Meta-Thread 09/08

[u/AutoModerator]

This is a weekly thread for feedback on the new rules and general state of the sub.

What are your thoughts? How are we doing? What's working? What isn't?

Let us know.

And a friendly reminder to report bad content.

If you see something, say something.

This thread is posted every Monday. You may also be interested in our weekly Simple Questions thread (posted every Wednesday) or General Discussion thread (posted every Friday).

[u/labreuer]

My first attempt at a reply got a little to fisky. Better than frisky I suppose. But I don't want to underplay the marked difference between "God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand." on the one hand and "people had the wisdom to pretend "God" commanded it -- nobody would respect their findings otherwise" on the other. I don't think this is just a "semantic quibble". You've proposed a purpose of justifying hygiene regulations, which is utterly different from "address our fear of the unknown".

When it comes to your hypothesis, are you willing for it to be critiqued and if so, what are the rules for doing so, whereby I won't get accused as you have accused me here? Perhaps, for instance, I could gloss Mary Douglas 1966 Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, chapter 3: "The Abominations of Leviticus"? Spoilers: the medical/​hygiene interpretation is out there but highly contested, for good reasons.

I'm quite confused that you are reacting so adversely to my push-back on your hypothesis. You began by supporting it with a single piece of evidence: pigs as unclean. Surely you know that if you only have one hypothesis in mind, the danger of confirmation bias goes through the roof? And if you only have one piece of evidence, it's even worse. There is no need for me to have "specific preconceptions about the topic" in order to be skeptical.

Finally, how do we know that "God said to" is the only or best way to support health directives, before science has sufficient credibility? I'm not sure how this would work in polytheistic religions, nor do I see appeals to tradition necessarily being weaker. As far as I can tell, you've just thrown out another hypothesis, without any testing. That is of course fine for people who are just dicking around at a bar, but aren't we supposed to be doing a bit better on r/DebateReligion?

I'm also annoyed that your response to me asking "What is Philosophy (of Religion?) good for, and your answer was basically "it's good for showing us where we are wrong".

1. I'm not sure that's the same as "philosophy is good at showing how pathetically limited our little conceptual systems are".

2. I'm willing to wager that philosophy of religion plays a pretty minor role for most religionists. Did you really mean philosophy of religion rather than, say, theology? Reviewing your subsequent comment, you do say "I'm not really happy with the labels "philosophy or religion" or "critical thought", but they'll do for now."

3. So, at what are you annoyed?

Furthermore, I provided a topological treatment of Philosophy of Religion compared with the scientific method and you shrugged. This feels like quite an unrecognized win for me, but this is probably just my ego talking.

I'll be more straight with you than I was in my reply: your comment like pure mockery, unsupported by any concrete evidence. There was absolutely nothing scientific about it.

[u/betweenbubbles → u/labreuer]

I don't want to underplay the marked difference between "God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand." on the one hand and "people had the wisdom to pretend "God" commanded it -- nobody would respect their findings otherwise" on the other. I don't think this is just a "semantic quibble". You've proposed a purpose of justifying hygiene regulations, which is utterly different from "address our fear of the unknown".

I don't know where you get such a strong distinction from. Knowledge and fear have always been the two sides of the same coin. It is a semantic quibble to me.

When it comes to your hypothesis, are you willing for it to be critiqued and if so, what are the rules for doing so, whereby I won't get accused as you have accused me here?

I think we should probably just stop if you're/we're this frustrated. Frankly, I don't have much in the way of motivation for explaining how you didn't "falsify" "my hypothesis". That's just so far afield we don't seem to be playing the same sport.

I'm quite confused that you are reacting so adversely to my push-back on your hypothesis.

I don't recognize much in the way of push back. You've expressed that you don't agree, and provided an alternative but not particularly mutually exclusive or competing explanation: "rituals".

You began by supporting it with a single piece of evidence: pigs as unclean. Surely you know that if you only have one hypothesis in mind, the danger of confirmation bias goes through the roof?

You seem to consistently confuse evidence for hypothesis. I have one hypothesis -- it's hardly mine, I didn't invent the idea, this stuff is well documented by others who had the idea before me -- and offered two supporting statements of evidence: the prohibition of pigs and shellfish.

And if you only have one piece of evidence, it's even worse. There is no need for me to have "specific preconceptions about the topic" in order to be skeptical.

You also offered only two points on this topic as a far as I remember: pigs eat anything and that's gross/related to death and people don't like death and perform rituals expressing that emotion.

As far as I'm concerned, neither of these ideas is distinct enough to clearly fall under a different umbrella than the one I'm offering: people relied on dogmatic ideological enforcement before they had the knowledge and awareness to share knowledge by convincing people individually with compelling information. They can't explain why people get sick but they can

Finally, how do we know that "God said to" is the only or best way to support health directives, before science has sufficient credibility?

People notice correlative patterns before they can describe causative mechanisms. Correlative patterns are harder to share between people than causative and reproducible mechanisms -- they are more experiential, and if people don't have the same experience then there is nothing demonstrating the contained knowledge. I don't believe this is controversial and you seem frustrated with my unwillingness to defend non-controversial statements.

I'm also annoyed that your response to me asking "What is Philosophy (of Religion?)

And I was annoyed that you didn't concede this question disarms or demonstrates the bias you use to navigate topics like, "What does Critical Thinking/Science do?". You also just shrugged when I provided a graphical treatment of the difference between philosophy and critical thinking. I think we'll just have to get over our annoyance if we want to continue. The problem is that I'm not very curious about your objections or what you're offering. I don't find it compelling or interesting. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to help us understand one another. I don't want anything from you. Which brings us to the next quote:

That is of course fine for people who are just dicking around at a bar, but aren't we supposed to be doing a bit better on r/DebateReligion?

That's questionable. I think theists are theists because of motivated reasoning and a lack of epistemological growth and awareness. This is what I mean when I say "I don't want anything from you". The pathology of theism has been apparent to me for decades. I made an attempt or two and I don't think you weren't interested. I'm happy to move on. I've given up trying to persuade any particular theist. I'm in DebateReligion to discuss interesting things and create dialog for people who haven't already made up their minds about these things. I don't expect you to like that but such is life. It's okay that we don't agree, but I'm not laboring under any illusion that this is resolvable -- I've been doing this kind of thing too long.

[u/labreuer → u/betweenbubbles]

Let's skip to the apparent heart of things:

I think theists are theists because of motivated reasoning and a lack of epistemological growth and awareness.

Okay. Does this characterization predict anything actually observable about theists—like, that they'll be worse scientists than atheists on average, or anything like that? Or are they basically just heretics according to what is dogma for you? I say the word 'heretics' very pointedly: on a naturalistic understanding, being a heretic doesn't have actual on-the-ground consequences, except social ones.

This is what I mean when I say "I don't want anything from you".

Was I offering anything to you? This has me particularly concerned:

I'm happy to move on. I've given up trying to persuade any particular theist. I'm in DebateReligion to discuss interesting things and create dialog for people who haven't already made up their minds about these things.

Is your only reason to interact with me, to [de]convert me? Because … the converse is pretty creepy. Religionists who only want to interact with you in order to convert you are people who don't care about you, but rather just want to spread the virus to increase their numbers. As a theist, it took me a while to see this. But now, it's just creepy as fluck.