Either God exist, or it doesn't. Therefore, either theism or atheism is false.
Note that some versions of what people mean by God are very vague. So at that level, it may not be a meaningful question.
Clearly?
The simulation took 6 days to put together. At first YHWH started with an empty universe with just a single planet. To take a quick look around he opened the debug console and forced a light source with the command...
...The advanced editing software would recalculate everything to fit together each time he implemented a new feature to avoid discontinuities in the simulation. On the third day when he decided on the overall structure of his universe it calculated backwards to create a history consistent with the planet he had already been working on for two days, and later on it would recalculate the history of life each time he imported a new critter...
...Intrigued how the simulation looked like from inside YHWH took a partial copy of his mind, scaled it down to fit in one of the sims and inserted it into the simulation. Since had had some interesting interactions with some of the sims and didn't want to wipe them he anchored the recalculation at the conception of his avatar...
Before I say anything, I'd like to say that convincing other people to become atheist is really hard. Really hard. I wish you the best of luck if you want to go through with it.
I think that if someone isn't already atheist, explaining to them why they should be will need to cover a lot of ground before its likely to work, and will probably need to be really long.
...You never know until you correct a previously false belief. If you care about anything, you should try and hold only true beliefs, because one false belief can be enough to destroy what you hold
Belief in God is just a symptom, and comparatively unimportant at that (it serves as a focus of cultural development of anti-epistemology, but probably not significantly in individual people). You should heal people's epistemology instead, the God issue will resolve on its own as a result.
Using belief in God as an example while teaching good epistemology is a bad idea, because it activates the existing anti-epistemology, which would interfere with the education. Confronting belief in God would be an advanced exercise, performed after your skills become sufficiently strong.
This is meta dangerous.
Most people probably wouldn't know what that means; I suggest a change to increase accessibility.
I suspect the best approach is not a lengthy, coherent argument - but planting a seed of doubt. They'll object strenuously and often stupidly, but it'll stick in their minds.
Read this review of a TV show on the historicity of the Bible. When someone starts by presuming a television show about actual history and archaeology is an "attack" and says, as if it's a debate-winning argument, "there isn't much point trying to attack a religion using facts" ... you're not in the rational zone, but in the "foundations of my world are rocking...
Nitpick: Can you give some context or say who's speaking in the quote about spherical Earth-ism being of the devil? For a moment I thought there was supposed to be a different speaker in the second paragraph and I got confused.
Substantive comment: I think this is a good thing to have out there to show to the theists who hide behind "but God's existence isn't a scientific question!" On the other hand, don't be disappointed if you get no apparent success. I went though a phase of talking to religious people on the internet, and I never got anything out of it. From what I've heard, most people who lose their religion came to question it on their own, and then saw some atheist material.
Your “Me believing in Flat Earth” paragraph is not showing the consequences of a false belief but of a (probably strawman for your audience) religious-and-false belief; I expect it to offend rather than illustrate, and considered in the overall structure of the essay, I think it brings in the topic of religion too soon.
I have found that the logical approach like this one works much more rarely than it doesn't, simply because it appears that people can manage not to trust reason, or to doubt the validity of the (more or less obvious) inferences involved.
Additionally, belief is so emotional that even people who see all the logic, and truly seem to appreciate that believing in God is completely silly, still can't rid themselves of the belief. It's like someone who knows household spiders are not dangerous in any way and yet are more terrified of them than, say, an elephant....
On the other hand, your estimate may be very close to 50%. Just to be sure, are you positive that the evidence at your disposal is that balanced? It is not stronger one way or another?
This is quite feasible. It's not because the evidence towards the existence of a god is balanced. It's because the evidence towards your bias is balanced.
Each time you make an observation, you have to estimate the probability and use that to update your priors. Unfortunately, the probabilities will be in error. If the error were random, the error would be proportional to t...
If you care about anything, you should try and hold only true beliefs, because one false belief can be enough to destroy what you hold dear.
If you provide an argument for this statement, then your article will be much more persuasive. Firstly, some of the things people "care about" are their beliefs. Secondly, there are (seemingly plausible) pragmatic arguments for holding certain beliefs regardless of their truth value. For instance, according to Harry Gensler, William James argued that:
The belief in God gives practical life benefits (courage...
I'm working on a way to explain this concept to the nice strangers who stop by my house from time to time.
Written for the LW audience:
The problem with the God hypothesis is that it is indistinguishable from innumerable other stories that can be made up to explain the same phenomena, and whose validity is supported equally well by the evidence.
For example: I once made a tuna sandwich, ordinary in every way except that it had the special ability to create the universe, both past and future. It was not God, which I verified by eating it. This is the tuna sand...
"Now imagine I believe the Earth is flat, and you believe the earth is (roughly) spherical. Those two beliefs are mutually contradictory. Clearly, one of us is mistaken."
Nitpick: . The given beliefs are contradictory but not exhaustive. At least one of the disputants is mistaken, but both could be wrong. The earth could have another shape.
I think theist and atheist can reasonably be defined to be contradictory and exhaustive. Agnostics do not affirm an alternate opinion about whether God exists, they're simply undecided.
You might want to add something about asking what betting odds one would take on a proposition being objectively true to determine how much probability one assigns to it since one might find giving such odds easier than making a probability estimate from 0 to 1.
Overall, how someone who've never read Less Wrong nor Dawkings might react to that?
wince
Agnosticism is less comfortable than it sounds. First, agnostics disagree with both theists and atheists. Second, any significant evidence should mostly turn them into either theists or atheists. And the importance of the question suggest they should seek such evidence.
Speaking as an actual agnostic, I don't think this is correct. The agnostic position is not "I am unsure whether God exists." The agnostic position is "The answer to this question is unknowable, and my time is better spent on questions that can be answered."
I also t...
Truth is universal
Actually the nature of truth is an unresolved and debated question.
There are reasons to discount the concept of absolute truth.
Take your example:
I happen to wear black socks at the time of this writing. Believe it or not, that's the reality, so "Loup was wearing blacks socks when he wrote this" is true for everyone, including you. Even if you believe I'm lying, I am wearing black socks. You can't be absolutely certain of this fact, but a fact it is.
Your statement is true as assessed from a certain context; if assessed fro...
So, you're saying that if I open myself up to doubting God, the devil might snatch my soul. Nice try, but you're going to have to do better than that!
Here is perhaps the largest issue when it comes to discussing religion with someone else: are you discussing theology? Arguments like this seem to suppose that you are- I mean, why else would people profess belief in God? That rabbit hole is worth contemplating.
I am trying to write a small essay about the issue. I intend to eventually submit it to reddit (both r/religion and r/atheism), and to show it to my family. This is basic stuff. I basically want to show that:
My hope is to be able to be able to have meaningful discussions about the topic without being called arrogant or disrespectful. The present draft still miss an introduction, but I think I'll just state what I told above. So, what do you think? Did I miss something? Did I underestimate inferential distances? Could I use other wording? Is this just pointless? Overall, how someone who've never read Less Wrong nor Dawkings might react to that?
Edits:
Missing Introduction
Truth is universal
We all live in the same world. Of course, each of us perceive it differently. We don't see the same things, we don't live in the same places, we don't meet the same people. Because of that and more, we don't hold the same beliefs. But there's only one reality. If a statement is true, it is so for everyone.
For instance, I happen to wear black socks at the time of this writing. Believe it or not, that's the reality, so "Loup was wearing blacks socks when he wrote this" is true for everyone, including you. Even if you believe I'm lying, I am wearing black socks. You can't be absolutely certain of this fact, but a fact it is.
Now imagine I believe the Earth is flat, and you believe the earth is (roughly) spherical. Those two beliefs are mutually contradictory. Clearly, one of us is mistaken.
We should avoid false beliefs
Holding false beliefs is dangerous. It has consequences, sometimes innocuous, sometimes tragic. You never know until you correct a previously false belief. If you care about anything, you should try and hold only true beliefs, because one false belief can be enough to destroy what you hold dear. Incidentally, that's basically why most of the time, lying is not nice.
Flaws in reasoning are even worse: they generate or sustain false beliefs. They are also more difficult to correct. Basically they're a reliable way to be wrong, which is potentially much more dangerous than any single wrong belief. If you find a flaw in your reasoning, eliminate it, then re-check your beliefs. If someone proposes you to adopt one, do not drink that cup, it's poisoned.
"I don't know" is a stance
Are my socks black? Think about it for 30 seconds, look at the evidence at your disposal, then answer honestly. There are 3 kinds of answers you might produce:
Note that all three answers share a common structure. They could all be phrased thus: "I estimate that the likelihood of your socks being black is X%". If X is close to 100%, you believe my socks are black. If it is close to 0%, you believe they're not. If X is, say, between 10% and 90%, then you're not sure. Anyway you're bound to choose a value for X, and that will be your stance. It is no less respectable than any other, provided you did your best to estimate the odds.
Disagreement is not intolerance
Say I'm 99.9% confident that the Earth is flat, and you are 99.999% confident it is spherical. If we also know of each other's opinion, then we automatically strongly believe the other is mistaken. This is not intolerance. This is the direct consequence of our respective beliefs. If you weren't so sure that I'm wrong, you wouldn't be so sure that the Earth is spherical either. This is a matter of consistency.
There is hope however: if we are both reasonable, don't have flaws in our reasoning, have roughly equal access to evidence, and honestly attempt to reach the truth together, then we will eventually agree. At least one of us will radically change his mind.
Let's say that halfway through such a quest, you are still 99.999% confident the Earth is spherical, but I am only 60% confident. It means two things:
This time, the disagreement is not as strong, but still significant: you estimate that flat Earth is barely worth considering. I on the other hand, think sailing West means 40% chances of falling at the edge of the world, which is just too risky.
No exception
These rules apply to any question. Even controversial, emotional questions. So. Is there a God?
Either there is a God, or there isn't. Either way this is a fact. Inevitably, of atheists and theists, one group is mistaken.
This is an important question. A wrong answer can for instance lead us to forsake our lives or our souls for naught.
Agnosticism is less comfortable than it sounds. First, agnostics disagree with both theists and atheists. Second, any significant evidence should mostly turn them into either theists or atheists. And the importance of the question suggest they should seek such evidence.
Many atheists are very sure there is no God, and many theists are very sure there is —even though they know of each other's opinions. Therefore, they both believe the other group is mistaken. This is not intolerance, this is consistency.
I'm worried however by the lack of consensus after all this time. "Is there a God" is an old and important question, and as far as I know, there is plenty of widely accessible evidence, and numerous debates. I suppose our thinking still have problems.
Now, is there a God? Your answer should be of the form "My estimate of the likelihood that there is a God is X%". Don't style yourself as an atheist, believer, or agnostic. Assess the evidence at your disposal (science, scriptures, what you where told…), then give your number. Just bear in mind these sanity checks:
Your estimate may be very close to either 0% or 100%, which means you are very confident. Just to be sure, could you live up to your confidence, and say to the face of someone of the opposite opinion "you are mistaken"?
On the other hand, your estimate may be close to 50%. Just to be sure, are you positive that the evidence at your disposal is that balanced? It is not stronger one way or another?
Like I said, these principles can apply to any question. Including the really scary ones, like "is there an afterlife?"