{"id":2408,"date":"2012-03-30T13:44:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T17:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2408"},"modified":"2012-12-21T14:56:01","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T19:56:01","slug":"how-much-good-does-atheism-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/03\/how-much-good-does-atheism-do.html","title":{"rendered":"How Much Good Does Atheism Do?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

In one of my Reason Rally posts, I talked about why atheists feel such an urgent<\/em> need to change other people\u2019s beliefs<\/a>. \u00a0If false beliefs aren\u2019t generally accepted, it\u2019s easier to catch and help people before they take dangerous action based on their incorrect views of the world. \u00a0(The example was a woman who cut her son\u2019s throat because she believed he was possessed). \u00a0Iota had a good follow-up question in the comments:<\/p>\n

[Is it] reasonable to expect that, simply by ousting religion\/theism*, you permanently increase people\u2019s \u201crationality\u201d. Or do you, instead get people who believe in Area 51 experiments, New Age energy, homeopathy, the eugenic imperative and other stuff (possibly not invented yet), just without the God bits\u2026?<\/p>\n

After all, atheism being just the proposition that there is no God ( = there are no gods), a person who specifically doesn\u2019t believe in a God\/gods, but is a member of an UFO cult would be an atheist (since they don\u2019t believe in gods, just in aliens). Or am I missing something?<\/p>\n

If you think you permanently get more rationality simply be decreasing theism (i.e. specifically belief in God\/gods), could you explain why?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I still really like Greta Christina\u2019s take on this question: we\u2019re overrating atheism as a proxy for rationality or objective awesomeness or whatnot<\/a>. \u00a0It used to be the case that people tended to wind up in atheism only by doing a lot of intellectual heavy-lifting, but the more out we are, and the less we\u2019re stigmatized, the easier it is to wind up an atheist without engaging very seriously with the question of God or\u00a0plenty\u00a0of other issues.<\/p>\n

As long as I\u2019m using non-rational methods of persuasion (social coercion, soft paternalism, actual force), I can constrain people\u2019s behaviors, but I haven\u2019t fixed their thinking. \u00a0This is a short-term solution, and can lead to playing exactly the kind of ideological whack-a-mole that Iota describes. \u00a0Sometimes, though, the short term fixes may be our best chance of preventing short term harm.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If I can\u2019t deal with someone\u2019s errors in an organized, systematic way, I\u2019ll try to do no harm when I use lesser kinds of persuasion. \u00a0I might make an appeal to an authority that I know the person already feels bound by, but I won\u2019t try to bring them under a new authority for the sake of convenience if I don\u2019t see that authority as legitimate. \u00a0Sometimes I don\u2019t bother trying to persuade someone I think is erring<\/a>, I just try and keep the undecideds from being swayed by him\/her.<\/p>\n

Luke Muehlhauser<\/a>, formerly of Common Sense Atheism<\/a>, switched over from doing religion blogging to doing full-time rationality work, and I\u2019ve got a lot of sympathy for that choice. \u00a0But there\u2019s a reason I think religion is still a pretty good entry for the conversations we\u2019re really trying to have: it talks about metaphysics. \u00a0Most of us don\u2019t have philosophy conversations come up organically, and the rhetoric of tolerance makes it awkward to criticize other people\u2019s moral systems or get pushy about our own.<\/p>\n

Religions make universal demands on us, and they put forward truth-claims that go\u00a0beyond\u00a0descriptions of physical systems to the obligations of rational animals. \u00a0It might be easy to come up with glib reasons why these systems are false, but hopefully a sense of curiosity and obligation follows quickly on the heels of the pleasure of a bon mot<\/em> putdown. \u00a0If we\u2019re knocked down that system, what are we going to replace it with? \u00a0The drive to answer that big question should be all the spur we need to throw ourselves into rationality studies, into philosophy, into science, into literature so we can become stronger<\/a> and find the truth.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard and borderline irresponsible to try to induce this change on a drive-by basis. \u00a0In college debates, it tends to produce nihilism. \u00a0It\u2019s basic last-minute section strategy when you haven\u2019t done the reading: find one flaw in the paper\u2019s methodology and free yourself from the obligation to discuss or know any of its conclusions. \u00a0And, in my debate community, it was considered very good form to bring a freshman up to the verge of the abyss, but very bad manners to leave him there to become a nihilist.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t want to think of ourselves as mere auditors \u2014 other people come up with philosophies and we scrutinize them and toss them out. \u00a0Skepticism\u00a0without a desire to know and create is just cynicism.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of my Reason Rally posts, I talked about why atheists feel such an urgent need to change other people\u2019s beliefs. \u00a0If false beliefs aren\u2019t generally accepted, it\u2019s easier to catch and help people before they take dangerous action based on their incorrect views of the world. \u00a0(The example was a woman who cut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,68],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-2408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","category-debatetactics","category-epistemologyphilosophy","tag-atheism-is-boring"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Much Good Does Atheism Do?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In one of my Reason Rally posts, I talked about why atheists feel such an urgent need to change other people's beliefs. \u00a0If false beliefs aren't 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