I imagine what they might be doing is acknowledging that they have a variety of reactions to the facts or events in question, but haven’t taken the time to weigh them so as to come up with a blend or selection that is one of: {most accurate, most comfortable, most high status}
Some writers take more impartial approaches than others, but strict apatheists are unlikely to bother doing comprehensive analyses of the evidence for or against religions.
Side note: if you’re trying to excise bias in your own thinking, it’s worth stopping to ask yourself why you would frame the question as a dichotomy between Christianity and atheism in the first place.
I’m not sure how strict is strict, but maybe something that is trying to be unbiased.
A lot of websites present both sides of the story, and then logically conclude that their side is the winner, 100 percent of the time.
And I used Atheism/Christianity because I was born a Christian and I think that Atheism is the only real, um, threat, let’s say, to my staying a Christian.
Although, I havn’t actually tried to research anything else, I realize.
Well, Common Sense Atheism is a resource by a respected member here who documented his extensive investigations into theology, philosophy and so on, which he started as a devout Christian and finished as an atheist.
Unequally Yoked is a blog coming from the opposite end, someone familiar with the language of rationality who started out as an atheist and ended up as a theist.
I don’t actually know where Leah (the author of the latter) archives her writings on the process of her conversion; I’ve really only read Yvain’s commentary on them, but she’s a member here and the only person I can think of who’s written from the convert angle, who I haven’t read and written off for bad reasoning.
By the time I encountered either person’s writings, I’d already hashed out the issue to my own satisfaction over a matter of years, and wasn’t really looking for more resources, so to the extent that I can vouch for them, it’s on the basis of their writings here rather than at their own sites, which is rather more extensive for Luke than Leah.
However, I will attest that my own experience of researching and developing my opinion on religion was as much shaped by reading up on many world religions as it was by reading religious and atheist philosophy. If you’re prepared to investigate the issue thoroughly for a long time, I suggest reading up on a lot of other religions, in-depth. Many of my own strongest reasons for not buying into common religious arguments are rooted, not in my experience with atheistic philosophy, but my experience with a wide variety of religions.
Leah has written less than one might hope on her reasons for converting, and basically nothing on how she now deals with all the usual atheist objections to Christian belief. Her primary reason for conversion appears to have been that Christianity fits better than atheism with the moral system she has always found most believable.
Someone who I think is an LW participant (but I don’t know for sure, and I don’t know under what name) wrote this fairly lengthy apologia for atheism; I think it was a sort of open letter to his friends and family explaining why he was leaving Christianity.
In the course of my own transition from Christianity to atheism I wrote up a lot of notes (approximately as many words as one paperback book), attempting to investigate the issue as open-mindedly as I could. (When I started writing them I was a Christian; when I stopped I was an atheist.) I intermittently think I should put them up on the web, but so far haven’t done so.
There are any number of books looking more or less rigorously at questions like “does a god exist?” and “is Christianity right?”. In just about every case, the author(s) take a quite definite position and are writing to persuade more than to explore, so they tend not to be, nor to feel, unbiased. Graham Oppy’s “Arguing about gods” is pretty even-handed, but quite technical. J L Mackie’s “The miracle of theism” is definitely arguing on the atheist side but generally very fair to the other guys, and shows what I think is a good tradeoff between rigour and approachability—but it’s rather old and doesn’t address a number of the arguments that one now hears all the time when Christians and atheists argue. The “Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology” is a handy collection of Christians’ arguments for the existence of God (and in some cases for more than that); not at all unbiased but its authors are at least generally trying to make sound arguments rather than just to sound persuasive.
who I haven’t read and written off for bad reasoning.
Do you mind providing examples of what you consider to be not-bad reasoning, so that I might update my beliefs about the quality of her work? I have read many posts written by Leah about a range of topics, including her conversion to Catholicism, and I thought her arguments often made absolutely no sense.
Leah is an example of someone arguing from the convert angle who I haven’t read and written off because I haven’t read her convert stuff. I can’t vouch for her arguments for conversion, I can only say that I wouldn’t write her off in general as someone worth paying attention to.
I can’t say the same of any of the other converts I can think of; C.S. Lewis is the usual go-to figure given by Christians, and while I have respect for his ability as a writer, I already know from my exposure to his apologetics that I couldn’t direct anyone to him as a resource in good conscience.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that you had read her conversion-related writings and found her reasoning to be not-bad.
I wouldn’t write her off in general as someone worth paying attention to
Here is where we differ greatly, but I will continue reading her writings to see if my beliefs about the quality of her stuff will be updated upon more exposure to her thinking.
I am all too aware that I am 7 years late to this party, but coincidentally enough my beliefs from that time may fit the bill.
I too was born into a Christian family. Although I did not go to church regularly due to my parents’ work, I was still exposed to religion a lot. My family was always happy to tell me about what they believed. I was told Bible stories since I was in diapers, and I began reading them myself soon after. I was even a huge fan of VeggieTales (and maybe I still am).
Yet, as far back as I can remember (I think my diaries can testify I was as young as 6 or 7) I put God into the same bin as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I can’t recall my exact line of reasoning, but it was probably because all three consisted of fantastic tales full of morals, and all big kids knew the latter two were fake, so why not the first?
I don’t remember ever being exposed to atheists or their beliefs, but I do remember the moment I realized all these people really DID believe in God. I remember the shock. All those years I had thought they were pretending to believe in God like they still pretended Santa came every year. Everyone knows Santa is a big fake, but apparently the same idea didn’t seem to apply to the other big bearded guy who makes miracles.
I suppose I am what could be considered an innocent atheist. I chose my side on the Christianity/Atheism war long before I was even aware of such a dividing line.
I may write a full post on this to include further details and context. Because even after years of self reflection (honestly not too impressive since I’m currently a young adult) I can still agree with my younger self’s conclusion.
A lot of websites present both sides of the story, and then logically conclude that their side is the winner, 100 percent of the time.
I would be very surprised (and immediately suspicious) to find a website that didn’t. People like to be right. If someone does a lot of research, writes up an article, and comes up with what appears to be overwhelming support for one side or the other, then they will begin to identify with their side. If that was the side they started with, then they would present an article along the lines of “Why Is Correct”. If that was not the side they started with, then they would present an article along the lines of “Why I Converted To ”.
If they don’t come up with overwhelming support for one side or another, then I’d imagine they’d either claim that there is no strong evidence against their side, or write up an article in support of agnosticism.
On questions of simple fact (for example, whether Earthly life arose by natural selection) there’s a legitimate expectation that the argument should be a one-sided battle; the facts themselves are either one way or another, and the so-called “balance of evidence” should reflect this. Indeed, under the Bayesian definition of evidence, “strong evidence” is just that sort of evidence which we only expect to find on one side of an argument.
I don’t see the theism/atheism debate as a policy debate. There is a factual question underlying it, and that factual question is “does God exist?” I find it very hard to imagine a universe where the answer to that question is neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’.
I find it very hard to imagine a universe where the answer to that question is neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’.
I have been in many conversations where the question being referred to by the phrase “does God exist?” seems sufficiently vague/incoherent that it cannot be said to have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, either because it’s unclear what “God” refers to or because it’s unclear what rules of reasoning/discourse apply to discussing propositions with the word “God” in them.
Whether such conversations have anything meaningful to do with the theism/atheism debate, I don’t know. I’d like to think not, just like the existence of vague and incoherent discussions about organic chemistry doesn’t really say much about organic chemistry.
I’m not so sure, though, as it seems that if we start with our terms and rules of discourse clearly defined and shared, there’s often no ‘debate’ left to have.
I have been in many conversations where the question being referred to by the phrase “does God exist?” seems sufficiently vague/incoherent that it cannot be said to have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, either because it’s unclear what “God” refers to or because it’s unclear what rules of reasoning/discourse apply to discussing propositions with the word “God” in them.
That’s in important point. There are certain definitions of ‘god’, and certain rules of reasoning, which would cause my answer to the question of whether God exists to change. (For that matter, there are definitions of ‘exists’ which might cause my answer to change). For example, if the question is whether the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists, I’d say ‘no’ with high probability; unless the word ‘exists’ is defined to include ‘exists as a fictional construct, much like Little Red Riding Hood’ in which case the answer would be ‘yes’ with high probability (and provable by finding a story about it).
...it seems that if we start with our terms and rules of discourse clearly defined and shared, there’s often no ‘debate’ left to have.
Clearly defining and sharing the terms and rules of discourse should be a prerequisite for a proper debate. Otherwise it just ends up in a shouting match over semantics, which isn’t helpful at all.
If you presented both sides of an issue, concluding the other side was right, how would you then conclude your side is the winner?
If they are sub-issues for a main issue (like the policy impacts of a large decision), one might expect things to go the other way sometimes. “Supporters claim that minimum wages give laborers a stronger bargaining position at the cost of increased unemployment, which may actually raise the total wages going to a particularly defined group. This is possibly true, but doesn’t seem strong enough to overcome the efficiency objections as well as the work experience objections.”
‘Possibly true’ is not agreeing. If you conceded the sub-issue without changing your side, then the sub-issue must have been tangential and not definitive. In a conjunctive counterargument, I can concede some or almost all of the conjuncts and agree, without agreeing on the conclusion—and so anyone looking at my disagreements will note how odd it is that I always conclude I am currently correct...
Well, theology isn’t science. If you do an experiment and the result goes against your hypothesis, your hypothosis is false, period. It’s not necissarily like that when people are arguing with logic instead of experiments. No one on either side would make an argument that wasn’t logically correct. I’ve read both Christian and Atheist material that make a lot of sense sense, although I realize now that I should probably review them because that was before I discovered Less Wrong. There are also plenty of intelligent people who have looked at all the evidence and gone both ways.
There is something very wrong here, from a rationalist’s point of view.
Are there people here that have gone from Christianity to Atheism or the other way around? Or for any other religion? Can I talk to you?
There is something very wrong here, from a rationalist’s point of view.
Seems to me the wrong thing is exactly that experiments are not allowed in the debate. Leaving out the voice of reality, all we are left with are the voices of humans. And humans are well known liars.
“Unbiased” is a tricky word to use here, because typically it just means a high-quality, reliable source. But what I think you’re looking for is a source that is high quality but intentionally resists drawing conclusions even when someone trying to be accurate would do that—it leaves you, the reader, to do the conclusion-drawing as much as possible (perhaps at the cost of reliability, like a sorcerer who speaks only in riddles). Certain history books are the only sources I’ve thought of that really do this.
I don’t think there is ever a direct refutation of religion in the Sequences, but if you read all of them, you will find yourself much better equipped to think about the relevant questions on your own.
EY is himself an Atheist, obviously, but each article in the Sequences can stand upon its own merit in reality, regardless of whether they were written by an atheist or not. Since EY assumes atheism, you might run across a couple examples where he assumes the reader is an atheist, but since his goal is not to convince you to be an atheist, but rather, to be aware of how to properly examine reality, I think you’d best start off clicking ’Sequences” at the top right of the website.
I imagine what they might be doing is acknowledging that they have a variety of reactions to the facts or events in question, but haven’t taken the time to weigh them so as to come up with a blend or selection that is one of: {most accurate, most comfortable, most high status}
I can testify to that.
Say, does anyone know where I can find unbiased information on the whole Christianity/Atheism thing?
How strict are your criteria for “unbiased?”
Some writers take more impartial approaches than others, but strict apatheists are unlikely to bother doing comprehensive analyses of the evidence for or against religions.
Side note: if you’re trying to excise bias in your own thinking, it’s worth stopping to ask yourself why you would frame the question as a dichotomy between Christianity and atheism in the first place.
I’m not sure how strict is strict, but maybe something that is trying to be unbiased. A lot of websites present both sides of the story, and then logically conclude that their side is the winner, 100 percent of the time.
And I used Atheism/Christianity because I was born a Christian and I think that Atheism is the only real, um, threat, let’s say, to my staying a Christian.
Although, I havn’t actually tried to research anything else, I realize.
Well, Common Sense Atheism is a resource by a respected member here who documented his extensive investigations into theology, philosophy and so on, which he started as a devout Christian and finished as an atheist.
Unequally Yoked is a blog coming from the opposite end, someone familiar with the language of rationality who started out as an atheist and ended up as a theist.
I don’t actually know where Leah (the author of the latter) archives her writings on the process of her conversion; I’ve really only read Yvain’s commentary on them, but she’s a member here and the only person I can think of who’s written from the convert angle, who I haven’t read and written off for bad reasoning.
By the time I encountered either person’s writings, I’d already hashed out the issue to my own satisfaction over a matter of years, and wasn’t really looking for more resources, so to the extent that I can vouch for them, it’s on the basis of their writings here rather than at their own sites, which is rather more extensive for Luke than Leah.
However, I will attest that my own experience of researching and developing my opinion on religion was as much shaped by reading up on many world religions as it was by reading religious and atheist philosophy. If you’re prepared to investigate the issue thoroughly for a long time, I suggest reading up on a lot of other religions, in-depth. Many of my own strongest reasons for not buying into common religious arguments are rooted, not in my experience with atheistic philosophy, but my experience with a wide variety of religions.
Leah has written less than one might hope on her reasons for converting, and basically nothing on how she now deals with all the usual atheist objections to Christian belief. Her primary reason for conversion appears to have been that Christianity fits better than atheism with the moral system she has always found most believable.
Someone who I think is an LW participant (but I don’t know for sure, and I don’t know under what name) wrote this fairly lengthy apologia for atheism; I think it was a sort of open letter to his friends and family explaining why he was leaving Christianity.
In the course of my own transition from Christianity to atheism I wrote up a lot of notes (approximately as many words as one paperback book), attempting to investigate the issue as open-mindedly as I could. (When I started writing them I was a Christian; when I stopped I was an atheist.) I intermittently think I should put them up on the web, but so far haven’t done so.
There are any number of books looking more or less rigorously at questions like “does a god exist?” and “is Christianity right?”. In just about every case, the author(s) take a quite definite position and are writing to persuade more than to explore, so they tend not to be, nor to feel, unbiased. Graham Oppy’s “Arguing about gods” is pretty even-handed, but quite technical. J L Mackie’s “The miracle of theism” is definitely arguing on the atheist side but generally very fair to the other guys, and shows what I think is a good tradeoff between rigour and approachability—but it’s rather old and doesn’t address a number of the arguments that one now hears all the time when Christians and atheists argue. The “Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology” is a handy collection of Christians’ arguments for the existence of God (and in some cases for more than that); not at all unbiased but its authors are at least generally trying to make sound arguments rather than just to sound persuasive.
Do you mind providing examples of what you consider to be not-bad reasoning, so that I might update my beliefs about the quality of her work? I have read many posts written by Leah about a range of topics, including her conversion to Catholicism, and I thought her arguments often made absolutely no sense.
Leah is an example of someone arguing from the convert angle who I haven’t read and written off because I haven’t read her convert stuff. I can’t vouch for her arguments for conversion, I can only say that I wouldn’t write her off in general as someone worth paying attention to.
I can’t say the same of any of the other converts I can think of; C.S. Lewis is the usual go-to figure given by Christians, and while I have respect for his ability as a writer, I already know from my exposure to his apologetics that I couldn’t direct anyone to him as a resource in good conscience.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that you had read her conversion-related writings and found her reasoning to be not-bad.
Here is where we differ greatly, but I will continue reading her writings to see if my beliefs about the quality of her stuff will be updated upon more exposure to her thinking.
I am all too aware that I am 7 years late to this party, but coincidentally enough my beliefs from that time may fit the bill.
I too was born into a Christian family. Although I did not go to church regularly due to my parents’ work, I was still exposed to religion a lot. My family was always happy to tell me about what they believed. I was told Bible stories since I was in diapers, and I began reading them myself soon after. I was even a huge fan of VeggieTales (and maybe I still am).
Yet, as far back as I can remember (I think my diaries can testify I was as young as 6 or 7) I put God into the same bin as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I can’t recall my exact line of reasoning, but it was probably because all three consisted of fantastic tales full of morals, and all big kids knew the latter two were fake, so why not the first?
I don’t remember ever being exposed to atheists or their beliefs, but I do remember the moment I realized all these people really DID believe in God. I remember the shock. All those years I had thought they were pretending to believe in God like they still pretended Santa came every year. Everyone knows Santa is a big fake, but apparently the same idea didn’t seem to apply to the other big bearded guy who makes miracles.
I suppose I am what could be considered an innocent atheist. I chose my side on the Christianity/Atheism war long before I was even aware of such a dividing line.
I may write a full post on this to include further details and context. Because even after years of self reflection (honestly not too impressive since I’m currently a young adult) I can still agree with my younger self’s conclusion.
I would be very surprised (and immediately suspicious) to find a website that didn’t. People like to be right. If someone does a lot of research, writes up an article, and comes up with what appears to be overwhelming support for one side or the other, then they will begin to identify with their side. If that was the side they started with, then they would present an article along the lines of “Why Is Correct”. If that was not the side they started with, then they would present an article along the lines of “Why I Converted To ”.
If they don’t come up with overwhelming support for one side or another, then I’d imagine they’d either claim that there is no strong evidence against their side, or write up an article in support of agnosticism.
It’s not just that there’s overwhelming support for their side, it’s that there is only support for their side, and this happens on both sides.
That’s surprising. I’d expect at least some of them to at least address the arguments of the other side.
I’m pretty sure proof that the other side’s claims are mistaken is included in “support for their side”.
...right. I take your point.
I was rereading some of the core sequences and I came across this:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gz/policy_debates_should_not_appear_onesided/
Important quote from that article:
I don’t see the theism/atheism debate as a policy debate. There is a factual question underlying it, and that factual question is “does God exist?” I find it very hard to imagine a universe where the answer to that question is neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’.
I have been in many conversations where the question being referred to by the phrase “does God exist?” seems sufficiently vague/incoherent that it cannot be said to have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, either because it’s unclear what “God” refers to or because it’s unclear what rules of reasoning/discourse apply to discussing propositions with the word “God” in them.
Whether such conversations have anything meaningful to do with the theism/atheism debate, I don’t know. I’d like to think not, just like the existence of vague and incoherent discussions about organic chemistry doesn’t really say much about organic chemistry.
I’m not so sure, though, as it seems that if we start with our terms and rules of discourse clearly defined and shared, there’s often no ‘debate’ left to have.
That’s in important point. There are certain definitions of ‘god’, and certain rules of reasoning, which would cause my answer to the question of whether God exists to change. (For that matter, there are definitions of ‘exists’ which might cause my answer to change). For example, if the question is whether the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists, I’d say ‘no’ with high probability; unless the word ‘exists’ is defined to include ‘exists as a fictional construct, much like Little Red Riding Hood’ in which case the answer would be ‘yes’ with high probability (and provable by finding a story about it).
Clearly defining and sharing the terms and rules of discourse should be a prerequisite for a proper debate. Otherwise it just ends up in a shouting match over semantics, which isn’t helpful at all.
there’s nothing so strange that no-one has seriously proposed it
...I am surprised.
I still can’t imagine it myself, but I guess that means that someone can.
If you presented both sides of an issue, concluding the other side was right, how would you then conclude your side is the winner?
If they are sub-issues for a main issue (like the policy impacts of a large decision), one might expect things to go the other way sometimes. “Supporters claim that minimum wages give laborers a stronger bargaining position at the cost of increased unemployment, which may actually raise the total wages going to a particularly defined group. This is possibly true, but doesn’t seem strong enough to overcome the efficiency objections as well as the work experience objections.”
‘Possibly true’ is not agreeing. If you conceded the sub-issue without changing your side, then the sub-issue must have been tangential and not definitive. In a conjunctive counterargument, I can concede some or almost all of the conjuncts and agree, without agreeing on the conclusion—and so anyone looking at my disagreements will note how odd it is that I always conclude I am currently correct...
Well, theology isn’t science. If you do an experiment and the result goes against your hypothesis, your hypothosis is false, period. It’s not necissarily like that when people are arguing with logic instead of experiments. No one on either side would make an argument that wasn’t logically correct. I’ve read both Christian and Atheist material that make a lot of sense sense, although I realize now that I should probably review them because that was before I discovered Less Wrong. There are also plenty of intelligent people who have looked at all the evidence and gone both ways.
There is something very wrong here, from a rationalist’s point of view.
Are there people here that have gone from Christianity to Atheism or the other way around? Or for any other religion? Can I talk to you?
Seems to me the wrong thing is exactly that experiments are not allowed in the debate. Leaving out the voice of reality, all we are left with are the voices of humans. And humans are well known liars.
The trouble with trying to run experiments to prove the existence of God is that it’s very, very difficult to catch out a reclusive omniscient being.
“Unbiased” is a tricky word to use here, because typically it just means a high-quality, reliable source. But what I think you’re looking for is a source that is high quality but intentionally resists drawing conclusions even when someone trying to be accurate would do that—it leaves you, the reader, to do the conclusion-drawing as much as possible (perhaps at the cost of reliability, like a sorcerer who speaks only in riddles). Certain history books are the only sources I’ve thought of that really do this.
You might (with difficulty) find an unbiased investigation into theism vs atheism
I don’t think there is ever a direct refutation of religion in the Sequences, but if you read all of them, you will find yourself much better equipped to think about the relevant questions on your own.
EY is himself an Atheist, obviously, but each article in the Sequences can stand upon its own merit in reality, regardless of whether they were written by an atheist or not. Since EY assumes atheism, you might run across a couple examples where he assumes the reader is an atheist, but since his goal is not to convince you to be an atheist, but rather, to be aware of how to properly examine reality, I think you’d best start off clicking ’Sequences” at the top right of the website.
“unbiased”, “christianity/athiesm”… ok, I probably shouldn’t be laughing, but...well, I am laughing.
No.
Anyone who tells you they can is themself biased. You can tell in which direction by reading the conclusion of whatever they recommend.