= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
siodine comments on Thwarting a Catholic conversion? - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (201)
Jay, I can certainly empathize with your concern for your friend. However, as a practicing Catholic I can assure you that your friend will not be surrounded by people trying to convince her that she needs to "repent" of her sexuality. There's less that I can say about dark side epistemology (since you would probably consider me to be an adherent of it!) but I can assure you that Leah is not going to have piles of nonsensical doctrine shoved down her throat. She will be introduced to many ideas, but ultimately she herself will decide what to accept and what to reject (and I highly doubt that she will accept absolutely everything that the Church teaches - many Catholics don't).
I must confess that, as an outsider to (but occasional reader of) Less Wrong, I find certain statements and arguments on this site to be just as totalizing and dogmatic as the most dangerous religious fundamentalism. There's also a fair amount that I find personally offensive to my value system. However, whenever I find myself going into a nasty tirade against LW, my atheist rationalist friend (who introduced me to this site in the first place) urges me to remember that not all Less Wrongers are the same. Opinions about things like the Singularity vary greatly, as do values. And, there are even some theists on this site.
I can tell you that the same is true about Catholicism. It's a very large organization with many people who interpret their religion in many different ways. Yes, there are many things wrong with the Church as an institution, but people know this and some are trying to reform these flaws (indeed, if Leah does convert, she will be a great one to do this). As for the epistemological side...I don't think that Leah is going to reject scientific truths, if that is what worries you. She might just come to view them in a somewhat different way.
Having read Leah's blog for a while, I know that she will respond very well to any challenge/debate you put forward. However, I would advise against trying to thwart her conversion. Ultimately, she has to make her own decisions. As others have said, listen to her and try your to understand the reasons for her conversion. Also, if you haven't already, get to know a few Catholics. We could be wrong, but that doesn't make us bad people.
I often see this in discussions or debates on religion. The only use for it is to bring disagreements onto a plane of relativism and thereby removing any possibility of conclusion. "I believe this, and you believe that, but aren't we so similar in many ways? Let's be tolerant of each other and allow for whatever beliefs we like."
So, yes, you can draw parallels, some of them accurate, however you can't soundly claim to have the preponderance of impersonal evidence on your side. We haven't reason to treat your beliefs with respect. You should have reason to respect our beliefs if you respect impersonal evidence.
Now, given the assumption that our beliefs are reasonably accurate, are we really totalizing and dogmatic? Is it totalizing and dogmatic to say "young earth creationists are wrong," even when they have more than enough personal evidence for such beliefs? Even when we sound like them? I think it only appears totalizing and dogmatic if you ignore context--if you draw the argument onto relativistic ground.
* I'm giving away more than I should by allowing for coherency in personal evidence for the proposition of a God as described by X religion. The fact is is that even accounting for personal evidence, such as personal revelation, their beliefs are wrong in the Bayesian sense when accounting for non-personal evidence.
What's wrong with this scenario? I thought that a big part of living in a liberal democracy involves tolerating those who are different from us. Why is a conclusion needed?
Depends on what we mean by "allow for" conflicting beliefs, and it depends on what's at stake.
If we're trying to have lunch, and I believe hamburger tastes better than sausage, and you believe sausage tastes better than hamburger, there's no difficulty. You can order sausage, and I can order hamburger, and we're good.
If we're both trying to disarm a ticking bomb, and you believe cutting the red wire will disarm it and cutting the blue wire will set it off, and I believe cutting the red wire will set it off and the blue wire will disarm it, a different strategy is called for.
So one question becomes, what is disagreement about religious issues like? What does it mean to allow for different beliefs, and what's at stake?