On Getting Out of the Religion Game

Last updated on: November 3, 2012 at 9:33 pm by Leah Libresco

On Getting Out of the Religion Game 2012-11-03T21:33:42-04:00 Leah Libresco

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A week or so ago, Luke Muehlhauser of Common Sense Atheism surprised the atheist blogosphere when he announced he was done with atheism vs theism arguments. He explained:

The reason I’m an atheist isn’t because of the argument from evil or from unbelief or from inconsistent revelations or anything. No, the reason I’m an atheist is because theism drastically fails Solomonoff induction.

If I want to pull somebody away from magical thinking, I don’t need to mention atheism. Instead, I teach them Kolmogorov complexity and Bayesian updating. I show them the many ways our minds trick us. I show them the detailed neuroscience of human decision-making. I show them that we can see (in the brain) a behavior being selected up to 10 seconds before a person is consciously aware of ‘making’ that decision. I explain timelessness.

And if they have time to consume enough math and science, then The God Question just fades away as not even a question worth talking about.

I agree with Luke to a point. Ultimately, atheism and deconversion should be a side-effect, not the goal. Anything else is like focusing solely on trying to get people to stop buying lottery tickets, instead of trying to give a practical introduction to probability (about which, particularly as it relates to rhetorical tone, more later). And I’m certainly excited for Luke’s likely next steps, but I don’t think his approach is a particularly good model for most atheists interested in talking to theists.

For one thing, although I’ve been reading his blog and keeping up with the read-through-all-of-Yudkowsky project, I haven’t the foggiest idea what Luke meant by “theism drastically fails Solomonoff induction.“ And by the looks of the comment thread attached to the post, neither did most of his readers. When you’re immersed in rationality readings, it’s hard to speak in layperson-accessible ways.

Yudkowsky’s “Intuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning” is quite readable (and well worth reading) but, although he meant for it to be accessible to anyone with a grade school background, he admits it landed at the undergrad level. That’s not to say these discussions are too highfalutin’ to be accessible or relevant, but it does mean that, if we want religious people to put the time and effort in with these texts, we atheists/rationalists/statistics geeks need to come up with a darn good elevator pitch to get them to follow us into the weeds.

That’s where I’ve always had a bit of a problem with some of Luke’s metaphysical writings. Despite reading the transcripts of all his desirism podcasts and accompanying posts, I still don’t really understand how desirism works, but, more importantly, I don’t know what I would need to give up and what I would gain if I were convinced these metaphysics were correct. So when I read the umpteenth post on the simplified world he used to explain his theory, the stakes were nonexistent.

Making the debate entirely about atheism vs theism can have the opposite problem, where both groups treat the stakes as so high that it would be treasonous to give ground or admit confusion, but at least both sides agree it’s an important fight. When atheists retreat into a fog of grad-level metaphysics or high energy theoretical ethics, there’s no reason to assume theists are going to be hooked. No one has time to spend running every new theory to ground.

It’s essential to spend some time on accessible arguments, even if they aren’t your strongest arguments. That’s not to say Luke needs to be the one working on them, but he, and everyone else in his next project, need to make sure they keep some on-ramps accessible and alluring.

Atheism

Debate Tactics

Previous Post

September 5, 2011

Happy Labor Day!

Next Post

September 8, 2011 The Continuation of Philosophy by Other Means

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 7 Quick Takes Apologetics Atheism Book Conversion Debate Tactics Debates Epistemology/Philosophy Housekeeping Ideological Turing Test Marriage Morality in Practice Parsing Catholicism Possibly Heretical Radio Reviews/Recommendations Sequence Index Spiritual Practice Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the youngest friend who rebuked Job and the other friends?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Bildad Elihu Eliphaz Zophar