You can have a look at the testimonials page on my site

You don't think there might be a wee bit of a selection bias there..? :-)

I don't even know the question. The OP's comparison with religious faith serves no clear purpose; the whole post seems more like an advertisement than an immediately useful suggestion. Compare and contrast this post.

Like gjm, I don't understand what the point of this post is. All is see is playing with words and making them stretch into uncomfortable positions -- something that doesn't seem all that useful.

I have say I didn't find this post particularly useful.

On my first reading, I was having some difficultly understanding what point you were making. You seem to use some words or phrases in highly non-standard ways, I still have no idea what some sentences like "Its fairly easy to make sense on a mid-level" mean. I get the general impression of a post by someone whose first language isn't English, or who didn't proofread their own work, and that makes reading it a chore, not predisposing me to like it. Cleaning the post up and using more simple language, progressing from one idea to the next in an obvious and logical fashion would make it much easier to read.

After reading it again, it seems like the point you're making is that very few people have justifications for their beliefs, and thus, there's not a significant difference between having a religious belief because your guru told you, and having a secular belief because a scientist told you. In other words, physics is basically a religion unless you can do math. The things you say in support of this argument (If indeed it resembles in any way what you are trying to say) are strange, to say the least. You seem to conflate the belief "If I eat I will not be hungry" with religious beliefs by calling them both "faith". This seems disingenuous, like comparing the probability of winning the lottery and of not being struck lightning, and concluding both are "uncertain".

Your post offers no real suggestions for overcoming our biases, which you assert all people have. You say you "eliminat[e] false beliefs, and replac[e] them with more empowering true beliefs", followed by what seems to be an advertisement for contracting some type of service (counseling?). In other words, you say "everyone has false beliefs, you included, so hire me to help fix them and be happier".

There may be something of value here, but right now I can't see it.

Shannon, it seems pretty clear from the reaction that either the point you are trying to make is invalid, or you are doing a really poor job making it. If you are absolutely sure it's the latter, consider rewriting the post from scratch in a way that matches your intended audience.

Its not an either/or.

Well, that's how you have framed it :-/ As to "entirely cultural", so is the "kindergarten" style of giving feedback. Gold stars for participation to everyone!

thus makes it far easier for people to assimilate the feedback given.

It also makes it far easier for people to ignore the (negative) feedback, focus on the positive, and decide that everything is fine and nothing needs to be changed.

The truth is, that the assumption that all religious and mystical people do not believe in the laws of physics is entirely false.

Oh, I completely agree!

In fact, that was my point, which I took to be an elaboration or variation of Viliam's.

It wasn't about scientific people versus religious people. It was about the wide diversity of religious belief versus the relative unity of physical belief.

Christians, Hindus, and atheists may completely disagree on matters of theology or metaphysics, but may completely agree on matters of everyday physical reality. (I say "may" because of course there are exceptions, such as young-earth creationists.) The same is pretty much true for, say, elementary mathematics.

We are all more-or-less equally capable of getting on with the physical world, even if we believe things about gods or spirituality that completely contradict one another.

I suggest that this is precisely because we all interact with the same everyday physical reality, and our physical beliefs are constantly tested by that interaction. If we come up with a wrong belief about everyday physical reality, we will encounter contrary evidence. If we come up with a belief that implies that airplanes shouldn't be able to fly, we can look up and notice that in fact they do.

The sorts of beliefs that we call exclusively religious (as opposed to, say, beliefs about psychology that we happen to have learned in religious terms) are pretty much those which are not tested by our interactions with everyday reality. That is why they are able to drift so far from one another, from person to person, or culture to culture.

If the likes and dislikes of the gods were as testable as the composition of rocks, then theology would have the degree of consensus that geology does.

its certainly a lot less pleasant to have all of the imperfections picked apart than to have the effort and signal appreciated.

A lot less pleasant and a lot more useful.

To me the conclusion is obvious, but I can see how it is not to people who are not me, now that this has been pointed out to me.

Well then, I would like to point out a more general fact.

Everyone that you will ever deal with, in any way, is someone who is not you.

all four of those words are pointing at roughly the same concept

Very VERY roughly. Too roughly for any use, I think. In particular, these words are not interchangeable -- to say that deciding to get out of bed in the morning is a matter of faith is a misuse of the language.

The different people who use the different words generally think that their way of thinking is superior

That's a non sequitur.

illustrate the "everyone is biased" theory

That theory is generally accepted on LW and has people like Kahneman popularizing it in the wide world :-)

The solution I'm alluding to is to be more open minded about what the possibilities actually are.

That's a platitude and a part of all self-help advice since times immemorial. So what else is new?