nitrat665 comments on Avoiding Your Belief's Real Weak Points - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 October 2007 01:59AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 06 April 2015 09:11:03PM *  0 points [-]

More than anything, the grip of religion is sustained by people just-not-thinking-about the real weak points of their religion. I don't think this is a matter of training, but a matter of instinct. People don't think about the real weak points of their beliefs for the same reason they don't touch an oven's red-hot burners; it's painful.

I think that Eliezer oversimplifies religious beliefs. People who have witnessed terrible things have kept their faith. People who have witnessed their loved ones being killed and tortured still have clung on to their religion. These people have had all the reason in the world to doubt the existence of a benevolent god. They surely have thought of the weak points, when you find yourself being tortured, you don´t keep your faith just because you want an explanation for everything. And afterward I find it hard to believe they just reasoned away it all. My point is that sheer idiocy probably didn´t convince all of those who have suffered, something else must have fooled them, or a lot of things combined.

Comment author: nitrat665 08 April 2015 02:50:10PM *  1 point [-]

One of the problems with this argument is that the such perseverence is not unique to Christianity in particular and religion in general:

  • Many religions have stories of believers' faith persisting against all odds, so this particular property can't be easily attributed to Christ exclusively.
  • Religion in general does not have a monopoly on perseverance either - people have been known to keep their ideas about the superiority of their country / government / lord / general political idea even with an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing in the other direction or even when threatened with death or torture.
  • Perserverance is not limited to noble acts, like keeping your faith in god or loyalty to your political leaders either. I am pretty sure many of us have personally observed people keeping some sort of belief (non-religious and non-patriotic) that was detrimental and unprofitable to them (even sometimes to such an extent that holding on to such belief leads to severe harm or death).
Comment author: [deleted] 08 April 2015 03:32:45PM -1 points [-]

I agree, but these religions has endured for centuries, unlike your other examples. I dont argue for christianity,( why do you presume that?) I mean that EY oversimplifies religious beliefs in general.

Comment author: nitrat665 09 April 2015 01:53:06PM *  0 points [-]

Religions' centuries-long endurance is an interesting topic to think about. However, there are simpler explanations for the longevity of religious beliefs than attributing them to some sort of supernatural causes - ones involving some sort of memetic selection. I am pretty sure there are good and detailed studies out there in the internet that you could read for a more detailed argument on that, maybe even on this site, but as for a simple explanation, here is a hypothesis that I could come up with in about 5 minutes of thinking:

Here is a list of certain traits that are common to many long-surviving and wide-spread religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the most fitting examples) :

  • Indoctrination starts in the family at a young age
  • The strength of belief (especially, unreasoning belief) is considered something positive and praiseworthy
  • A large value is placed on holding this exact set of beliefs
  • Not-believers (atheists or people with differing religious views) are described as inferior
  • There are promises of reward for the faithful (in this world and after death) and punishment for the unfaithful
  • There are various well-established practices and rituals that can be seen as directly intended for increasing the strength of the belief

At least to me, those seem like the exact traits needed for a set of beliefs to become self-reinforcing and infectious, so I wouldn't be very surprised if a belief set with such traits survived a long time. Actually, I do not remember seeing a post here that would go into more depth on this, but maybe I will compose one, if I have the time and people think it is an interesting topic.

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