haha, that's great!

I had Thanksgiving dinner with friends, rather than family, as I like to do that every few years. Hours after we'd eaten, and had decided it was time to start toasting, one of our hosts offered up a retroactive prayer: "Dear God, we made this food ourselves, with no help from you. Go to hell and die."

rock on.

"Yes, she's a solid atheist in no danger whatsoever, thank you for asking"

Eliezer I have never heard you make atheism sound so much like a religion.

I'll put it down to too much turkey and pecan pie :-)

Your opinions have been noted and completely disregarded. I've seen attempted atheists lapse back into their childhood religions, and it's a horrible thing to see, a train wreck that you should be able to prevent but can't.

Maybe it was the categorical nature of "no danger whatsoever" that led to the comparisons to religion. Given the difficulty of predicting anyone's psychological development, and given that you yourself say that you've seen multiple lapses before, what rational reason could you have for such complete confidence? Of course, it's true that there are things besides religion that cause people to make predictions with probability 1 (which, you must concede, is a plausible reading of "no danger whatsoever"). But, in human affairs, with our present state of knowledge, can such predictions ever be entirely reasonable?

Religion might be more understandable to atheists if they thought of "God" as a representation of humanity. Jesus was a sacrifice propitiating the wrath of humankind, not the wrath of God. The individual human, unable to be in control of his surroundings, nevertheless sees Society supporting him, providing food and DVD players from the other side of the world, and adopts attitudes of thankfulness and worship.

"to make predictions with probability 1 (which, you must concede, is a plausible reading of "no danger whatsoever")"

I don't know what Eliezer will concede, but in fact it is more than a plausible reading. It's what the phrase means. Actually, "no danger" means "probability 1 of no conversion", and "whatsoever" means "for real, folks, I mean probability 1 exactly". And I don't see anything religious about it. Hyperbolic perhaps, but not religious.

Nice post, Eliezer.

Abigail:

"Religion might be more understandable to atheists"

What makes you think religion is not understandable to atheists?

As for your explanation, yeah, nice, but do you really think this is what most christians really believe in? (You can try - find some and ask if he thinks that God equals to Society).

Also, what is a use for such abstraction?

While I totally agree with the sentiment of Eliezer's prayer, I don't think saying a prayer on Thanksgiving makes you religious or even implies a belief in God - it's just tradition. It's harmless to follow traditions as long as you are epistemologically strong enough not to be in any danger of confusing reality and myth. Just like it's safe for a person with very strong reason to read a lot of fiction.

"O changeless and aeternal physical constants, we give thanks to thee for existing at values such that the Universe, upon being set in motion and allowed to run for thirteen billion years, give or take an eon, naturally tends toward a state in which we are seated here tonight with turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce in front of us."

Or "O natural selection, thou hast adapted turkeys to a mostly predation-free environment, making them slow, weak, and full of meat. In contrast, thou hast adapted us humans to an environment full of dangers and a need for complex decisions, giving us cognitive abilities that we could eventually use to discover things like iron working. Therefore we thank thee, o natural selection, that we may slaughter and consume arbitrary numbers of turkeys at our pleasure without fear of harm or retribution. Furthermore, we thank thee for giving us an instinctual sense of morality strong enough that we feel compelled to ceremonially express our gratitude to all those who have helped us over the past year, yet not so strong that we dwell too much on what's happening to the turkey when we do so. Amen."

Short prayers before meals encourage humility and in-group bonding. Eliezer's version is an assertion of his own cleverness which mocks the Other. Nobody actually feels gratitude towards things like "economies of scale" and "comparative advantage", so the only purpose of Eliezer's remark is to demonstrate his superiority over theists.

In other words, Eliezer's quip is just like saying grace, only the exact opposite. I think this what happens when clever people try to imitate something which they don't understand.

"Nobody actually feels gratitude towards things like "economies of scale" and "comparative advantage", so the only purpose of Eliezer's remark is to demonstrate his superiority over theists."

Some people, such as myself, find them aesthetically inspiring, and are happy to live in a world where they enjoy such benefits, which they did not create.

Last year I went to St. Andrew's church in Madison with my mom. The pastor read a letter to the editor where someone wrote, "Instead of giving thanks to God, we should praise our hard work and the economy that brings us all these gifts -- which God certainly never brought to us before we helped ourselves."

The pastor finished reading and ripped the newspaper in half. "Good for lining your bird cage," he said. "Not much else."

Know the feeling. I'm a fully qualified ex-Catholic atheist, but when my girlfriend told me that her family generally just has a pasta dish on Christmas day I was shocked. Anything but turkey makes baby Jesus cry!

Those childhood priors sure get burnt in deeply.

Here's a Daniel Dennett essay that seems appropriate:

THANK GOODNESS!

Eliezer, I really liked your prayer.

The obviously religious ones like Abigail and Richard aren't really worth responding to except with general disdain.

To the ones complaining atheism is religious, if you want to see religous atheism read "In Defense of Secular Humanism" by Paul Kurtz, especially "Secular Humanist Manifesto". I had read it because I liked Kurtz's skeptical stuff, but it was awful. The Manifesto writers basically just changed their faith from God to faith in the Government. I have seen similar things since, mainly from academics.

The argument about probability 1 and so forth - I use the words certain and impossible regularly to mean the likelihood of something not being true or of being true to be so low as not being worth consideration. I will repeat what I've said before, putting arbitrary (spurious) numbers to likelihoods is more likely to result in contradictions than not.

Personally this year I'm thankful for the Earth's molten interior:

http://michaelgr.com/2008/11/28/be-thankful-for-the-earths-molten-interior/

... how isn't atheism a religion? It has to be accepted on faith, because we can't prove there isn't a magical space god that created everything.

I think there's a post somewhere on this site that makes the reasonable point that "is atheism a religion?" is not an interesting question. The interesting question is "what reasons do we have to believe or disbelieve in the supernatural?"

Maybe not, but they really ought to.

No. An atheist sees no evidence for for the existence of a "God" that is not explained better by scientific, naturalistic reasons. Those arguing for the existence of something are obliged to provide evidence, every bit of evidence that has been advanced for "God" has been shot down, usually easily. For a scientific (and readable) view see Dawkin's "The God Delusion". For a fuller, philsophical, and harder to read view see Martin's "Atheism: A Philosophical Justification". One more comment, when I read Martin's book I was a little concerned that he was attacking arguments theists weren't really making, so I borrowed one of Plantinga's books. Martin had actually cleaned up and improved Plantinga's sloppy arguments before he killed them. I have also read some Kierkegaard because a man I worked for thought highly of him. All I can say is apparently philsophers who advance pro-religious arguments aren't held to a very high standard.

As far as I can tell, atheists and theists don't even disagree, for the most part. Ask an atheist, "What do you understand the word 'God' to mean?" Then ask a theist if he thinks that this thing exists, giving the definition of the word given by the atheist. The theist will say, "No."

Unknown: I disagree. Consider this definition: "An ontologically fundamental unique entity that has, in some sense something resembling desire/will, further, this entity deliberately, as an act of will, created the reality we experience."

Further, barring the case of, say, a deists, additional things could be noted: "An entity that in some sense directly orchestrates all of reality, even though it may seem otherwise."

I'm pretty sure most theists (at least monotheists) would agree that this is the thing they believe in, no?

So no, I don't think the disagreement between atheists and theists can be properly represented as a definitional dispute.

Billswift: I am not sure that I am "Obviously religious".

Luzr asked me "What makes you think religion is not understandable to atheists?"

Dawkins' concept of the meme. No, religion is not like a virus. Religion has great benefits for a society and for individuals, even if there is no creator God. Overcoming bias may have great benefits- if we can retain the benefits of religion for those who need it.

Psy-Kosh, your new definition doesn't help. For example Eliezer Yudkowsky believes in God according to the definition you have just given, both according to the deist part, and according to theist part. Let's take those one at a time, to illustrate the point:

First part of the definition:

"An ontologically fundamental unique entity that has, in some sense something resembling desire/will, further, this entity deliberately, as an act of will, created the reality we experience."

Does Eliezer believe in ontologically fundamental entities? Yes. So that's one element. Does Eliezer believe in an ontologically fundamental unique entity? Yes, he believes in at least one: he has stated that the universe consists of one unique mathematical object, and as far as I can tell, he thinks it is fundamental. This is clear from the fact that he denies the fundamental nature of anything else. An electron, for example, is not fundamental, since it is simply a part of a larger wave function. It is really the wave function, the whole of it, which is fundamental, and unique.

Does this unique being have something resembling will, by which it created the world? First it is clear that it created the world. I shouldn't have to argue for this point, it follows directly from Eliezer's ideas. But does it have anything resembling will? Well, one thing that will does is that it tends to produce something definite, namely the thing that you will. So anything that produces definite results, rather than random results, resembles will in at least one way. And this wave function produces definite results: according to Eliezer all of reality is totally deterministic. Thus, Eliezer believes in a fundamental, unique entity, which created the world by means of something resembling will or desire, i.e. by your definition, he believes in God.

Next question: does this entity directly orchestrate all of reality? It should be obvious that according to Eliezer, yes.

So Eliezer is a theist.

Abigail:

"Religion has great benefits for a society and for individuals, even if there is no creator God."

And these are?

Well, where I live, there is about 70% atheists and 30% believers. I have a couple of believers as friends. From my experience, no, they are not better people than we are.

Grant:

"I'm not sure if this has been discussed here before, but how isn't atheism as religion? It has to be accepted on faith, because we can't prove there isn't a magical space god that created everything. I happen to have more faith in atheism than Christianity, but ultimately its still faith."

I also believe there isn't a 1000km wide pink doughnut orbiting Alpha Centauri. Is that a religion too?

BTW, "magical space god that created everything". How was HE created?

All that said, universe, its beginning, human mind and consciousness and self-awarnes, these all are very fascinating mysteries and "God" is a very tempting and easy answer. But it is pretty much likely wrong.

Unknown, how about this:

God: a conscious entity capable of controlling the weather.

(At least, I propose these as necessary attributes of a deity.)

Under this definition, I'm pretty sure Eliezer is an atheist. On the other hand, do you dare assert that a typical theist doesn't believe their god could make it rain tomorrow?

Komponisto: that definition includes human beings, so Eliezer is not an atheist according to that.

What's the point of discussing whether atheism is a religion? There must be something about that back in the discussion of Rube and Bleggs.

Same for discussion of whether someone is an atheist or a theist by using different definitions for "god" or "universe" or whatever ... once you know Elizier's beliefs, addind a label isn't useful information.

Unknown: uh... no. That's a bit of word games nonsense. Playing word games is not a way to resolve the dispute, since you know very well that what you said was not what was intended by the definition I gave.

First, the mathematical object didn't "create" the world, it is the world.

Second, no way no how could one justifiably consider it to be doing it as a "deliberate act of will to achieve desired ends" To simply say "it has structure/order, therefor will" and claim that "by definition" is absurd.

Its nature may cause/be reality, but it certainly isn't doing it with goals/desires/will. That is, this in no way is anywhere near the cluster of things that I'd consider "will"

Unknown: sorry, my reply came off a bit less polite than it should have. But my point of "that's not the meaning I intended to convey with those words and you know it" stands. I would not consider mathematical structures to be a being of will. They may encode some, though. But to simply define "has definite results rather than random" = "will" seems to be to be shaky at best.

Besides, you seemed to be doing this: "Things acting on will cause definite results rather than random, therefore anything that causes definite results rather than random is acting on will", which is clearly a bit of an error, no?

"Your opinions have been noted and completely disregarded"

Ouch!

I think perhaps my opinion wasn't clear:

• I don't think atheism is a religion
• I don't believe you think atheism is a religion But I think your post sure made it sound like one :-)

While awaiting my productivity to reemerge from chaos I stumbled upon an old interview with Ayn Rand and Tom Snyder in which she concludes with 'Thank God for America'. So there ya go.

Unknown:

Komponisto: that definition includes human beings

No it doesn't. I said controlling the weather, not affecting it or influencing it.

Bow your heads. Close your eyes. Hold hands. Feel the pleasurable effects of oxytocin. Amen.

@billswift:

The obviously religious ones like Abigail and Richard aren't really worth responding to except with general disdain.

Unless you care about atheism's reputation.

The fact is that religious belief, if fully attained, can be an enormously useful psychological crutch. As a firm atheist, I am fully open to the possibility that much of the world should stay religious, unless they're doing some sort of important work that necessitates them to value truth over happiness.

And if you decide that someone would be better off as an atheist, you shouldn't try to grab their psychological crutch all at once. They'll just grip tighter.

So, John Maxwell, is electing officials important work that necessitates valuing truth over happiness? Going to school-board meetings? Raising children?

To a degree, it is useful to value truth over happiness in each of the occupations you mention. But humans have the ability to restrict their critical analysis to certain domains. Allow me to rewrite my comment:

As a firm atheist, I am fully open to the possibility that much of the world should stay religious, unless they're doing some sort of important work that's tangentially related to the question of God's existence (like studying humanity's origins), or they are doing some sort of work that requires them to make sure they don't compartmentalize their critical analysis.

Luzr asked, "Abigail: 'Religion has great benefits for a society and for individuals, even if there is no creator God.' And these are?"

Too many to list here. For example, people think religions cause wars, such as the Crusades. But what if humans would have the wars anyway, because we form tribal groups, but religion mitigates the worst effects of these wars, by just war theory?

Another fine atheist Thanksgiving prayer:

We thank our ancestors for dodging the meteors and the volcanos, the eukaryotes and the prokarytes, the dinosaurs and the ice ages, the locusts, the plague, religion, wars, taxes and the draft, to bring us to this table and this turkey, who is not as good at dodging as we are. Neener neener neener.

A favorite at my house (sung as a round) was "Thank you for this food, this food, This glorious, glorious food!
And the animals and the vegetables and the minerals that made it possible." (Debatably theist, depending on who you think the initial "thank you" is addressing.)