Our Most Rational Minds Considering All Hypotheses?
I am not intending this to be smug. I mean this post sincerely.
In a recent SlateStarCodex post, Scott Alexander–who is one of the most open-minded, thoughtful bloggers I follow–wrote:
I realize this is pretty unsophisticated-sounding, but I’m basing this off of my continuing confusion over the rise of Christianity. Christianity came out of nowhere and had spread to 10% – 20% of the Roman population by the time Constantine made it official. And then it spread to Germany, England, Ireland, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Armenia, and Russia, mostly peacefully. Missionaries would come to the tribe of Hrothvalg The Bloody, they would politely ask him to ditch the War God and the Death God and so on in favor of Jesus and meekness, and as often as not he would just say yes. This is pretty astonishing even if you use colonialism as an excuse to dismiss the Christianization of the Americas, half of Africa, and a good bit of East Asia.
I’ve looked around for anyone who has a decent explanation of this, and as far as I can tell Christianity was just really appealing. People worshipped Thor or Zeus or whoever because that was what people in their ethnic group did, plus Thor/Zeus would smite them if they didn’t. Faced with the idea of a God who was actually good, and could promise them eternity in Heaven, and who was against bad things, and never raped anybody and turned them into animals, everyone just agreed this was a better deal. I know this is a horrendously naive-sounding theory, but it’s the only one I’ve got. [Italics original, bold added.]
Alexander’s post reminded me of Bryan Caplan’s EconLog post from a bit earlier, where he (Bryan) challenged the discussion of religiosity in the new book by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson. I can’t really excerpt the essence of his post, but suffice to say, Bryan entertains a bunch of different explanations for the “function” of religious belief, literally without one sentence devoted to the possibility that God exists.
To be crystal clear, I’m not complaining that Alexander and Bryan are (apparently) atheists. I wouldn’t even have blogged this if they had both said something like, “(To be sure, we realize half of our readers probably think they have a GREAT explanation for this puzzle. But in light of the serious empirical and philosophical problems involved, I reject this move as cheating, a literal deus ex machina that is not scientific.)”
It’s just weird to me that they didn’t even seem to consider, even just as a checklist in covering their bases, that if there really were a God of the kind that various cultures have believed in, then all of the problems would be a lot more tractable.
I like when people ask why God would have kicked everything off where he did when
somewhere else like Asia would’ve been better. They never step back and think that the fact everything started where it did just makes it that much more impressive.
Not to pick nits, but where God “kicked everything off” was destroyed in Noah’s Flood.
I was referring to Jesus and Christianity.
“I was referring to Jesus and Christianity.”
Sorry. My bad.
“Sorry Jews, I know I’ve been preparing you for a Messiah for millennia and all, but you haven’t picked up on the 3 R’s like I had hoped you would. I’ve decided to send my only begotten Son to the virgin Mai Li in China instead. No hard feelings…”
Sorry for tangent, but one of SSC’s recent posts, “Meditations on Morloch”, would offer a great topic for you (or Tom) as it summarizes a plethora of economic fallacies.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Cheers
Bob – Should the title of this post be “Are our most rational…”? Or “Are most rational…”? It doesn’t quite seem right to me.
“There was a 1500 year lag time between when people got the magic formula for religion (Zoroastrianism wasn’t good enough!) and when they got the magic formula for stories.”
There is no magic formula for either. Our stories reflect our societies and our religions shift and change. There is nothing special about our moment in time that makes our preferences more valid than anyone else’s. There is something special about our level of knowledge that makes certain observations more valid.
The narrative of peaceful conversion is viewed a bit through rose-tinted glasses. There was certainly much violence and persecution.
https://odinicriteofaustralia.wordpress.com/how-europe-was-overrun-by-christians/
A similar story can be told of Islam
“”The question of why people convert to Islam has always generated intense feeling. Earlier generations of European scholars believed that conversions to Islam were made at the point of the sword, and that conquered peoples were given the choice of conversion or death. It is now apparent that conversion by force, while not unknown in Muslim countries, was, in fact, rare. Muslim conquerors ordinarily wished to dominate rather than convert, and most conversions to Islam were voluntary. (…) ”
(Wikipedia.)
“Bryan entertains a bunch of different explanations for the “function” of religious belief, literally without one sentence devoted to the possibility that God exists.”
Even if that were true, it would be useless at explaining religious belief. Religious belief, whatever you think about it, has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
You don’t think the truth of a religion could ever be the cause of people believing in that religion? What if the religion involved various interactions between God and human beings, miracles, mystical experiences, etc., and it was such experiences that caused people to believe that the religion was true?
This problem can squarely be blamed on Thor.
Got lazy, didn’t smite enough people, discipline went out the window. Next thing you know belief starts going all over the place, with abstract stuff, logical inference, and a bunch of fluff.
“What if the religion involved various interactions between God and human beings, miracles, mystical experiences, etc., and it was such experiences that caused people to believe that the religion was true?”
OK; that’s possible. It also happens to only a small minority of the population. If such experiences happened more often, Christian apologists would use them as evidence more often. And, given the multiplicity of religions and religious experiences all over the world, one would have to assume demons at work, or something, for one to stay both a true Christian and take this hypothesis seriously.
Murphy, sometimes I wonder why I have even followed you for nine years. These takes of yours are absolutely banal. Maybe it is their paucity of them that keeps me reading.
@E. Harding,
Murphy, sometimes I wonder why I have even followed you for nine years. These takes of yours are absolutely banal. Maybe it is their paucity of them that keeps me reading.
Remember, E. Harding, that you’re always free not to follow him.
Let’s not turn this into a debate about free will.
The real question is why you follow Scott Sumner.
His economic policy takes are generally actually insightful.
” sometimes I wonder why I have even followed you for nine years.”
Because you did not know him 10 years ago! Boom Boom.
I love when you “I can’t stand these religious posts” types feel more compelled to read and chime in on these religious posts than you do for the non-religious posts that you ostensibly prefer. I wonder, what Power is it that keeps drawing you back in spite of your own protest? It may be time for some soul searching.
Hey Bob, I think one can’t easily consider Christianity’s spreading without a similar consideration of Islam’s spreading, which at times occurred at an even greater rate of proliferation. Also the spread of these things, not only as religions but also as a culture, a law, a way of life.
Oh, I have no problem with Islam in this argument. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all believe in the God of Abraham.
If some (black American) murderer comes out of prison a “new man” with a new name and he’s part of the Nation of Islam, I personally think an important part of the explanation is that God exists, the man has a soul, and he’s a lot closer to the truth now than back when he was an agnostic guy. Obviously I don’t think the Nation of Islam is the closest to the truth about the nature of God.
(I should say as a disclaimer, I don’t know that much about Islam. I know a lot more about Judaism I would say, since evangelical Christians spend a lot of time explaining things from the POV of the ancient Israelites in what we call the Old Testament.)
It seems Buddhism also spread in a similar, voluntary way.
http://www.ancientindia.co.uk/staff/resources/background/bg12/bg12pdf.pdf
Is it the case that a Buddhist is also closer to the truth than he was before conversion?
I am also interested in the idea that a muslim is “closer to the truth” than an agnostic. If belief in Jesus as our savior is a necessary requirement for being saved, then even if he is closer, he is still actually a very significant step short of the truth.
I can certainly accept that his life may be improved by this belief. I am not one who thinks religion can never serve a useful purpose and many have “turned their life around” through religion. This improvement can happen with a variety of religions.
If we are to say that is because all religion have a shared core of truth then this seems to be saying that the details don’t matter. One is as good as another. That is not a claim usually made by the religious. Details seem to matter a great deal.
Harold wrote:
I am also interested in the idea that a muslim is “closer to the truth” than an agnostic. If belief in Jesus as our savior is a necessary requirement for being saved, then even if he is closer, he is still actually a very significant step short of the truth.
Suppose I said Venus is closer to the sun than the Earth is. Would you find it an interesting claim, since elsewhere I said that Venus wasn’t inside the sun?
Bob: “Oh, I have no problem with Islam in this argument. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all believe in the God of Abraham.
“If some (black American) murderer comes out of prison a “new man” with a new name and he’s part of the Nation of Islam, I personally think an important part of the explanation is that God exists, the man has a soul, and he’s a lot closer to the truth now than back when he was an agnostic guy. Obviously I don’t think the Nation of Islam is the closest to the truth about the nature of God.”
I have to disagree with you on this one, Bob. The God of the Old and New Testaments is the obviously the same God. The Jews, however, have an incomplete understanding of that God, i.e., they don’t accept the Deity of Christ or the Holy Spirit, and, obviously, reject the Trinity. Their understanding and worship of that God is incorrect, but they are worshipping the one true God of the Bible.
Islam, however, is a different story. The muslims would have you believe that Allah, the god they worship, is just another word for God, and is the same God that Christians and Jews worship/believe in. Untrue. Below are a few articles that will only take a few minutes to read that should convince you that the god of Islam is just as phony as the gods of mormonism, e.g.
Mormons use the same terminology as Christians, but all those words mean something else when used by a mormon as opposed to when used by Christians. It’s the same with Islam. Their god is not the God of the Bible. Their jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible. Their holy spirit is not the Holy Spirit of the Bible. In short, a counterfeit.
And I’m not sure that a convert to Islam is “a lot closer to the truth now than back when he was an agnostic guy.” This is Oprah’s baloney: “We are all taking different paths to the top of the same mountain.” Well, many people ARE taking different paths to the top of the same mountain, but there are two mountains – Christ and anything/everything else. Latching on to a phony religion like Islam or a cult like Mormonism gives people a false sense of security and is one of Satan’s favorite tricks – convincing people that with small differences, one religion is as good as the next and you can make yourself acceptable to God. A belief with eternal consequences.
https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/december-2013/do-christians-and-muslims-worship-the-same-god/
http://www.equip.org/daily-answers/
https://christianindex.org/christians-muslims-worship-god-104/
http://www.ciu.edu/content/allah-islam-same-yahweh-christianity
This is getting off topic, but it always cracks me up when someone says something like, “Isn’t it cool that Jesus is an acknowledged prophet in Islam?”
Well, Islam was dreamed up by Mohamed around 500 AD and Jesus is only in there to discredit Christianity and subjugate its believers under Islam/Mohamed. So no, not cool.
“I think one can’t easily consider Christianity’s spreading without a similar consideration of Islam’s spreading, which at times occurred at an even greater rate of proliferation.”
A lot of the spread of Islam was the result of military conquest and resulting coercion. That’s easier to understand that the situations Scott is talking about (similarly, it’s not that mystifying why Latin America ended up Catholic).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Thessalonica
Islam spread within the various lands ruled by the Muslims much more slowly than that.
The Edict of Thessalonica was about suppressing Arianism, which is itself a form of Christianity. Most of the growth of Christianity within the Roman Empire had already occurred (often despite state persecution).
Arianism is a heresy, not a “form” of Christianity.
I’m not sure the Arians would agree.
Well, of course not. And isn’t it funny how the cults and the counterfeits (JWs and mormons, e.g.) always claim to be the true Christians? Always a clue.
Are you a true Christian?
Bob,
I think you are being a little unfair to Bryan, since he was mostly just criticizing Robin’s inadequate account. You are right about Scott’s post, though. I had the exact same reaction.
One of the big problems I have with Robin’s approach is that he seems to think that “x was selected for because y” implies that “people who do x are secretly motivated by y.” If that were right, no one would want to use contraception.
Josiah, fwiw, when I re-read Bryan’s post after linking to it in mine, it wasn’t as “bad” as I remembered it. So I understand your reaction here. Even so, it’s still the case that he discusses the book on the topic of religious belief and its possible functionality, without even a one-sentence nod to the possibility that God exists and that maybe this is relevant.
I think it’s perfectly acceptable to invoke deus to explain religiosity — whether ex machina or ex naturae! 😛
Are we allowed to imply that God might exist? That seems awfully risky in the present political climate.