[benkahuna]

[ QUOTE ]

These are good, but of course, none of these situations are inherent to religious belief. Would you still feel compelled to pursue this action if the theist held that coercion of any other human, even an unbeliever, was unjustifiable?

[/ QUOTE ]

There's no escaping coercion in society. Society is a coercive force on its own.
Even a supposedly uncoercive society (anarchist--not to be confused with anarchy) is coercive, although minimally so.


As to the original poster, I don't bother to try to get people to change their minds. I've found most people to not be so open-minded as to seriously question their beliefs. And it's not that I truly blame them either. I think faith is required to function in life. "Everyone has to believe in something."

Even given my lack of proselytizing against religion, I have a problem with the Big 3 (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) because I consider them to be very divisive forces. Divisive forces can cause otherwise similar peoples to do all sorts of terrible things to each other in some cases and even in less dramatic cases prevent cooperation for mutual benefit. In fact, I beleive religion has been the most successfully used divisive force in human history leading to the greatest war, bloodshed, forced migration and misery. It's a great tool for those in power to manipulate his constituents to gain resources, power, influence, and a chance at a well-regarded legacy.

Religion in theory, even if it is wrong as Sklansky so often likes to point out (and my inner rationalist agress with him), strikes me as a very neutral and possibly even positive influence, giving people something in which to believe and providing a means of encouraging principles consistent with my own ethos (my personal favorite being the Golden Rule) that I think make society function better and produce a society more to my taste. It's not all about me, but I think the notion of universal or implicit morality is a fairy tale so I'm trying to be honest about it being what I like, not what is inherently good. I don't even really believe in inherent good, I just see action and consequence.

In practice, I think the big 3 religions have been a disaster even while they've encouraged other useful developments in human history (such as Christianity's involvement with economic development--see Max Weber). I'm not sure that humans in general can handle religion responsibly. I think religion is largely an excuse for people to act like they want to act and that it also strengthens inherent divisive notions that we have naturally (though these notions can be minimized or removed through education, training and self-discipline.

I also disagree with Sklansky insinuation that not assuaging bright people's attitudes on religion is an impediment to societal contribution worth considering (he mentions it so he obviously thought it was worth considering). People this bright would likely be using evidence (or lack thereof) to come to their conclusion anyway and would have found what they needed based on what's out there. And thinkers of this caliber should eventually be able to reconcile their lack of faith despite any lack of analysis in the public domain by other high profile thinkers. I see such people as being secure in their convictions even lacking reinforcement from intellectual heavyweights. The only thinker other than Sklansky that I'm aware says G-d probably doesn't exist was Tim Leary in his Death and Dying book. Before you rush to attack Leary for not being a thinker, I recommend you read a little more about his career or maybe a few of his 50 or so full length books.

In the religious realm, I disagree pretty strongly with David about one thing. He doesn't seem to realize that people can have irrational beliefs related to faith and still be rational about all other issues and correctly analyze other situations. The whole notion of being able to successfully hold an idealist belief along with rationalist/materialist beliefs seems lost on our poker theory guru. No offense intended Mr. Sklansky. A single irrationality or mistake need not imply one is irrational generally or makes mistakes about other matters. It's pretty obviously the fallacy of composition to assume otherwise. It might simply involve compartmentalized thinking.

There are plenty of other divisive forces such as nationalism, the racist construct that is "race," ethnic rivalries (which in some cases are largely regionalism) and scarcity of resources (often just a function of geography), but religion reigns supreme among them.

Despite how I feel, I don't really see the point in preaching (or counter-preaching if you will) because I feel that most people believe what they want to believe. I also don't consider my opinion especially influential. I like giving people options and encouraging informed decision-making. If I had a lot of influence, I'd probably push that idea rather than atheism. Since I'm agnostic, I guess that would mean that I was promoting what I thought, agnosticism.