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Yvain comments on No, Really, I've Deceived Myself - Less Wrong
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When I first read "Belief in Belief", I liked it, and agreed with it, but I thought it was describing a curiousity; an exotic specimen of irrationality for us to oooh and aaah over. I mentally applied it to Unitarians and Reform Jews and that was about it.
I've since started wondering more and more if it actually describes a majority of religious people. I don't know if this is how Eliezer intended it, but it was two things that really convinced me:
The first reason was behavior. Most theists I know occasionally deviate from their religious principles; not egregiously, but they're far from perfect. But when I imagine a world that would make me believe religion with certainty - a world where angels routinely descend to people's bedsides to carry their souls to Heaven, or where Satan allows National Geographic into Hell to film a documentary - I find it hard to imagine people sleeping in on Sundays. Not even the most hardened criminal will steal when the policeman's right in front of him and the punishment is infinite.
The second was a webcomic: http://www.heavingdeadcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/file1126-2.jpg It wasn't so much that theists wouldn't drink the poison as that they'd be surprised, even offended at being asked. It would seem like a cheap trick. Whereas (for example) I would be happy to prove my "faith" in science by ingesting poison after I'd taken an antidote proven to work in clinical trials.
I see two ways this issue is directly important to rationalists:
Is this solely a religious phenomenon, or are our own beliefs vulnerable to this kind of self-deception?
What kind of tests can we create to determine whether a belief is sincerely held?
One thing that makes Christianity such a powerful meme is that it has specifically developed defenses that seem designed to counter this kind of argument. They're actually written right into the Bible.
Matthew 4:7-
" 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[c]”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’[d]”"
Basically, the exact kind of test you're talking about, an attempt to falsify the hypothesis that God exists and will protect you, is something that you are explicitly forbidden from trying to do in the Bible. Even the act of suggesting it as a course of action is associated with the Devil.
The fact that Christianity has such well-developed internal defenses against being challenged is one reason it's been such an effective meme. Also, perhaps more interesting, I would say that the fact that it was felt that they needed to do so proves that even at the time the Bible was written there were rationalists (or at least proto-rationalists) challenging religion on rational grounds, and the early religious leaders felt the need to counter those kinds of arguments.
No. People can "believe" in non-religious things and yet refuse to make bets which should be 100% safe if their belief is true. Sometimes they don't realize that the specific bet is related to the abstract belief; but often there are separate magisteria of belief-space and everyday-action-space.
How many believers in democracy would let their own life be decided by a majority vote of other people? How many believers in communism would share all their property with someone poorer than them?
That seems like a strawman. Most western democracies have substantial antimajoritarian components to their basic laws. Procedurally, most countries have judicial review of legislative acts. Substantive examples (from the United States) include the First Amendment (freedom of speech) and the Fourth Amendment (protection against unreasonable searches and seizures).
In other words, proponents of democratic government don't intend to communicate that they want every decision made by the majority of the citizens.
Link is dead. Would very much like to see web-comic. :)
http://i.imgur.com/ttzQV.jpg
Thanks!
This is one of the things James Randi is known for. He'll take a "fatal" dose of homeopathic sleeping pills during talks (e.g. his TED talk) as a way of showing they don't work.