Consider two facts: People with religious beliefs, and associated behavior, consistently tend to have better lives. It seems that religious folks tend to be happier, live longer, smoke less, exercise more,
I think this post is very insightful. If only the New Atheists used their momentum to promote helpful religious beliefs with less externalities compared to conventional ones. I wonder if the recent renaissance of Stoicism, meditation etc. might be considered such beliefs.
A pet peeve of mine is the leftists get upset and say how terrible it is that people do NOT believe in evolution, but it has almost no implications for policy, while things like anti-GM, anti-vaccination, blank slateism and yes AGW do effect policy.
Well, the knowledge of the territory is what allows some people to predict with high probability that statement X is true and statement Y is false.
For those who don't care about the territory, I guess it's about tribal status. Who game them the power? Those with lower status, by their weakness or gullibility.
After I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a remark is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any way you can take away me from that service? Thanks!
There is a long history that shows that living a lie is destructive. There is also a long history that shows that the difference between the "near truth" and the "far truth" is ultimately illusory.
A lot of the previous commenters basically said what I was thinking, that despite the "benefits" of religion, it'd be incredibly difficult to force yourself to be religious. It seems as though some of the most troubled people I've known are those who constantly doubt the existence of God while trying to live a Godly life. These include a father-in-law I've never met who's been imprisoned for the statutory rape of his own step-daughter, my own father who's suffered from depression for many years, various drug addicted 20-somethings, & a crackhead who robbed my parents and wrote them emotional letters about his faith from prison. So I'm an atheist for personal reasons. I feel like many Christians I've known have been willing to sin because they knew they could ask forgiveness. I've always found it easier to just keep from doing things that hurt myself and others. I think morality makes more sense that way & I don't want to feel guilty for things that do no harm or even for things that help people.
That said, as an atheist, I'm a happy non-smoker who exercises. I've been married almost 5 years & we're planning to have 1 or 2 children. My household now makes almost $100k a year. I've never committed a crime or used illegal drugs. I have a number of friends, religious and non-religious. I've volunteered in the past and while we don't donate much to charity yet, we plan on giving to effective charities once we're done paying student loans off & saving for a house. If these are the things that make a person good (& I think there's a lot more to it than that), then I apparently don't need to be religious to be a good person. :)
I'm guessing you are referring to drug addicts/petty criminals/alcoholics, etc. for whom this strategy works, i.e. replacing one addiction (chemical) with another(Jesus). Then again, I don't know what your definition of "bad" is. A huge percentage of the currently jailed in America self-describe as "Christians". So much for that.
" It seems that religious folks tend to be happier, live longer, smoke less, exercise more, earn more, get and stay married more, commit less crime, use less illegal drugs, have more social connections, donate and volunteer more, and have more kids"
I suppose it's quite possible to have a utility function where many of these have negative coefficients. I think that answers the question.
Evolution, i.e. natural selection won’t evolve something like “want truth” unless “wanting truth” increases descendants.
Right. And?
It's fairly obvious to me, at least, that near truths are useful. Knowing the truth about which plants are poisonous, which animals are dangerous, etc. would seem to correlate pretty well with surviving and having descendants survive; a desire to know the truth would then correlate with success.
Unnatural selection can select for anythingUm, no, it similarly can only select for things that increase descendants under the circumstances. The only difference is that the circumstances are chosen by a mind rather than physical nature — and, to a materialist, those are the same thing anyway.
can even select for “believe nonsense” if the alternatives are believe nonsense or be killed by nonsense believers.
Yes, like I said, it’s perfectly possible that a generic “WANT TRUTH” which evolved for the obvious utility in the near domain will then be acted on by natural selection to care less about far domains than near ones, insofar as desiring truth about far domains is detrimental to survival and reproduction. But because division between near and far domains is context-dependent and unstable, the result is any such selection will be fitful and partial at best.
In particular, it's a lot easier to evolve a "don't disagree with your social group out loud" mechanism (since that is directly selected for) than modifying a pro-survival "want truth" mechanism to distinguish "near" and "far" domains.
Which brings us back to evolutionary selection to want to know the truth (domain unrestricted) is substantially more evolutionarily plausible than evolutionary selection to want to know the truth (near domain only).
I doubt that I could ever convince myself to believe in God the same way religious people do. I have learned a little bit too much about rationality from the LW/OB meme-cluster, and I naturally have a tendency to be quite rational/consistent/non-compartmentalizing.
I think that if a terrorist with an accurate brain-scanner put a gun to my head and said "You have to really believe in God in the next hour or I will kill you" I would not be able to save myself.
I do not think there are more bad people than good people. My students also start out insisting that this is true. But then I like to ask my students this question:
"If you had to leave a one year old baby for 6 hours--long enough that she'd get very hungry, thirst, need changing, etc--would you rather leave your baby with a random stranger selected at random or with a rock?"
They almost all say "the rock". And then they realize that they really don't think most humans are very good at all. What kind of monster do you have to be to harm a baby?
I think this post is very insightful. If only the New Atheists used their momentum to promote helpful religious beliefs with less externalities compared to conventional ones. I wonder if the recent renaissance of Stoicism, meditation etc. might be considered such beliefs.
almost no implications for policy
Seems to me to have enormous implications for education policy.
A pet peeve of mine is the leftists get upset and say how terrible it is that people do NOT believe in evolution, but it has almost no implications for policy, while things like anti-GM, anti-vaccination, blank slateism and yes AGW do effect policy.
here in israel is just like you say
Religion is a thing, that makes people better and increases their morals. However there are fair people, who are not religious...
Well, the knowledge of the territory is what allows some people to predict with high probability that statement X is true and statement Y is false.
For those who don't care about the territory, I guess it's about tribal status. Who game them the power? Those with lower status, by their weakness or gullibility.
But what actually is the truth!? Who give the power to some people to say that this is truth and this is lie!
"People with religious beliefs, and associated behavior, consistently tend to have better lives."
Are you familiar with the difference between correlation and causation?
After I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a remark is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any way you can take away me from that service? Thanks!
There is a long history that shows that living a lie is destructive. There is also a long history that shows that the difference between the "near truth" and the "far truth" is ultimately illusory.
A lot of the previous commenters basically said what I was thinking, that despite the "benefits" of religion, it'd be incredibly difficult to force yourself to be religious. It seems as though some of the most troubled people I've known are those who constantly doubt the existence of God while trying to live a Godly life. These include a father-in-law I've never met who's been imprisoned for the statutory rape of his own step-daughter, my own father who's suffered from depression for many years, various drug addicted 20-somethings, & a crackhead who robbed my parents and wrote them emotional letters about his faith from prison. So I'm an atheist for personal reasons. I feel like many Christians I've known have been willing to sin because they knew they could ask forgiveness. I've always found it easier to just keep from doing things that hurt myself and others. I think morality makes more sense that way & I don't want to feel guilty for things that do no harm or even for things that help people.
That said, as an atheist, I'm a happy non-smoker who exercises. I've been married almost 5 years & we're planning to have 1 or 2 children. My household now makes almost $100k a year. I've never committed a crime or used illegal drugs. I have a number of friends, religious and non-religious. I've volunteered in the past and while we don't donate much to charity yet, we plan on giving to effective charities once we're done paying student loans off & saving for a house. If these are the things that make a person good (& I think there's a lot more to it than that), then I apparently don't need to be religious to be a good person. :)
I'm guessing you are referring to drug addicts/petty criminals/alcoholics, etc. for whom this strategy works, i.e. replacing one addiction (chemical) with another(Jesus). Then again, I don't know what your definition of "bad" is. A huge percentage of the currently jailed in America self-describe as "Christians". So much for that.
" It seems that religious folks tend to be happier, live longer, smoke less, exercise more, earn more, get and stay married more, commit less crime, use less illegal drugs, have more social connections, donate and volunteer more, and have more kids"
I suppose it's quite possible to have a utility function where many of these have negative coefficients. I think that answers the question.
Evolution, i.e. natural selection won’t evolve something like “want truth” unless “wanting truth” increases descendants.
Right. And?
It's fairly obvious to me, at least, that near truths are useful. Knowing the truth about which plants are poisonous, which animals are dangerous, etc. would seem to correlate pretty well with surviving and having descendants survive; a desire to know the truth would then correlate with success.
Unnatural selection can select for anythingUm, no, it similarly can only select for things that increase descendants under the circumstances. The only difference is that the circumstances are chosen by a mind rather than physical nature — and, to a materialist, those are the same thing anyway.
can even select for “believe nonsense” if the alternatives are believe nonsense or be killed by nonsense believers.
Yes, like I said, it’s perfectly possible that a generic “WANT TRUTH” which evolved for the obvious utility in the near domain will then be acted on by natural selection to care less about far domains than near ones, insofar as desiring truth about far domains is detrimental to survival and reproduction. But because division between near and far domains is context-dependent and unstable, the result is any such selection will be fitful and partial at best.
In particular, it's a lot easier to evolve a "don't disagree with your social group out loud" mechanism (since that is directly selected for) than modifying a pro-survival "want truth" mechanism to distinguish "near" and "far" domains.
Which brings us back to evolutionary selection to want to know the truth (domain unrestricted) is substantially more evolutionarily plausible than evolutionary selection to want to know the truth (near domain only).
I doubt that I could ever convince myself to believe in God the same way religious people do. I have learned a little bit too much about rationality from the LW/OB meme-cluster, and I naturally have a tendency to be quite rational/consistent/non-compartmentalizing.
I think that if a terrorist with an accurate brain-scanner put a gun to my head and said "You have to really believe in God in the next hour or I will kill you" I would not be able to save myself.
I do not think there are more bad people than good people. My students also start out insisting that this is true. But then I like to ask my students this question:
"If you had to leave a one year old baby for 6 hours--long enough that she'd get very hungry, thirst, need changing, etc--would you rather leave your baby with a random stranger selected at random or with a rock?"
They almost all say "the rock". And then they realize that they really don't think most humans are very good at all. What kind of monster do you have to be to harm a baby?