″ Kurige: One thing I’ve come to realize that helps to explain the disparity I feel when I talk with most other Christians is the fact that somewhere along the way my world-view took a major shift away from blind faith and landed somewhere in the vicinity of Orwellian double-think.”
I defy the data! Have you considered the possibility that kurige is a troll? This is an exceptionally weird statement even for a Christian…
A troll seems more likely than the odds of us having a real, live Protestant Christian here… I’ve never heard of one making it very far on OB. The idea of Christians trying to read OB is a joke to me—it must seem like crazy gibberish to them.
Needlessly negatively worded generalizations about outgroups considered harmful, especially since someone might eventually want to show this site to a member of that outgroup for whatever reason.
Utilitarian is or was a Pascal’s Wager Christian and OB poster, professing and following Christianity while acknowledging that the evidence suggests that it is very probably false. Kurige’s Orwellian stance fits into the same mold of anomalous Christianity reshaped on the rack of contrary evidence.
I’m a lifelong atheist trying to see my way clear to [one of the more serious branches of] Christianity. Eliezer’s posts, especially, have helped me draw my map of the strengths and limitations of rationalism. I’m not here to troll, I’m here to learn.
A phrase like trying to see my way clear to should be a giant red flag. If you’re trying to accept something then you must have some sort of motivation. If you have the motivation to accept something because you actually believe it is true, then you’ve already accepted it. If you have that motivation for some other reason, then you’re deceiving yourself.
This comment is even more interesting than kurige… when you said:
“trying to see my way clear to [one of the more serious branches of] Christianity.”
you mean that you want to make yourself into a christian, i.e. you want to have a particular belief? That is fascinating. I’d love to hear more about this or chat to you. I’m easy to email...
It isn’t impossible, but I feel that there is a 50⁄50 chance that we are being taken for a ride here… I have spoken to many christians in my time, and never, ever have I come accross a christian who admits that they are “engaging in doublethink”
It would be interesting to think about how we could test to see whether Kurige is for real.
Heh, we did at one point have at least one Christian reader, but they deconverted, at least in part due to what they read here. Weirdly, they still seem to treat Christianity as a proper idea worth taking seriously, but I guess cognitive dissonance takes time to wear off.
″ Kurige: One thing I’ve come to realize that helps to explain the disparity I feel when I talk with most other Christians is the fact that somewhere along the way my world-view took a major shift away from blind faith and landed somewhere in the vicinity of Orwellian double-think.”
I defy the data! Have you considered the possibility that kurige is a troll? This is an exceptionally weird statement even for a Christian…
A troll seems more likely than the odds of us having a real, live Protestant Christian here… I’ve never heard of one making it very far on OB. The idea of Christians trying to read OB is a joke to me—it must seem like crazy gibberish to them.
Needlessly negatively worded generalizations about outgroups considered harmful, especially since someone might eventually want to show this site to a member of that outgroup for whatever reason.
Utilitarian is or was a Pascal’s Wager Christian and OB poster, professing and following Christianity while acknowledging that the evidence suggests that it is very probably false. Kurige’s Orwellian stance fits into the same mold of anomalous Christianity reshaped on the rack of contrary evidence.
I’m a lifelong atheist trying to see my way clear to [one of the more serious branches of] Christianity. Eliezer’s posts, especially, have helped me draw my map of the strengths and limitations of rationalism. I’m not here to troll, I’m here to learn.
A phrase like trying to see my way clear to should be a giant red flag. If you’re trying to accept something then you must have some sort of motivation. If you have the motivation to accept something because you actually believe it is true, then you’ve already accepted it. If you have that motivation for some other reason, then you’re deceiving yourself.
I want it because it’s beautiful, but I won’t take it unless it’s true.
Truth has a beauty all its own.
Not that false things can’t have beauty, but we usually call those things art.
This comment is even more interesting than kurige… when you said:
“trying to see my way clear to [one of the more serious branches of] Christianity.”
you mean that you want to make yourself into a christian, i.e. you want to have a particular belief? That is fascinating. I’d love to hear more about this or chat to you. I’m easy to email...
It isn’t impossible, but I feel that there is a 50⁄50 chance that we are being taken for a ride here… I have spoken to many christians in my time, and never, ever have I come accross a christian who admits that they are “engaging in doublethink”
It would be interesting to think about how we could test to see whether Kurige is for real.
Heh, we did at one point have at least one Christian reader, but they deconverted, at least in part due to what they read here. Weirdly, they still seem to treat Christianity as a proper idea worth taking seriously, but I guess cognitive dissonance takes time to wear off.
(if you’re reading—hello!)