This is a utilitarian argument for either believing or pretending to believe poorly-supported superstitions for social benefits. Do you value the truth that little?
My favorite counter-thought-experiment to this comes from Sam Harris:
A man believes there is gold buried in his very large backyard. Every Sunday morning he wakes up, grabs his shovel, and starts digging. There is no gold. But the digging is good exercise. There are no substantial negative consequences of his belief.
Is his activity justified on the basis of its utility? How much do we figure in the value of truth here? If people want to either delude themselves or pretend to delude themselves in order to benefit tangibly, I’d say they’re doing a disservice to truth. You don’t particularly seem to care about that. Or do you?
This is a utilitarian argument for either believing or pretending to believe poorly-supported superstitions for social benefits. Do you value the truth that little?
This is not my position. I have made no claim that you should believe poorly supported superstitions. I specifically believe you can engage in religion without doing this, which is part of what I’m pointing at in this post.
I also added ‘pretending to believe’. I see your position as wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You’re encouraging people to join the most watered-down religions that make the smallest epistemological demands on followers, so that they can enjoy the benefits of community and mental well-being.
You say:
My argument is roughly that religions uniquely provide a source of meaning, community, and life guidance not available elsewhere, and to the extent anything that doesn’t consider itself a religion provides these, it’s because it’s imitating the package of things that makes something a religion.
I’d tend to agree with you. But how is it that religions are able to uniquely provide a source of meaning, community and life guidance, if not through shared belief? You’re arguing we can reap the benefits of the effects without the cause. I’m most familiar with christianity. Where do you think the source of meaning and guidance on how to live your life come from, if not in a shared belief that jesus is the son of god, that he died for your sins, and was resurrected?
I’m less familiar with buddhism, but every religion requires some commitment of belief, and that’s the whole point.
Not all religions require much in the way of shared beliefs. Many require only that you do. It’s your duty to, say, carry out some rituals and practices, but what meaning you find in them and what you believe about them is up to you to decide. This is the way it is in Zen and among old-line Quakers.
It’d be unfair to say there’s no shared beliefs, of course. If you don’t believe in the Four Nobel Truths, it’s hard to be a Buddhist, but you can take them more as claims that you either agree with or don’t. If you don’t agree with them, Buddhism is probably not for you. If you do, then it might be.
I’ll just also say that commitment to a belief being the whole point is a very Abrahamic view and less common in other religions.
I’ll just also say that commitment to a belief being the whole point is a very Abrahamic view and less common in other religions.
It seems to me that Anglo-American atheists often have a Protestant (or even specifically Lutheran) ontology of religion; they implicitly expect that “religion” must mean something creedal, evangelical, often sola scriptura, and various other things that aren’t even universal among denominations of Christianity.
Piggybacking off of it, suppose the man is struggling in life and otherwise doesn’t get any exercise. Suppose that Sunday morning digging really improves his health and quality of life a lot. Is the activity justified?
How about if he’s depressed? What if he isn’t digging by himself but is instead digging with a tight nit community of other gold believers? The digging provides him with feelings of warmth and connection that make life worth living. Is it justified then?
Where I’m coming from is that, supposing we view truth as an end in-and-of-itself, I want to question how much weight we give to truth relative to other ends we are interested in. I think that regardless of whether you are a consequentialist or virtue ethicist or deontologist or whatever, non-naive versions of these philosophies will weigh different considerations against one another.[1]
And so I don’t think OP’s position here indicates that he assigns a low value to truth. I moreso suspect that he is weighing truth against other important considerations and feels that the calculus comes out in favor of sacrificing some truth in favor of other important things.
And so I don’t think OP’s position here indicates that he assigns a low value to truth. I moreso suspect that he is weighing truth against other important considerations and feels that the calculus comes out in favor of sacrificing some truth in favor of other important things.
Just to be clear, I don’t think you have to sacrifice any truth at all and that it’s possible to engage with religion, assuming the right religion, that actually aids in your pursuit of truth by helping you develop greater psychological safety to have to courage to face what is so.
That said, if you really wanted to practice, say, Pentecostalism, you would in fact have to give up some truth to get benefits from it. I would not advocate that rationalists become Pentecostalist on this basis, and instead suggestion religions where engagement need not involve a truth tradeoff.
This is a utilitarian argument for either believing or pretending to believe poorly-supported superstitions for social benefits. Do you value the truth that little?
My favorite counter-thought-experiment to this comes from Sam Harris:
A man believes there is gold buried in his very large backyard. Every Sunday morning he wakes up, grabs his shovel, and starts digging. There is no gold. But the digging is good exercise. There are no substantial negative consequences of his belief.
Is his activity justified on the basis of its utility? How much do we figure in the value of truth here? If people want to either delude themselves or pretend to delude themselves in order to benefit tangibly, I’d say they’re doing a disservice to truth. You don’t particularly seem to care about that. Or do you?
This is not my position. I have made no claim that you should believe poorly supported superstitions. I specifically believe you can engage in religion without doing this, which is part of what I’m pointing at in this post.
I also added ‘pretending to believe’. I see your position as wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You’re encouraging people to join the most watered-down religions that make the smallest epistemological demands on followers, so that they can enjoy the benefits of community and mental well-being.
You say:
I’d tend to agree with you. But how is it that religions are able to uniquely provide a source of meaning, community and life guidance, if not through shared belief? You’re arguing we can reap the benefits of the effects without the cause. I’m most familiar with christianity. Where do you think the source of meaning and guidance on how to live your life come from, if not in a shared belief that jesus is the son of god, that he died for your sins, and was resurrected?
I’m less familiar with buddhism, but every religion requires some commitment of belief, and that’s the whole point.
Not all religions require much in the way of shared beliefs. Many require only that you do. It’s your duty to, say, carry out some rituals and practices, but what meaning you find in them and what you believe about them is up to you to decide. This is the way it is in Zen and among old-line Quakers.
It’d be unfair to say there’s no shared beliefs, of course. If you don’t believe in the Four Nobel Truths, it’s hard to be a Buddhist, but you can take them more as claims that you either agree with or don’t. If you don’t agree with them, Buddhism is probably not for you. If you do, then it might be.
I’ll just also say that commitment to a belief being the whole point is a very Abrahamic view and less common in other religions.
It seems to me that Anglo-American atheists often have a Protestant (or even specifically Lutheran) ontology of religion; they implicitly expect that “religion” must mean something creedal, evangelical, often sola scriptura, and various other things that aren’t even universal among denominations of Christianity.
That’s an excellent thought experiment!
Piggybacking off of it, suppose the man is struggling in life and otherwise doesn’t get any exercise. Suppose that Sunday morning digging really improves his health and quality of life a lot. Is the activity justified?
How about if he’s depressed? What if he isn’t digging by himself but is instead digging with a tight nit community of other gold believers? The digging provides him with feelings of warmth and connection that make life worth living. Is it justified then?
Where I’m coming from is that, supposing we view truth as an end in-and-of-itself, I want to question how much weight we give to truth relative to other ends we are interested in. I think that regardless of whether you are a consequentialist or virtue ethicist or deontologist or whatever, non-naive versions of these philosophies will weigh different considerations against one another.[1]
And so I don’t think OP’s position here indicates that he assigns a low value to truth. I moreso suspect that he is weighing truth against other important considerations and feels that the calculus comes out in favor of sacrificing some truth in favor of other important things.
Thanks to Gordon for helping me understand this in this dialogue!
Just to be clear, I don’t think you have to sacrifice any truth at all and that it’s possible to engage with religion, assuming the right religion, that actually aids in your pursuit of truth by helping you develop greater psychological safety to have to courage to face what is so.
That said, if you really wanted to practice, say, Pentecostalism, you would in fact have to give up some truth to get benefits from it. I would not advocate that rationalists become Pentecostalist on this basis, and instead suggestion religions where engagement need not involve a truth tradeoff.