I can’t count the times I’ve seen atheists accused of not believing in God because of some reason other than through an honest attempt to consider the evidence. We were offended, or traumatized, or we have rebellious desires, etc etc etc. So when I saw the title of this video I didn’t hold out much hope, even from a content creator I’ve enjoyed like Religion for Breakfast. I must say though the observations made here do somewhat jibe with my own. Humans blend rationality and irrationality seamlessly. We are amphibians. First the video-
Ok some comments-
1.What are we talking about here? The video seems not to distinguish between god belief and general religiosity, by no means the same thing. There are many sects of Buddhism and Hinduism that are functionally little different from western atheism in that they hold no belief in personal deities. Confucianism makes a metaphysic out of social relations. Taoism is completely impersonal.
If you go to Europe expecting a continent of people who think like Richard Dawkins you will be very disappointed. Occultism is very popular. Many political/ideological groups assume the function that religion has in the USA. When people say that Europe is secular what they mean is that religion has been excluded from the PUBLIC SPHERE. How many Europeans are actually self-identified atheists? I suspect very few. Most are what can be called cultural Christians.
2. There is a difference between saying that ‘analytic thinking always leads to atheism’ and saying that ‘many atheists became such through analytic thinking’. Not to defend the much maligned New Atheists but I think they mostly meant the latter not the former. And if you can show the weakness of the former claim you haven’t demonstrated the untruth of the latter.
4. The message of the video seems to be able to be distilled down to ‘most people are content to go along with the views of their tribe and community’. How many individuals in the community actually have committed belief? In a society where belief is privileged in some way it should not be a surprise that the majority claim some sort of belief. The question then becomes, can religion thrive in a society when it is NOT privileged in some way? Like many others I think what will diminish Christianity in the US is not persecution, but indifference. But even then the vast majority will not be atheists.
5. Atheism is a thing, not simply the absence of a thing. When I say I am an atheist I’m not simply describing my own personal psychology. I’m making a truth claim about how the world works. Indifference is not atheism. Low general religiosity in a population is not atheism. Atheism is a truth claim with a corresponding burden of justification.
I have not read the book yet but I have ordered it. (Not from Amazon.) I expect it will address some of these issues more fully. RFB only had fifteen minutes leaving little time for nuance.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
NOTE: This thread is not intended as another place to debate the existence of God or the real or imagined consequences of unbelief. There are other threads for that. It is to consider the issues raised by the video and/or the book. I’m especially interested in other folks’ take on the issues raised and how they do – or do not – jibe with your own experience.
So, I can’t comment on the second video, as I haven’t watched it.
The first, I find partially resonates.
I agree with the observation that there is not a direct link between intelligence and belief in God. Some of the smartest people I know are deeply convinced believers, and I’ve known plenty of atheist morons. On the other hand, I do think I thought myself into agnosticism, and for objectively sound reasons.
Following on that, I agree with the general idea that our thinking is far more socially conditioned than we want to admit (maybe this falls under their heading of motivation, but the way motivation was described in the video it sounded more like willing yourself to believe because there is some definite benefit to you–I’m a Jew in Ferdinand’s Spain, I find it advantageous to find Christianity convincing; I’m a pagan courtier under Constantine; if I could bring myself to believe Christianity, I could get promotion in the court; What I’m thinking of is much more subtle and less baldly transactional than that). We are never purely objective. Much of our thinking is motivated and influenced by social factors.
CREDs are certainly important. I know that people’s demonstrated sincerity influenced me–whether that was a person’s choice of a celibate life or stories of spectacular martyrdoms. But I’m not convinced the list they came up with covers all those factors.
From my own experience, I can see how other social factors played a significant part in forming my thinking. I remember, for example, how a priest or professor I respected (unfairly) mocking some view caused me to write that view off entirely and never give it a fair hearing, even in some cases where it had previously seemed plausible to me (I actually remember thinking something like, oh, I better be careful not to think *that* in the future).
I also think there is a sort of emotional bond to a religious community that fosters belief–and dissolution or weakening of that bond can set the stage for apostasy. In my own life, I remember feeling disillusioned at my Catholic tribe: I saw a lot of “Good Catholics” promoting what I saw as crazy conspiracy theories, and I saw the hierarchy taking measures that felt like betrayal. It wasn’t the sufficient reason by itself, but it was a sort of but-for cause: it did give me emotional distance from the group and that let me look at things with an objectivity that I previously lacked, to start asking questions that my loyalty to the group and its founding story would otherwise have prevented me from asking.
To summarize, I think a lot of it comes down to who do we respect? If we respect people, we will tend to let them influence our thinking. The very fact they believe something significantly prejudices us to accept it also, and conversely, the fact that they mock something prejudices us to not consider it.
I think another, but certainly related, facet of it is just tribe-building. (This makes sense, because anthropologists tell us that religion has always been about tribe-building.) One of the big challenges I face as someone who thinks orthodox Christianity is definitely not objectively defensible is the fact of smart adult converts (people I genuinely respect). The best explanation I’ve so far come up with is that it is tribe-building and deliberate social alignment. If you see some deep cultural conflict, you will want to pick sides. You are going to want to conform your thinking to the thinking of your new home, so that you are really part of your chosen tribe.
It’s hard to say, these people are right about x, y, and z really important issues that I care deeply about, but they are also wrong about a bunch of other stuff that they also are passionate about (even if I don’t care as much). It is much easier to just jump in head first once you pick a side and actually become a card-carrying, fully-accepted member of your new party. We like the world to be black and white, populated by good guys and bad guys, divided into a right side and a wrong side. We want to belong. And we like being able to settle passionate disputes by writing the other side off as evil. Few people are comfortable being neither fish nor fowl.
To illustrate, look at American politics. It amazes me how people’s opinions on objectively unrelated issues tend to correlate in ways that align them with the established political tribes. If I ask what you think about affirmative action, I have a pretty good chance of guessing how you feel about climate change policy and electric vehicles. If I ask you what you think about people having a right to choose their pronouns and locker room, I have pretty good odds of guessing what you think about US immigration policy. If I know what you think about increasing taxes on the rich, I have better than even odds of guessing how you feel about posting the ten commandments in schools. And so forth. Those are entirely unrelated issues. There is no sane reason that our thought on those entirely disparate divisive issues should so neatly correlate.
Anyway, that is enough from me for now.
I don’t have the patience to try to incorporate it into my prior post, but ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
Basically, smart people actually are more prone to holding unwarranted beliefs because human belief is socially motivated, and being smart and analytical just gives us the cognitive tools to defend the indefensible.
The piece really deserves the ten minutes it takes to read.
Now that I’ve watched the interview with Will Gervais I really look forward to reading the book. I look forward to discussing it here.
Neuroscientists tell us that what we do is arrive at what seems to be a more or less complete explanation for our situation and then spend the rest of our time admitting sensory signals that support it and excluding sensory signals that conflict with it. Of course it doesn’t help that our media seems almost designed to fragment our society. You pays your money and you makes your choice. You don’t sell stuff to people by critiquing their deeply held beliefs. What is required is a neutral field where people with diverging views can interact without censure or reward. Good luck!
We cannot change how we think perhaps but there are some ways to mitigate the worst effects.
Consciously seek out diverging opinions. Pick the group that most flabbergasts us. Assume for the sake of argument that they are neither insane nor demon possessed. Ask ourselves how can a normal person arrive at such an opinion?
Online I regularly follow folks who have completely different world views than I possess. I know what I think. I hardly ever follow other atheists. For example, I love evangelist ** you do not have permission to see this link **. The absoluteness of his point of view is a delight. Either he or I are delusional. I wonder who it is?
Consider ** you do not have permission to see this link **, an online/print magazine with a Conservative Catholic point of view. Now the chances that I will ever become a conservative Catholic are a very low order of probability but their thinking serves me by admitting sensory signals that my own point of view excludes. They help me to have a more expanded view of reality.
I don’t think First Things is explicitly Catholic, though their editors and many of their contributors are. Dulles did used to contribute, at least occasionally. He had a great piece there on capital punishment.
I think of them as being to the Christian world what National Review is in the political world. Unabashedly conservative (but also not too conservative) in a way that is high-profile, serious, and generally respectable. That said, I haven’t read it in ages.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert