The existence of the Vatican state today, and that of the Holy Roman Empire in Medieval times, I think proves you wrong.

The Holy Roman Empire had a deal whereby you have worldly rulers on the one hand and the pope being the spiritual leader on the other hand. Popes supported the concept of the devine right of kings that was supposed to be given out by God to King David and passed down from David via inherentance to the present kings.

Islam on the other hand considers only God a valid source of laws and doesn't think that God has given human kings the right to make laws the way Christianity thinks with the devine right of kings.

If you think that the devine right of kings wasn't important in Medieval times I think you are massively misreading history.

Yup, both good questions.

For the answer to the first - about effectiveness - see the two paragraphs from the paragraph starting with "For some." It's pretty hard to measure exact impact of marketing dollars, so the best equivalent is the combination of how widely read an article is, with specific evidence of its impact on an individual, a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Thus, we can see that this article was widely shared, over 1K times, which means it was likely read by over 100K people. Moreover, the article is clearly impactful, as we can see from the specific comment of the person who was impacted, and his sway with others in his role as group leader. We can't see the large numbers of people who were impacted but chose not to respond, of course.

For the answer to the second, donations to AMF don't do that much to mitigate existential risk. However, getting people turned to Effective Altruism does, since then they become familiar with the topic of existential risk, which occupies a lot of attention, including MIRI among effective altruists.

The problem with selling existential risk to the broad audience is that honestly, they generally don't buy it. It's hard for them to connect emotionally to AI and other existential risk issues. Much easier to connect emotionally to GiveWell, etc. However, once they get into Effective Altruism, they learn about existential risk, and are more oriented toward donating to MIRI, etc.

This is the benefit of being strategic and long-term oriented - rational - about donating to InIn. Getting more people engaged with these issues will result in more good than one's own direct donations to MIRI, I think. But obviously, that's my perspective, otherwise I wouldn't have started InIn and would have just donated directly to MIRI and other causes that I held important. It's up to you to evaluate the evidence. One path that many donors who give to InIn choose to do is to spread your donations, giving some to InIn and some to MIRI. It's up to you.

I've heard criticism that he's only doing it "for the publicity." My answer to that is "Who cares?" but this doesn't satisfy some people. As though you have to do the financial equivalent of self-flagellation to be sincerely altruistic.

EDIT for clarity: "Who cares" about why he's doing it, as long as he's doing it.

This depends on what your ideas are regarding effective charities. For example, you can consider MIRI getting money to be the optimal outcome. In that case, is it better for you to give to MIRI directly, or for you to give to a meta-charity that persuades others to give to MIRI? My point in the article is that meta-charities are a better return on investment for rational donors than direct-action charities, such as MIRI, which directly does the research itself. On the other hand, one aspect of the work of Intentional Insights is to encourage people to give money to MIRI and other organizations mitigating existential risk.

I don't have a lot of time so this comment will be rather short and largely insufficient at fully addressing your post. That said, I tend to side with the idea presented in this article: http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html

Essentially, I fail to see how anything other than advancing technology at the present could be the most effective route. How would you defend your claims of effective charity against the idea that advancing technology and minimizing existential risks instead of giving to those currently in need are ultimately the most effective ways for humans to raise utility long-term?

EDIT: I suppose it would be worth noting here that I have a fairly specific value set in place already. Basically, I favor a specific view of Utilitarianism that has three component values I've decided (and would argue) are each important: Intelligence, happiness, and security. In my thinking these three form a sort of triangle, with intelligence [and knowledge] leading to "higher happiness" and allowing for a "higher security" (intentionally adapting to threats), while also be intrinsically valuable. Security in a general sense basically meaning the ability to resist threats and exist for an extended time, bolstering happiness and knowledge by preserving them for extended periods of time. Happiness, of course, is the typical utilitarian ideal, this is inherently good. And as previously mentioned knowledge allows higher level happiness and security allows prolonged happiness.

Given this model, or a more standard model as I don't have time to fully articulate my idea, the charities you listed seem to be somewhat ineffective compared to other more direct attempts at increasing security and knowledge, which I would argue are the two values which we should currently be focused on increasing even at the cost of present-day happiness.

Not to diminsh what you're doing, as it is still much better than not giving anything at all or giving to less effective charities given your goal. More so to convince me to donate to these charities instead of otherwise using my money.

but it seems like you guys are generally intelligent

Nah, we just fake it :-P

I'm new here and not sure exactly what you expect when someone links, but it seems like you guys are generally intelligent so:

http://www.enotes.com/research-starters/sociological-theories-religion-structural

It sounds like what you're asking (with regards to the function of religion) is something that has been covered a great deal by the structural-functionalist sociological approach. If you're willing to read up on it there's a lot of information out there on the topic. Hope that helps! If you'd prefer I answer your question on here more directly feel free to ask, I'm in the middle of finals and haven't read up too much on the topic myself so I'd have to do some research before getting back to you.

I'll see if I can find the books I referred earlier regarding intelligence testing for people interested in delving further into this topic.

EDIT: One interesting factoid I recall - IQ tests were originally developed to detect impaired mental function only. However, performance on these tests is now used to justify claims of superior mental function. As I recall, among experts this use of IQ testing is controversial.