Visible_Ignorance

• Visible_Ignorance 21 Feb 2022 23:08 UTC

  9 points

  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Seek­ing mod­els of LW’s aver­sion to religion

  you assert “LW has an aversion against truth”

  Wait, where do I do that?

• Visible_Ignorance 21 Feb 2022 22:37 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Slider’s comment on: Seek­ing mod­els of LW’s aver­sion to religion

  I have not really encountered the word “scientistic” a lot. To me there is a big difference between “scientific” and “scientism” and we are dealing here at a level where such kind of distinctions are crucial.

  Agreed. I am using “scientistic” to mean “attempting to fit into science as literary genre.”

  Religions might come with a clear tradition lines but it can be quite nebolous to map what the corresponding things are for areligious people.

  My model is that areligious people indeed vary, but that there is a specific “science as literary genre” thing that leads a particular subset of people to reject religion in similar ways (and to often also reject e.g. virtue ethics or having rhythms to life such as weekends at the same time), with sometimes-similar psychological sequelae.

• Visible_Ignorance 21 Feb 2022 21:58 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: Morpheus’s comment on: Seek­ing mod­els of LW’s aver­sion to religion

  This component makes sense, but I’m trying to find out whether there is also some other objection that I should take more warning from. I expect some conformity /​ accidental status dynamics on LW like everywhere else (though less here than most places). But I think there is more than this in LW’s responses to religion. The observations I’m trying to make sense of include not just the absence of much religious discussion, but also e.g.:

  • This comment of Vladimir_Nesov’s

  • The heatedness of the discussion in Valentine’s old post about Kensho

  • My post here having received multiple downvotes, despite downvotes being fairly rare in general. (I am not at all complaining! You are giving me the discussion I was seeking in the comments, and I am grateful. I don’t think people downvote much just for low status topics, though; I think there’s some other dynamic.)

  My guess is that there is some active, endorsed, intelligent opposition to religion on LW, maybe because some people understand something I don’t. I want to figure out whether that’s so. I want this in case there’s a good reason to fear religion (so I can know this important true thing), and in case there isn’t (so I can bridge to LW-ers better, and can avoid being spooked by something silly).

• Visible_Ignorance 21 Feb 2022 20:57 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: Adele Lopez’s comment on: Seek­ing mod­els of LW’s aver­sion to religion

  I have a prior that people who are attracted to religion tend to be either willfully blind to or supportive of such evils, which perhaps looks like Objection 2 from the outside.

  Thank you. I need to think more about what causes this. (Hypotheses appreciated, if anyone has some to share.)

• Visible_Ignorance 21 Feb 2022 20:41 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Seek­ing mod­els of LW’s aver­sion to religion

  Speaking from my own personal history with religion, the thing I objected to was not actually religion in general, but Protestant Christianity and specifically its attempt to control beliefs and thoughts.

  Thank you. This makes sense and I had not thought of it.

  I, too, find social pressure around what to believe abhorrent, while social pressure around how to act seems basically fine.

  Do you (or anyone else who wants to answer this) think religion is basically un-alarming when it avoids social pressure around what to believe?

  How do you feel about social pressures (in mainstream, non-religious society) to e.g. appear to like and to feel peaceful toward the people around you, appear to trust school to be about education and healthcare to be about health, etc.? Are these similar to or far from your experiences in Protestant Christianity?