LesserWrong is dead to me. Trust nothing here; it is not truth-tracking.
PDV
Karma: 149
“Spiritual but not religious” is a separate category from “Atheist”, to the government and to the people who identify as it. Glossing atheist as “without god” is a literal translation, not a true one.
Saying that something is a community values affirmation is not saying much at all. That doesn’t give you enough information to make a judgment. How and why you are affirming shared values, and the shape of the event in which you do it, can range from “bland expression of allegiance to the Unitarian Applause Lights” to a coercive public session of a personality cult. The details, not the broad goal, are the important thing.
I don’t have confidence that it was just [Munchkin] who was the problem, among kids. At past events that has been true, but there were more kids of an age with them this time, and so I specifically avoided rushing to that judgment. (Not that it kept me from getting yelled at on Facebook.)
I do think that the overall argument about kids at events has, up to this point, been a disguised referendum on [Munchkin] specifically, basically every time. Mentioning this did and honestly still does feel unspeakably rude because there’s basically no way to have that discussion without it being a direct social attack on something intensely personal for them and their parental figures.
[EDIT NOTE: This previously contained a particular kid’s name. Benquo pointed out that they have not and probably can’t yet consent to that, so I have replaced the real name with [Munchkin]. I will privately share the kid’s name on request, if it isn’t clear from context.]
I don’t agree at all. In an atomized society, a zero-tolerance policy for getting mindhacked can and should be adopted.
I don’t consider those religious.
I wouldn’t term those atheist.
I believe there is at least a notional rule that community-focused posts do not get frontpaged.
That seems fair. It was a reply to a comment I perceived as hostile.
That seems like the fallacy of grey to me. Yes, it’s easier to notice when a church is cultish than a startup or political movement. Yes, there is significant incidence of cultish startups and political movements. That doesn’t mean that churches aren’t much worse. Fairly few churches are not cultish; fairly few of the rest are.
Rituals are system 1 techniques, usually group-based. They are means of bypassing analytical filters to work directly on alief.
Some amount of ritual is needed to make a larger ceremony work, but referring to the large ceremony as a ritual is more of a synecdoche than a clear description.
Huh. I personally think the 10-60 seconds of nothing is the thing being disrupted. You need to have a space for the emotional weight to hit the audience and stick, before you move on.
Religious events don’t have this problem so it’s clearly solvable. I guess that points to creating some alternate outlet for reactions?
I don’t believe you. Please provide three examples of atheist religious ceremonies.
It is extremely obvious to me and I don’t understand how it could seem otherwise.
Well, an atheist religious ceremony is a contradiction in terms. Observing religious ceremonies to see what mechanisms they use to reinforce beliefs and group identity, and which of those can be extracted to use in a way that respects good epistemics, is not. That is what I try to do in holiday design and what I think Solstice should do.
I don’t understand what you’re saying about theatrical events but a consumer experience would also be bad and not worth supporting.
Fellow-feeling is a tool because the Asch Conformity Experiment works.
How could it possibly not? Churches are built on affective death spirals. You might manage to prevent that but you’re starting out with something that’s designed to fail for your purposes.
Hopefully they would fail, but they might succeed, and divert people away from rationality. I don’t think a rationality church could possibly remain rationalist.
Personally, if someone started a rationality church I would first try to dissuade them, and second try to ostracize them from the community.
I agree that there are multiple competing visions of Solstice, but I don’t see the religious ritual format and community gathering format in as much of a conflict as you.
As I said in another thread, I see the purpose of Solstice, and rationalist holidays generally, as community values affirmation. Borrowing some traits of religious ceremonies is a powerful but dangerous tool for this purpose. Size and fellow-feeling is another tool. Theatricality is another, but definitely secondary. For the established arc and values of “The world is dangerous and fragile, but we have overcome impossible challenges and can do it again” for the Brighter Than Today, they seem like the correct tools. Other holidays, mine and other people’s, use different tools and affirm different values; ideally, we would have all the central values of the community attached to at least one regular event.
I definitely do not think that Solstice as theatrical event is good or valuable. If it isn’t serving a higher purpose than entertainment, it’s just bad political art.
More ritual is not my goal. I’ve said before that I consider ritual extremely dangerous, and to be minimized as much as possible without impeding the pursuit of the goal.
The goal, in my view, is community values affirmation, exemplified by the dawn-darkness-light arc. “Civilization has brought us a very long way. There is a lot still to do, but humanity is powerful and victory is possible.” If the audience leaves with that reinforced as an alief, and a sense that they are among a community which shares it, that is success.
Religious weddings and funerals are common because most people are religious. Most weddings and funerals of atheists I know of were not atheist, because the principals weren’t antitheist enough to care and their families wanted a religious ceremony. But, for example, Ozy and Topher Brennan’s wedding was not religious.
And I don’t know what kinds of concerts you’re referring to at all, but yes, I expect so. Religious and atheist are antonyms.