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This is a blog on why we believe and do what we do, why we pretend otherwise, how we might do better, and what our descendants might do, if they don't all die.
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This is our monthly place to discuss relevant topics that have not appeared in recent posts.
Open Thread
Should ethics for ems be computed by another em given some bias research (by humans? by ems?) or agreed by global catholic authorities? Would it be possible for an em to be a good Christian and at the same time destroy the Church in the long run? For that matter with processing power wouldn't it be possible to be a good, optimal diplomatic em within all cultures while destroying their beliefs in the long run?
religion has essentially no effect on people’s actual sexual behavior. Atheists and believers engage in the same practices, at basically the same rate, starting at essentially the same age. We’re all doing pretty much the same stuff. Believers just feel worse about it. As Ray told me, “Our data shows that people feel very guilty about their sexual behavior when they are religious, but that does not stop them: it just makes them feel bad. Of course, they have to return to their religion to get forgiveness. It’s like the church gives you the disease, then offers you a fake cure.”
But recovery turns out to be possible:
According to conventional wisdom — and I will freely admit that I held this conventional wisdom myself — religious guilt about sex continues to torment people long after the religion itself has lost its hold. But according to the “Sex and Secularism” report, that’s rarely the case. Once people let go of religion, people’s positive experiences of sex, and their relative lack of guilt, happen at about the same rate as people who were never religious in the first place.
Both fromsex and secularism