Alejandro1 comments on Is my view contrarian? - Less Wrong

22 Post author: lukeprog 11 March 2014 05:42PM

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Comment author: Alejandro1 12 March 2014 11:31:38PM *  3 points [-]

Here are the results of a survey of philosophers of religion specifically. It has lots of interesting data, among them:

  • Most philosophers of religion are committed Christians.

  • The most common reasons given for specializing in philosophy of religion presupposed a previous belief in religion. (E.g. "Faith seeking understanding"; "Find arguments in order to witness", etc.)

  • Most belief revisions due to studying philosophy of religion were in the direction of greater atheism rather than the opposite. However, this seems to be explained by a combination of two separated facts: most philosophers of religion begin as theists as mentioned above, and most (from both sides) become less dogmatic and more appreciative of arguments for the opposing view with time.