Okeymaker 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: 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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