sociology until being prompted by reading LessWrong posts. Reading that stuff made me realize that there isn't some "rational little homunculus inside that is being ‘corrupted’ by all these evolved heuristics and biases layered over it" but that we are biases and heuristics; religion isn't some alien thing to be removed from the planet, but more like something that we should harness and possibly try to make healthier versions of.
I notice that 2 people have answered that they converted to a religion because of LessWrong. I suspect that they jest, but if not, please tell us about it.
I believe the reasonably public case is the blogger at Unequally Yoked, who credits the posts on How To Actually Change Your Mind on pushing her towards Catholicism.
I know of at least one other, but his is not my story to tell.
Was her religious background before the posts Catholic? If so, this seems like an astonishing coincidence. Just like people with Christian backgrounds don't get Muslim mystical experiences, they don't convert to Islam by using reason either.
From her blog's About page:
Based on her last name, I'm guessing her ancestral religion (at least on her father's side) is Judaism.
Hmm, that does still say that her boyfriend was Catholic and made her agree to go to Mass. So although that's not her background in the sense of having been raised in it, it's still the one she was most exposed to. and it's still a coincidence that the one she was exposed to happened to be the one that she supposedly rationally concluded was right.
In what sense is this a coincidence? In order to be rationally convinced of an idea, you need to be exposed to the idea. That's not surprising. Now it may be the case that there is some other religion out there, to which she hasn't been properly exposed, that provides more satisfying answers to the questions that motivate her than Catholicism does. But given that she hasn't in fact been exposed to that religion, I don't see how you can blame her (on rational grounds) for not converting to it. I believe in all kinds of scientific theories because they're the most convincing ones I've encountered so far, not because I've evaluated them against every other possible theory.
The choice she made was essentially between atheism and Catholicism (and perhaps a couple of other religions in which she was well schooled), and she decided Catholicism made more sense to her than atheism. You can't blame this on a lack of exposure to atheist arguments, I don't think. She was an atheist blogger (as in, someone who blogs advocating atheism) for a while before converting, and at least somewhat familiar with LW-style rationalism, if I'm not mistaken.
Also, she's not claiming her conversion to Catholicism is the consequence of some mystical experience that had nothing to do with her prior exposure to the religion. If that were the case, I'd understand suspicion that the mystical experience just happened to coincide with the dogma to which she had been exposed. But as far as I can tell, she says she converted to Catholicism precisely because she became immersed in Catholic philosophy and found a lot of it very convincing, so the exposure to Catholicism isn't a coincidence, it's the admitted cause of her conversion.
In order to be rationally convinced of an idea, you do need some level of exposure to an idea. But you don't need the level of exposure that happened here. We don't normally find people suddenly believing in Fermat's Last Theorem because their boyfriend made them go to several months of Fermat's Last Theorem lectures. That's a sign of a meme that bootstraps our existing social structures in order to spread, not of rational thinking.
I agree that her boyfriend convincing her to go to Mass with him is a sign that he at least believed that some form of non-rational persuasion would work (since Mass isn't really about making rational arguments for Catholicism). Still, it's not obvious to me that this was the cause of her conversion. I'm guessing a much bigger factor was what she mentions in the next sentence: the deal they had where they would exchange books arguing for their respective positions.
I think you're underestimating the intellectual strength of Catholic theology, especially of the contemporary Thomist variety. It's miles ahead of any other religious apologetics I've encountered. I've read some of it, and while I'm not even remotely convinced, I can see how it could be extremely convincing to very intelligent people. In fact, I suspect I would have been much more susceptible to conversion if I had read some of this stuff earlier in life, before I read a bunch of philosophy (pragmatism, actually, hence my username) that basically inocculated me against it.
I can't blame her for not concluding that it's true, but I can blame her for concluding that it's false. She knew that there were many, many religions that she hadn't been exposed to. She knew that it would be a huge coincidence for the one she was exposed to to be right. She at least should have been able to guess that there could have been biases that gave a good alternative explanation for this other than that it was a coincidence.
To be fair, the people who converted to atheism probably had some elements of atheism in their environment, too.
But there's only one kind of atheism, and many different kinds of religion, so the observation "isn't it funny that they went with the specific kind that's convenient for non-rational reasons" doesn't really apply.
The atheism of the never-believer is different to that of the deconverted.
At least in the Mormonism of my youth, it is generally acknowledged that converts tend to take their faith more seriously than those born into it. Lasting conversion is not an easy process, and frequently involves both social and internal conflict, so there are selection effects against less-dedicated converts. Additionally, cognitive dissonance and sunk-cost reasoning will tend to make people attach more value to their faith if they had to fight for it. A similar effect in atheism would be unsurprising; deconversion is at least as hard as conversion.
Is this what you had in mind, or did you mean something else? And is this a meaningful distinction to make here, since you can't convert to born Catholicism anyway?
I wasn't aware distinctions were meaningless unless a matter of choice. Makes me rethink the whole life vs death issue.
I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say here. Can you clarify?
Given that the atheism of a never-believer is different than the atheism of the deconverted (more on this in a moment), the deconverted still only has one of those options actually available to them. "But there's only one kind of atheism [that you can deconvert to]" would still set it apart from the multiple theisms you could convert to.
On the other hand, I don't think I agree that there's only one kind of atheism, nor that the cleanest dividing line is between deconverts and never-believers. In broad strokes all atheists share certain beliefs, but when you zoom out that far, Abrahamic religions start to blend together too.
How so?
Atheism stands out more. The explanation that you converted for non-rational reasons is just as good as before, but it's less of a coincidence, so this is less evidence of an error in reasoning.
I'm not convinced this is a useful criticism, since we would expect Catholic converts to have been exposed to Catholicism first, even if Catholicism were true. Similarly, we would expect people with non-Islamic backgrounds to not convert to Islam, even if Catholicism were true. Even the religious believe this, which is why missionary work was and is a big deal in various Christian denominations throughout history.
I agree that some exposure is necessary; however, the degree of exposure necessary for conversion to be possible is nowhere near the degree of exposure involved here. At one point I didn't know that there are infinitely many prime numbers, and I had to be exposed to it before I would believe it (since I don't generally go around trying to prove random mathematical statements); but I didn't have to be exposed to months of lectures on the subject or be surrounded by people who made belief in that proposition a cornerstone of social interaction with them.
In the case of missionary work, I'd point out that one reason for missionary work is to force the religion's members to publicly commit to and sacrifice for the religion. It's a type of psychological pressure on believers to make them do things that keep them within the fold, not mainly a way of gaining converts.
2 out of 89 (as of this writing) is well below Lizardman's constant, so I'm inclined to dismiss it.
When there's no “I'm not going to vote; just show me the results” option, it's likely that a few people will answer at random.
How about updating the LW code to add the "just show me the results" option automatically? Or perhaps add a link to display the results without voting.
Yeah, I am suggesting work for other people that I wouldn't do myself...
I'd actually be surprised if LessWrong made many deconverts (though such people would be interesting to hear from, if they exist). The Sequences take atheism and a vague respect for rationality for granted, and focus on arguing about other topics. And the Sequences have shifted my beliefs around on some of those other topics, most notably Bayesianism.
The comparison to apologetics is more apt, I think, for sites like Rational Wiki, which Konkvistador aptly described as, "what a slightly left of centre atheist needs to win an internet debate... an ammunition depot to aid in winning debates."
I deconverted in large part because of Less Wrong. Looking back at it now, I hadn't had a strong belief since I was 18 (by which I mean, if you asked most believers what the p(god) is they'd say 100% whereas I might have said 90%) but that might just be my mind going back and fixing memories so present me thinks better of past me.
I'd be happy to do an AMA (I went from Mormon to Atheist) but a couple of the main things that convinced me were:
Seeing that other apologists could make up similar arguments to make just about anything look true (for example, other religious apologists, homeopathy, anti-vaccines, etc)
Seeing the evidence for evolution and specifically, how new information supports true things. That showed me that for true things, new information doesn't need to be explained away, but actually supports the hypothesis. For example, with evolution discoveries such as carbon dating, the fossil record, and DNA all support it. Those same discoveries have to be explained away via apologetics for religions.
Bayesian thinking. I have an econ background so kind of did this informally but the emphasis from less wrong that once you see evidence against you need to actively lower your probability a bit really helped me. Before I'd done what EY pointed out where you take all of your evidence for and stacked that against this one evidence against and then when the next evidence against comes along you take all your evidence for and stack it against that one evidence, etc.
The value that I want to believe what is true. I had this before but wasn't as proactive about it.
Before I felt like my belief system was logical and fit the evidence and if someone didn't believe it was because they hadn't looked at the evidence and fairly considered it. Seeing people look at the evidence and then cogently explain why they still didn't believe gave me a "I notice I'm confused" moment.\
etc.
I see a couple things similar to this that were probably the biggest factors in my deconversion now that I look back.
Within Christianity, over a long period of time, they are so sure about so many views that end up being demonstrably wrong.
They are sure that the Earth is the center of the universe. And when that debate is finally settled, they are just as sure that evolution is false...
And then, in time, when that debate is just as settled (in the public) as heliocentrism, they'll retreat, and then dig in and try to argue for the next line of nonsense for X decades/centuries.
Something similar also occurs in all the different sects of Christianity at any given time. They are often each equally convinced of mutually exclusive claims. One sect is sure speaking in tongues is from God, one is sure it is from the Devil, one is sure it only existed -- but only in the first century, one is sure it is nonsense (but they still accept all the other magical stuff in the Bible).
The interesting observation (and the thing that helped me de-convert) is that among all these differing beliefs, Christians of all stripes from all times use basically the same apologetic tactics and seem to be each convinced that they are right because of some sophisticated-sounding hermeneutic they use to "rightly interpret the Bible".
Using the Bible, you could argue for almost any position you'd like and make it look true as long as you find a way to tie it to "Scripture".
Reminds me of a quote from an old LW post... "If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge."
I don't think it's entirely fair to blame e.g. geocentrist cosmology on Christianity qua religion. Those debates happened at a time when the Church was, or recently had been, the primary European vector of literacy and philosophy: basically the only intellectual game in town. Challenges to its natural philosophy had the character of attacks on a scientific establishment, or the closest thing available at the time, as much as a religious one. They did draw on the language and norms of religion in their responses, but you can hardly condemn a bunch of clergy for that.
Creationism's fair game, though.
raises hand
One could argue that LW just made the inevitable happen faster, though.
Connotationally about "just made the inevitable happen faster": Sometimes the timing makes a huge difference. For a man, being just a few years late may result in a marriage where "coming out" would mean losing all contact with their children. For a woman, being just a few years late may result in being married to an old polygamous guy and having no chance to get even high-school education.
All the religion needs to win is to keep you long enough so that it can keep your children, too.
Yeah, good point, agreed-- I'm possibly in the former category there, it's hard to say.
Articles like Belief in Belief and A Parable on Obsolete Ideologies were instrumental in my deconversion.
Thanks for that comment. Re-skimming those articles, those are both good examples of LW articles that don't assume atheism from the start. Which isn't true of a lot of articles on LW, but it's good to remember it's true of some of them.
I'm personally familiar with one, who I believe now posts under a different username, whose deconversion process I was witness to online, although I think the discussion transcripts are no longer hosted online.
"Is man the rational animal, or are there a lot of irrationalities in our everyday decisions, and has your belief altered since you began reading LessWrong" "Did you previously have any beliefs on QM interpretations, and have they been affected by reading LW" "Has reading LessWrong affected your levels of productivity in any way, and if so, how?"
Those are probably three more appropriate questions for LW readers, although I do expect that the last question would receive mostly 'no'. I don't think this is especially damning for LW though, because that's a quite hard task.
Man is the most rational animal, and there are a lot of irrationalities in our everyday decisions. I don't remember explicitly thinking about it, but I would guess that I'd have thought it obvious before reading LessWrong. I know I didn't have trouble understanding the reason for the title of this blog.
I was previously agnostic. Seeing Eliezer mention that MWI was true shifted my beliefs significantly towards that. Learning enough QM to understand why shifted me the rest of the way.
I don't know.