It seems to me a strawman only from the religious perspective.
Those in the faith want to apply constraints sometimes, but not other times, and the way these constraints are selected seems quite arbitrary to a non-believer. So why make an ark to save its inhabitants from a flood—why not just have all those who perish die by miracle? If the Jews are to annihilate the tribe of Amalek, isn’t it more efficient and easier to just have Amalek die by divine decree...in other words, drop dead?
Rather, the concept of a religion sets up a relationship between God and people. And just like you ask you spouse or child (or sister, etc.) to do something for you when you could have just done it yourself, because you want to use it as a means of establishing and maintaining a relationship, so too, religion was crafted to establish and maintain a relationship between man and God. So even if one doesn’t believe in God, that person can understand why the people who do believe in any given religion make up a God that requires interaction and dedication and participation of the people, rather than just have everything miraculously happen.
Which is why, once again, I sense that the truth of religion is a better way to argue than the morality angle.
I’m again years late to the party, but there’s a couple things here that I want to respond to:
It seems to me a strawman only from the religious perspective.
If I read between the lines, you seem to be suggesting “It’s not a strawman if you don’t take religious beliefs seriously. Non-believers have no obligation to care whether their critique-of-religion accurately represents the thing being critiqued.” If I’m misreading you, please tell me. But if that is your position, it’s *exactly opposite* the spirit of epistemic generosity that this article is trying to advocate, and that LessWrong overall shows such a strong commitment to. Rigorous debate means representing the opposing view as strongly and faithfully as possible, *especially* when you think it’s idiotic. You don’t earn the right to strawman someone’s claims (nor say that it’s only a strawman “from their perspective”) just because you find their belief system harmful and abhorrent.
Which points to a fun irony: this is an article about how people avoid their beliefs’ real weak points. My comment calls out what I see as Yudkowsky taking a low blow, departing from his admirably high argumentative standards, by importing a capability (eg mass teleportation, or everyone-simultaneously-dropping-dead-by-miracle) that religious sources don’t set precedent for, even though I agree with the broader point about God having more humane options and allegedly acting in ways that break my suspension of disbelief. Your response essentially amounts to: “It’s fine to be sloppy when criticizing religion because believers are sloppy too.” But that’s *exactly* the kind of motivated reasoning the article is warning against, just applied in the anti-religion direction. The article’s lesson is that epistemic honesty requires applying rigorous scrutiny to your own beliefs and arguments at least as much as you apply it to views you disagree with.
I’ll also note that my original comment wasn’t making “the morality angle.” I wasn’t defending God’s alleged behavior, honestly, he sounds like kind of a jerk. I was saying the criticism itself is sloppy on its own terms. Those are very different claims. Conflating them makes it harder to have the kind of honest, careful conversation that this site was built for.
It seems to me a strawman only from the religious perspective.
Those in the faith want to apply constraints sometimes, but not other times, and the way these constraints are selected seems quite arbitrary to a non-believer. So why make an ark to save its inhabitants from a flood—why not just have all those who perish die by miracle? If the Jews are to annihilate the tribe of Amalek, isn’t it more efficient and easier to just have Amalek die by divine decree...in other words, drop dead?
Rather, the concept of a religion sets up a relationship between God and people. And just like you ask you spouse or child (or sister, etc.) to do something for you when you could have just done it yourself, because you want to use it as a means of establishing and maintaining a relationship, so too, religion was crafted to establish and maintain a relationship between man and God. So even if one doesn’t believe in God, that person can understand why the people who do believe in any given religion make up a God that requires interaction and dedication and participation of the people, rather than just have everything miraculously happen.
Which is why, once again, I sense that the truth of religion is a better way to argue than the morality angle.
I’m again years late to the party, but there’s a couple things here that I want to respond to:
If I read between the lines, you seem to be suggesting “It’s not a strawman if you don’t take religious beliefs seriously. Non-believers have no obligation to care whether their critique-of-religion accurately represents the thing being critiqued.” If I’m misreading you, please tell me. But if that is your position, it’s *exactly opposite* the spirit of epistemic generosity that this article is trying to advocate, and that LessWrong overall shows such a strong commitment to. Rigorous debate means representing the opposing view as strongly and faithfully as possible, *especially* when you think it’s idiotic. You don’t earn the right to strawman someone’s claims (nor say that it’s only a strawman “from their perspective”) just because you find their belief system harmful and abhorrent.
Which points to a fun irony: this is an article about how people avoid their beliefs’ real weak points. My comment calls out what I see as Yudkowsky taking a low blow, departing from his admirably high argumentative standards, by importing a capability (eg mass teleportation, or everyone-simultaneously-dropping-dead-by-miracle) that religious sources don’t set precedent for, even though I agree with the broader point about God having more humane options and allegedly acting in ways that break my suspension of disbelief. Your response essentially amounts to: “It’s fine to be sloppy when criticizing religion because believers are sloppy too.” But that’s *exactly* the kind of motivated reasoning the article is warning against, just applied in the anti-religion direction. The article’s lesson is that epistemic honesty requires applying rigorous scrutiny to your own beliefs and arguments at least as much as you apply it to views you disagree with.
I’ll also note that my original comment wasn’t making “the morality angle.” I wasn’t defending God’s alleged behavior, honestly, he sounds like kind of a jerk. I was saying the criticism itself is sloppy on its own terms. Those are very different claims. Conflating them makes it harder to have the kind of honest, careful conversation that this site was built for.