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SarahC comments on The Sin of Persuasion - Less Wrong Discussion
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You raise a good point: if beliefs about a subject (say, theology) are deadly serious, then it makes sense to try to persuade people to agree with you -- after all, you'd be saving lives (or, at least, souls.) The institution of religious toleration, which is relatively recent, is a way of not taking religion quite that seriously. In religiously tolerant societies, we take a meta-value, tolerance, more seriously than the particular religion to which we belong.
I think people who believe in religious tolerance may see religion as a kind of personal identity or choice that should be respected. Not a statement of fact that can be challenged. "You can't expect her to believe in the Virgin Birth, she's Jewish!" is a normal thing to think, but "You can't expect him to believe that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, he's from California!" isn't. Dinosaurs are fair game for argument; religious identity, not so much.
Honestly, on topics where "opinions" are really more about personal identity and taste than evaluations of the facts, the religious toleration model might make more sense than the spirited debate model. Religious toleration tacitly admits that most people are not really capable of staying at a factual level when we talk about religion. I wonder what else might be better relegated to the realm of toleration instead of debate.
What else causes people to depart from the factual level?
Yep, I had that in mind. And I have noticed a trend (both in person and in the psych literature) to treat political orientation as more of an identity than as a set of ideas that may be true or false. Studies that show liberals and conservatives have different core moral values, different patterns of brain activity, etc. That's a model of politics as a kind of overall temperament. Maybe in the future we'll be as tolerant of political differences as we sometimes are of religious or sexual orientation differences -- and it will come to be taboo to investigate or challenge them. I'm still on the fence as to whether I like that or not.
That doesn't sound to me like a very viable arrangement. People control the direction of the country on the basis of their political beliefs (their religious beliefs too, to an extent.) I think that would make them top priorities for making them things that are rationally discussed. It might be difficult to train people to discuss them rationally, but the payoff is high.
If political persuasion heads the way of religious tolerance, I sincerely hope it is after we find a better model for running nations than politics.
Not in China they don't. And this last decade, the Chinese government seems to have been doing a better job than say the government of Greece.
The country is doing better, but many of the government's policies are comparably unsustainable. In theory you might be able to restrict all political decisions to a class who actually know how to work things out in a rational manner and run things properly, but I would not regard China as a good example of this.
Don't forget that some people in China are still controlling the country on the basis of their political beliefs, the majority of the country simply has no power and thus little incentive to be politically active.
Maybe you're right that (1) religious and political beliefs are about identity more than truth and that (2) this explains why evangelism is a frowned upon. But could strategy be another explanation for the taboo on proselytism?
It would seem that if people are annoyed by badgering (no matter the content or intent), then badgering people to give up animal products or accept Christ would be counterproductive. Thus non-evangelism would end up more effective in such a society.