Alan_Crowe comments on Crisis of Faith - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 October 2008 10:08PM

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Comment author: Alan_Crowe 11 October 2008 10:08:59PM 1 point [-]

Study this deranged rant. Its ardent theism is expressed by its praise of the miracles God can do, if he choses.

And yet,... There is something not quite right here. Isn't it merely cloakatively theistic? Isn't the ringing denounciation of "Crimes against silence" militant atheism at its most strident?

So here is my idea: Don't try to doubt a whole core belief. That is too hard. Probe instead for the boundary. Write a little fiction, perhaps a science fiction of first contact, in which you encounter a curious character from a different culture. Write him a borderline belief, troublingly odd to both sides in a dispute about which your own mind is made up. He sits on one of our culture's fences. What is his view like from up there?

Is he "really" on your side, or "really" on the other side. Now there is doubt you can actually be curious about. You have a thread to pull on; what unravels if you tug?