Ah, but a lot of political issues are downstream of religious or quasi-religious belief systems, and those also make people's collective behavior swingy and override their individual better moral intuitions.
E.g. if somebody is expecting the Rapture any day and thinks God Will Provide, that might affect their politics in ways I dislike.
Brilliant as usual. But some would go a step further. Liberalism is incoherent without assuming certain basic moral tenets. While we can't force people to listen, a liberal democracy needs a minimum civic committment and competence from it's members to be sustainable. So more republican democracies, eg France, inculcate certain core norms without offering an opt-out (also strongly establishes a public secular space). There's a genuine tension within the enlightenment democratic tradition on this issue.
There's an anti statist streak in the Anglo liberal tradition for historical reasons. I call myself a liberal democrat to lean towards the republican side a bit. I like King Macron.
I agree with Helen that people have a right to not listen to me — and I’m generally okay with that except when we start getting into the politicolegal implications of such beliefs.
But not telling someone I care about that I think they may be mistaken, and why, while open to myself being mistaken, is disrespectful.
This was a long essay and I admit I skimmed most of it. But I am puzzled--what exactly is the purpose of criticizing other people's deeply held religious beliefs? They aren't going to give them up because you criticize them. So is it to assert your moral superiority?
Well, if you genuinely believe that nobody ever changes their mind about anything as a result of arguments against it, you would indeed be mystified by why anybody would ever bother to argue for anything.
But then you’d need to ask yourself why precisely religious belief has declined so much and if you don’t believe it is because of arguments against it convincing people, what do you think caused it? Why do ideas ever change? Is there such a thing as a zeitgeist or an overton window and does it shift according to ideas getting more or less popular in society?
While you may never change of the mind of a committed believer in anything, there are always questioners looking at the discourse who can be moved.
Also some arguments against religion are ethical and about the values associated with the religion. These are often values that oppose women’s reproductive freedom and same sex attracted people’s right to marry. Criticising these values can inspire people to keep strong protections in place to prevent religious values being imposed on other people and are worth making.
It is deeply uncharitable and cynical to assume that people arguing that some ideas are bad are just wanting to assert their moral superiority. I believe that most religious believers trying to convert me genuinely care about my wellbeing and I genuinely care about theirs.
Hmm. I think people change their religious beliefs for a lot of reasons. I think mostly it's that they have a life experience or experiences that make them question those beliefs. For example a fundamentalist Christian might meet gay people in college and become friends with one of them. But it wouldn't be them arguing "hating gays is wrong!" that convinces the person. Seeing is believing. The person would be convinced after determining that the gay person is not much different from themselves.
I see. You think that a deeply devout religious believer could be persuaded that God was wrong or did not exist by meeting nice people against whom the bible discriminates rather than doing the 'love the sinner, hate the sin' thing? How does this stack up for feminism? Is there any point in making arguments that women should be respected and valued or does your feminism take the form of spending much time with men and being really nice to them so they recognise that women are full humans and oppressing or abusing them is wrong?
Do you think there is ever any value in arguing for anything or trying to persuade anybody of anything?
I in fact do spend time with men and many of the subscribers to my Substack are men and some of what I write is directed at them. That's why I sometimes write about my own experiences instead of lecturing people.
That wasn’t what I asked, was it? None of that is relevant to anything. I’ve never yet had a conversation with you in which you were able to make a reasoned argument based on consistent principles. I’m not going to reply in future unless you do.
"They aren't going to give them up because you criticize them."
I'm someone who stopped being a Christian because I concluded that it was factually incorrect, and that was facilitated by people criticizing it. Not necessarily to my face, of course; I largely found the arguments in the forms of books and articles. But the criticism was there.
That's interesting. So, you found arguments that convinced you that Jesus did not rise into Heaven from the Cross? I'm curious what those arguments were because if you had a passing knowledge of biology and physics prior you would have already known it was factually incorrect. Most Christians would say that they believe based on faith not reason.
No, I believed that the Christian God was real because my school taught that it was. Christians would not say that Christ’s resurrection was factually incorrect. God is not bound by biology and physics. I became very religious and was diagnosed with hyper-religiosity and scrupulosity. My parents were atheists and very worried about it.
The arguments which made me question my faith were:
People pointing out contradictions in the bible.
Arguments that the God of the bible is actually three gods amalgamated.
Factual errors about how the natural world and human biology in the bible.
The argument that if I’d been born in another time and place, I’d believe in a different God.
The argument that gods are something humans created for psychological reasons rather than the other way round.
Arguments against the existence of a soul and that self was instead brain.
I was one of the people who started to doubt in my teens but could not entirely free myself from religion for many years. It was people like Dawkins, Harris, Shermer and Ehrman who convinced me to finally fully disbelieve. Then I became part of the New Atheist movement and spent a lot of time with ex-Christians and ex-Muslims addressing the damage done by early indoctrination. Then I volunteered supporting other people with religious scrupulosity. Then I used all the reading of theology I had done to get a masters in late medieval and early modern women’s religious writing.
Religion is an issue of importance and significance to me because it shaped so much of my life.
Some Christians would say they believed based on faith and not reason but more would be angry at that and argue that “it takes more faith to be an atheist” and use the “proofs” of Aquinas to argue that there is evidence of God throughout the universe and that basic reasoning demonstrates that there must be a creator. I always argued with religious believers who wanted to argue with me. I never knocked on anyone’s door or preached at people on the street. As I wrote in that piece, I think arguments can only be made ethically when they are written essays which people can choose to read or not or debates which other people are also interested in having. Consent matters.
I stopped arguing about religion 11 years ago, though, and focused all my attention on postmodern thought which I also criticise on the grounds of epistemology and ethics.
The “proofs” of Aquinas, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s noospheric woo were sufficient to convince the budding rationalist me at 12 that if these were the best the Church had to bring, I should just put any such energy into useful purposes, like astrophysics, thermodynamics, etc. — things that might in fact have some explanatory power for the biggest questions.
Excellent as usual. What of that area where someone expresses a strong and highly consequential view that is clearly in conflict with provable facts, and they don’t want to hear that? This is where a lot of tension arises. To what extent must a person hear such views, perhaps repeatedly, by someone who exerts their right to not engage, or even listen? If this is a colleague, friend, or family member that is significant. I expect that this is where relationship skills and mutual accommodation come into play but I’m curious what you think.
Isn't the short version: other people's beliefs matter because they vote?
That’s a very valid reason, yes, and you could restrict yourself to arguing about political things and for that reason.
Ah, but a lot of political issues are downstream of religious or quasi-religious belief systems, and those also make people's collective behavior swingy and override their individual better moral intuitions.
E.g. if somebody is expecting the Rapture any day and thinks God Will Provide, that might affect their politics in ways I dislike.
So open season!
Yes, OK, I have argued that we don't even need that justification, though.
Or ant ideology or religion that is not typically understood as religion even though it has the same if not worse hold on people
Maybe it is because what other people think has an effect be it in politics or... anything.
And all must be questioned.
Brilliant as usual. But some would go a step further. Liberalism is incoherent without assuming certain basic moral tenets. While we can't force people to listen, a liberal democracy needs a minimum civic committment and competence from it's members to be sustainable. So more republican democracies, eg France, inculcate certain core norms without offering an opt-out (also strongly establishes a public secular space). There's a genuine tension within the enlightenment democratic tradition on this issue.
Yes, I would say this is a departure from liberalism but would not consider people who hold those views illiberal.
There's an anti statist streak in the Anglo liberal tradition for historical reasons. I call myself a liberal democrat to lean towards the republican side a bit. I like King Macron.
I do think Macron has been magnificent.
How so?
"Respect my beliefs". The world cannot be flat for me and round for everyone else. Belief is... complicated.
RESPECT is criticizing
Exactly.
I agree with Helen that people have a right to not listen to me — and I’m generally okay with that except when we start getting into the politicolegal implications of such beliefs.
But not telling someone I care about that I think they may be mistaken, and why, while open to myself being mistaken, is disrespectful.
This was a long essay and I admit I skimmed most of it. But I am puzzled--what exactly is the purpose of criticizing other people's deeply held religious beliefs? They aren't going to give them up because you criticize them. So is it to assert your moral superiority?
Well, if you genuinely believe that nobody ever changes their mind about anything as a result of arguments against it, you would indeed be mystified by why anybody would ever bother to argue for anything.
But then you’d need to ask yourself why precisely religious belief has declined so much and if you don’t believe it is because of arguments against it convincing people, what do you think caused it? Why do ideas ever change? Is there such a thing as a zeitgeist or an overton window and does it shift according to ideas getting more or less popular in society?
While you may never change of the mind of a committed believer in anything, there are always questioners looking at the discourse who can be moved.
Also some arguments against religion are ethical and about the values associated with the religion. These are often values that oppose women’s reproductive freedom and same sex attracted people’s right to marry. Criticising these values can inspire people to keep strong protections in place to prevent religious values being imposed on other people and are worth making.
It is deeply uncharitable and cynical to assume that people arguing that some ideas are bad are just wanting to assert their moral superiority. I believe that most religious believers trying to convert me genuinely care about my wellbeing and I genuinely care about theirs.
Hmm. I think people change their religious beliefs for a lot of reasons. I think mostly it's that they have a life experience or experiences that make them question those beliefs. For example a fundamentalist Christian might meet gay people in college and become friends with one of them. But it wouldn't be them arguing "hating gays is wrong!" that convinces the person. Seeing is believing. The person would be convinced after determining that the gay person is not much different from themselves.
I see. You think that a deeply devout religious believer could be persuaded that God was wrong or did not exist by meeting nice people against whom the bible discriminates rather than doing the 'love the sinner, hate the sin' thing? How does this stack up for feminism? Is there any point in making arguments that women should be respected and valued or does your feminism take the form of spending much time with men and being really nice to them so they recognise that women are full humans and oppressing or abusing them is wrong?
Do you think there is ever any value in arguing for anything or trying to persuade anybody of anything?
I in fact do spend time with men and many of the subscribers to my Substack are men and some of what I write is directed at them. That's why I sometimes write about my own experiences instead of lecturing people.
That wasn’t what I asked, was it? None of that is relevant to anything. I’ve never yet had a conversation with you in which you were able to make a reasoned argument based on consistent principles. I’m not going to reply in future unless you do.
"They aren't going to give them up because you criticize them."
I'm someone who stopped being a Christian because I concluded that it was factually incorrect, and that was facilitated by people criticizing it. Not necessarily to my face, of course; I largely found the arguments in the forms of books and articles. But the criticism was there.
Me too.
That's interesting. So, you found arguments that convinced you that Jesus did not rise into Heaven from the Cross? I'm curious what those arguments were because if you had a passing knowledge of biology and physics prior you would have already known it was factually incorrect. Most Christians would say that they believe based on faith not reason.
No, I believed that the Christian God was real because my school taught that it was. Christians would not say that Christ’s resurrection was factually incorrect. God is not bound by biology and physics. I became very religious and was diagnosed with hyper-religiosity and scrupulosity. My parents were atheists and very worried about it.
The arguments which made me question my faith were:
People pointing out contradictions in the bible.
Arguments that the God of the bible is actually three gods amalgamated.
Factual errors about how the natural world and human biology in the bible.
The argument that if I’d been born in another time and place, I’d believe in a different God.
The argument that gods are something humans created for psychological reasons rather than the other way round.
Arguments against the existence of a soul and that self was instead brain.
I was one of the people who started to doubt in my teens but could not entirely free myself from religion for many years. It was people like Dawkins, Harris, Shermer and Ehrman who convinced me to finally fully disbelieve. Then I became part of the New Atheist movement and spent a lot of time with ex-Christians and ex-Muslims addressing the damage done by early indoctrination. Then I volunteered supporting other people with religious scrupulosity. Then I used all the reading of theology I had done to get a masters in late medieval and early modern women’s religious writing.
Religion is an issue of importance and significance to me because it shaped so much of my life.
Some Christians would say they believed based on faith and not reason but more would be angry at that and argue that “it takes more faith to be an atheist” and use the “proofs” of Aquinas to argue that there is evidence of God throughout the universe and that basic reasoning demonstrates that there must be a creator. I always argued with religious believers who wanted to argue with me. I never knocked on anyone’s door or preached at people on the street. As I wrote in that piece, I think arguments can only be made ethically when they are written essays which people can choose to read or not or debates which other people are also interested in having. Consent matters.
I stopped arguing about religion 11 years ago, though, and focused all my attention on postmodern thought which I also criticise on the grounds of epistemology and ethics.
Helen, you’re the best 😻
The “proofs” of Aquinas, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s noospheric woo were sufficient to convince the budding rationalist me at 12 that if these were the best the Church had to bring, I should just put any such energy into useful purposes, like astrophysics, thermodynamics, etc. — things that might in fact have some explanatory power for the biggest questions.
Excellent as usual. What of that area where someone expresses a strong and highly consequential view that is clearly in conflict with provable facts, and they don’t want to hear that? This is where a lot of tension arises. To what extent must a person hear such views, perhaps repeatedly, by someone who exerts their right to not engage, or even listen? If this is a colleague, friend, or family member that is significant. I expect that this is where relationship skills and mutual accommodation come into play but I’m curious what you think.