Leaving a line of retreat for theists
Eliezer recommends that we leave a line of retreat when discussing controversial topics, since this prevents scary propositions from clouding our judgment. However, I’ve noticed recently that there are some topics that are just too scary for people to think about, the existence of God being a primary example. Simply put, people don’t want to admit that the universe is beyond the reach of a caring God, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary. People especially don’t want to hear that they will one day cease to exist, never to be reincarnated or continued in an afterlife. I’ve found this to be a major stumbling block when having discussions with theists or agnostics—though the people I’ve talked to are willing to accept that nonbelievers can lead very moral lives, the thought that “it’s just us” is the stopsign that prevents the discussion from moving further. Naturally I’ve explained that it’s important to only believe things that are true, but for some people this meme just can’t overcome the scariness of a naturalistic universe.
Have any LessWrongians managed to overcome this obstacle? If so, how? We can generalize this problem somewhat: are there effective techniques for getting people to clearly evaluate the probability of scary or depressing propositions? Explanations with the smallest amount of inferential distance are preferred—while something like cryonics does answer most of the theistic objections raised above, it’s a huge distance away from most people’s belief systems. (That said, it’s quite possible that the answer to my question might be “No, there are no effective techniques that have short inferential distances,” and in the spirit of this post I’m willing to accept that.) I’d also be interested in hearing anecdotes about similar situations if anyone has any.
One “line of retreat” for theists, historically at least, is deism: the belief that while God created the world, God is not involved in it on an ongoing basis. Deism admits of no miracles, prophets, or divine intervention, but can maintain the notion of a God-created moral order as well as physical universe. Deism has a long history of association with rationality, philosophy, and science; as well as with Freemasonry and other older attempts to create a reason-based moral culture.
True, but it can also be a dangerously convenient get-out-of-debate-free card for people who are actually more traditionally theistic than their professed beliefs imply. e.g. one minute they’ll talk about an impersonal, ineffable, deistic creator-god whose nature is forever beyond the understanding of our finite minds, and the next minute they’ll be talking about Jesus of all things.
Oh, absolutely. The Intelligent Design folks are guilty of privileging the hypothesis for acting as if a proof of a Creator would be proof of Jesus. Nor is the argument unique to Christianity; I’ve heard Muslim and Hindu apologetics of much the same regard as the Paley watchmaker argument.
Nonetheless, there does exist a humble deistic position; one that does not assert that the arguer knows the mind or acts of God. Other than various classic sources affiliated with Freemasonry, such as Jefferson, I’ve also heard it from Quakers, Unitarian-Universalists, and Sufis.
Yes, this is what I believed for a while before I saw that Occam’s razor showed that if a universe could exist entirely on its own without God, the hypothesis without a deity would be favored.
True. But you don’t have to go all the way there in one talk. A shift from theism to deism is a step in the right direction.
Not necessarily. It can also be a shift away from receptiveness to evidence.
I haven’t kept careful track of the paths taken by all the people I’ve known who’ve converted from theism to atheism (I sometimes wish I had,) but I have noted that it often comes as a result of taking their religions more seriously and seeing them as sets of beliefs with real factual implications, which should pay rent in anticipated experiences, and then realizing that they simply don’t match up to reality. For some people, deism represents a retreat from ever having to think about the implications of their beliefs.
This is a bit of a digression, but… I notice that the degree to which I am willing to face a prospect that scares me, rather than hide from it, can vary from day to day. It depends on what else is going on, it depends on whether I’ve recently been successful at something, it depends on how the prospect is being framed, it depends on how hopeful I feel about my future, it depends on how worthy I feel. Sometimes it varies and I don’t know why.
I suspect that most people are like that.
So I expect that if achieving my goal depends on getting a person to think about subjects that are too scary for them to think about, it’s worthwhile to think about the larger context of that person, what’s going on in their lives, how recently they’ve been successful at something, how hopeful and worthy they feel, etc., as well as just thinking about the subject itself and compelling arguments for it.
Focus on smaller propositions first. Why are people afraid of there being no caring god? Because then evil people can get away with it, good people don’t get any reward, morality might not be “absolute,” my prayers have been for nothing, I would have to sacrifice my culture, friends, and worldview, etc. Leave a line of retreat for these smaller problems. The larger problems will likely follow.
Also important, I think, is encouraging someone to focus on painful thoughts. Sometimes will accept a line of retreat without focusing on their belief’s weak points, meaning they never bother taking the retreat. Or they’ll only take it strategically, a la this discussion. Other times, people will focus on painful thoughts without having a line of retreat, which can be disastrous.
The God’s universe is even scarier. The infinite amount of suffering in Hell is probably way higher than that inside the naturalistic universe.
Can this help somehow?
I have always found cessation of existence to be vastly more terrifying than hell. At least I can understand hell, the true reality of the situation just makes my whole mind flinch away in terror. Until I found out about transhumanism and began to see that death might just be possible to defeat, I was only able to cope by watching my thoughts closely and making sure they didn’t stray anywhere near the concept (which is itself worrying, since it suggests a very strong reason why I might be biased).
I suspect this is also why I tend to meet lots of people who say they no longer believe in God but still believe in the afterlife, but I have never met anybody who is the other way round.
Your comment surprised me. I didn’t think anyone would prefer hell to cessation of existence. Does your preference also extend to other people, e.g. your loved ones? When someone dies, are you willing to press a button to resurrect them and send them to hell?
I’m not sure, probably not.
What scares me isn’t always quite the same as what I would prefer not to happen, probably a system 1 vs system 2 thing.
I don’t know if this will help, but I was noticeably better at thinking fairly about uncomfortable hypotheses for a while after some experimentation with psychedelics. That’s actually when I realized I was trans. Maybe if the theists in question are the sort of people who use the right sort of drugs, you might want to try revisiting your discussion when they’ve been artificially made more able to consider frightening propositions.
On the other hand, those few months of being more open-minded were also a few months where I kept finding myself believing supernatural things that didn’t make any sense. And I don’t (as far as I know) have a very strong predisposition toward supernatural beliefs. So you probably shouldn’t encourage your friends to drop more acid than they would without your interference; the nudge toward spiritual delusions might well do more harm than the openmindedness did good.
Most believers (in God or other kinds of unproven phenomena) that I met seem quite hard to convince with reasoning—because that’s just not how they think. Often, there seems to be some amorphous blob of beliefs and convictions, and the Arrows Of Reason simply bounce off.
Many people simply do not seem interested in thinking about the reasons for their beliefs, let alone question them.
I agree. Thought when the amorphous blobs of beliefs are tied to religion I at least sort of expect them to be there and plan accordingly.
So, you have some specific method of dealing with these people and their blobs? Can you elaborate? My usual method is avoiding debates with such people, but I wonder if there some better way...
Speak in Deep Wisdom. Choose the things you would like them to believe, such as “form beliefs based on evidence”, and make it sound like a beautiful poetic truth.
This borders dangerously on Dark Arts, though. If someone is capable of better forms of reasoning, then only use the best they’re capable of, even if a more flawed argument could get them to the right conclusion. And, of course, try to convey the most meta ideas you can—“use evidence”, not “disbelieve religion”.
That’s exactly what I found in my interactions with evangelical Christians especially. (Also, they take into account “evidence” that is only valid if they already believe in God AND the whole Christianity-specific complex...i.e. quoting Bible verses to make a point.)
Pedantic correction:
I think you have this exactly backwards. (Not that your thinking is backwards; it just ended up worded wrong.)
Thanks, fixed.
No experience, just an idea: create a line of retreat for a “smaller version” of the topic before confronting the whole, to make the concept more available. First, answer “what would you do if it turned out that you(r friends) were mistaken about some minor details of God”, and only after that ask about nonexistence. (I’d guess that more iterations would be seen as condescending.)