ciphergoth | Greta Christina on atheism and persuasion

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Where does this idea come from that persuasion is a mean and bad thing to do?

[...] Of all the pieces of armor in religion's armory, this one is uniquely effective. [...] How do you make a case with someone who thinks that the very act of making a case makes you a bad person?

[...] I think that within this circle of ecumenical, "all religions are getting at the truth in their own way," "we're fine with people of different faiths as long as they're fine with our faith" believers, the main context they have for people outside that circle is intolerant fundamentalism and theocracy. The main context they have for people who criticize other people's religions and argue that they're mistaken is the religious right in America, and Islamic extremists in the Muslim world, and so on. They just don't have a context for people who think that other people's religions are mistaken... and are nevertheless passionate about the right to religious freedom. They just don't have a context for people who spend a significant amount of time and energy trying to convince others to change their religious beliefs... and are trying to do it, not by law, not by force, not by bribery or intimidation, but by reason and evidence and persuasion, in public forums devoted to debate, and in private conversations with people who have expressed an interest.

So atheists -- or at least atheist activists, atheists who make arguments against religion and try to persuade people that it's mistaken -- automatically get slotted into the "intolerant fundamentalists who want to force everyone to be just like them" camp. That's the only context the ecumenical New Agers have for people who strongly disagree with other people's religions. So that's the context we get stuck in.

Here's Round One.

It does give me real pause for thought that so many of my intelligent and thoughtful friends have quite a different view on this one, and on this as on so many things, I mean to be open to persuasion :-)

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I think part of the problem is that first you'd have to persuade people that belif is either suitable for or subject to persuasion. A lot of people seem to see it as outside all that.

If someone thinks that persuasion is futile, I can talk to them about that, but if they think that it is rude, then my efforts to persuade them otherwise won't be well received.

I think there's a spectrum from acceptance to provocation (and hatred), and persuasion is a reasonable middle ground.

I'm not sure that, for example, sticking rusty nails through communion wafers, is reasonable persuasion. It's provocation.

What I get from atheists like you and Greta Christina (and Dawkins, but notably not Carl Sagan or Richard Holloway[1]) is persuasion without understanding. You come across as trying to change other people's beliefs without really having much idea what those beliefs are. All you know of them - all you feel that you need to know of them - is that they're not like yours. Since you've arrived at yours by reason, ones different from those must be unreasonable. And if they're unreasonable, why not tell people that?

If I'm wrong about that, please say, but it's how you come across to me.

Also, Greta Christina seems to have no setting between 'All religious experience is subjective, and therefore all religious experiences are equal and have to be treated with equal respect' and 'I'm going to treat nothing outside my own experience with any respect at all'. She doesn't actually say the latter, but the whole piece seems predicated on it, since much of her argument would dissolve if she thought people could take an attitude of 'experience is highly subjective, and I should respect that other people may interpret superficially similar experiences in different ways, even if I may give more weight to interpretations that chime with mine, and the interpretation may be so different that finding common ground in discussing it will be hard'. Since that's basically my attitude, I find her piece riddled with straw men, and some very binary thinking which misses out a whole heap of excluded middle. I accept (and respect) that that's how she views the world; I don't respect that she seems to think everyone else views it that way.

At one point she says: 'There's a fundamental logical problem with the "You can share your ideas... but you can't disagree with anyone else's" trope.' Well, duh!. Accepting, for a moment, that there are people who think like this (I don't know any who are that stark about it, but I suspect I'm lucky in that respect), the statement suffers from the same problem as freedom of speech. Do you grant freedom of speech to even to those who use it to shout you (or others) down? That's a very real problem that has troubled liberal thinkers for centuries, but it doesn't make freedom of speech totally useless as a guiding principle. See also almost any discussion about creating a bi-safe space; we know there are scenarios where it's not possible, and that in doing se we may end up being intolerant of non-bi or non-bi-friendly people, but that doesn't stop us trying the best we can. Likewise, the principle of respect for other people's views (and I'm not here talking about blind uncritical acceptance of any view, but more of a general presumption of good faith) is not dealt a killer blow just because the edge case of being tolerant of intolerance is logically problematical.

[1] I'm not sure how much Richard Holloway would object to being labelled an atheist, but he's certainly someone who actively tries to convince people to separate how they think about morality from any belief in a god, so I think he counts for the purposes of the discussion.

(I know I owe you replies to some of the discussions a week ago - I'll try to find time to do it at some point.)

What I get from atheists like you and Greta Christina (and Dawkins, but notably not Carl Sagan or Richard Holloway[1]) is persuasion without understanding. You come across as trying to change other people's beliefs without really having much idea what those beliefs are. All you know of them - all you feel that you need to know of them - is that they're not like yours.

It would be a lot easier to either reply to or act on this if you could be a little more specific on what it is we don't understand and how that lack of understanding misleads us.

Also, Greta Christina used to be religious. Perhaps she didn't understand even then, but that does leave you wondering how many religious people count as not really understanding religion.

Since you've arrived at yours by reason, ones different from those must be unreasonable. And if they're unreasonable, why not tell people that?

You make it sound as if I arrived at my position without talking to a single believer. In fact, roughly speaking, I've talked to as many as will let me for as long as they'll let me, since as you know I find this subject hard to put down. I'm dying to understand why they believe. A very large part of the reason that I don't think that they believe for good reasons is that I've bashed myself against trying to find out what those good reasons might be like a bird crashing repeatedly into a pane of glass, and so far I just keep being shocked at how bad the answers I get seem to me. And again, bringing it back, my desire to really find out is frustrated by this trope about persuasion being rude - I'm always very curious why someone believes and how they address what seem to me the hard problems with their belief, but I have to be very careful about trying to find out the answers because that is seen as rude.

Also, Greta Christina seems to have no setting between 'All religious experience is subjective, and therefore all religious experiences are equal and have to be treated with equal respect' and 'I'm going to treat nothing outside my own experience with any respect at all'.

I think "respect" is a very slippery word to use about beliefs here; I would be very surprised to see her using it in this context. We do of course have to take care when making inferences based on reports of experiences; but that doesn't apply solely to other people's reports, because we should also be wary of our own self-reports. As indeed she had to become in order to give up her own religious beliefs.

experience is highly subjective [...]

I think there are big problems with this stance, but the question I'm trying to answer here is, is it OK to want to discuss it, to set out what the problems might be?

At one point she says: 'There's a fundamental logical problem with the "You can share your ideas... but you can't disagree with anyone else's" trope.' [...]

There's no contradiction in saying "freedom of speech includes the freedom to attack freedom of speech", but there is in "freedom from disagreement includes freedom from disagreement for those who don't believe in freedom from disagreement". And I don't think you believe in freedom from disagreement in general, so I'm not sure exactly what position you're arguing for here.

Likewise, the principle of respect for other people's views (and I'm not here talking about blind uncritical acceptance of any view, but more of a general presumption of good faith) is not dealt a killer blow just because the edge case of being tolerant of intolerance is logically problematical.

I'm pretty sure my friends who argue with this about me are arguing in good faith.

the edge case of being tolerant of intolerance is logically problematical

I'm not sure it is an edge case - it seems to be fundamental to a lot of the discussions I get into with religious people. Apparently I have to 'respect their beliefs' even though their beliefs may mean they don't have to respect mine (telling me I'm going to hell/God will punish me, suggesting I have no moral code because of my lack of belief etc). It's a peculiar doublethink - I have to respect their belief that it's OK not to respect mine.

...their beliefs may mean they don't have to respect mine (telling me I'm going to hell/God will punish me, suggesting I have no moral code because of my lack of belief etc).

Does this happen often? I haven't encountered this kind of thing from any of our mutual friends who are religious, so I'm intrigued to hear that you're having that experience.

Do you approach discussions with religious people who are tolerant of difference in belief differently from how you approach discussions with those who are intolerant of it?

I'm thinking chiefly about online discussions rather than face to face - I think if someone who was a friend said that sort of thing to me, they wouldn't stay a friend for long.

Ah, that makes more sense.
Do you have a different approach if you're discussing religion with your (theist) friends, or with other theist people who are respectful of your atheist beliefs?

I'm not actually sure that respect is the right word here, really - I don't have a lot of truck with the 'you have to respect someone's (religious, spiritual) beliefs', any more than I would if someone said I had to respect someone else's political or moral opinion. I think there's a difference between respecting someone's right to hold a belief, and respecting the belief itself.

I'd agree in general but I think it gets complex if you're looking for meaningful and open discussion/debate.

If you're seeking to make a persuasive argument with someone then it tends to be good to at least act in a respectful manner and try to keep the lack of respect a bit more private. If a person starts to feel from what you've written/said and your tone that you don't respect their position then it can lead to them feeling defensive or insulted.

Which is fine if that's what you want (and it is probably appropriate sometimes) but in general it can be good to fake it :oP

I think that applies across the board. I'm sure everyone here has had friends who occasionally say things that seem to us a bit dim and perhaps stupid to us. If so, we don't have to respect the odd things they come out with and we don't have to leave the statement unchallenged but it's generally best to not rub it in their face that we don't respect their opinions :o)

Yes, this.

I've experienced it but I don't think it's peculiar to the religious.

Lots of people take 'I have a right to an opinion' to mean 'You don't have a right to tell me I'm wrong' and lots of people have absorbed this notion that they can claim things are 'true for them' even when speaking about objective truths and they apply it to just about any subject where people disagree.

Politics is another area where it seems to crop up, particularly if someone's just been called on being racist/sexist/etc.

the edge case of being tolerant of intolerance is logically problematical

I'm not sure it is logically problematical. It might be possible to define a recursive domain of beliefs and look for minimal fixpoints in that domain - in layman's language, the largest set of beliefs that accept each other's "right to exist". So instead of defining a belief as "tolerant of all beliefs" or "intolerant of all beliefs", we define it as "tolerant of these beliefs but not of those that are intolerant to itself".

The new-agers that Greta discusses have defined one such set. Her problem is how to persuade them that her beliefs should be added to this set.

I've talked to as many as will let me for as long as they'll let me

Cool. I'm still keen to continue our discussion of the other week, if you're up for that (with the caveat that

dr_d and I are away and probably AFK this weekend, so I'm unlikely to respond to anything much before Monday or Tuesday.) As I think you know, I have no problem with atheist attempts at persuasion provided they're conducted politely and at an appropriate time and place (and I think I apply broadly the same criteria of politeness and appropriateness to this as I do to religious attempts at persuasion). I agree with a lot of the article you link to, but I think Greta Christina fails to understand that "real" is a problematic concept. I suspect, though, that we may be more likely to make progress on that by continuing our previous conversation than by starting a new one here.

You mean this thread? Thanks for the encouragement, have commented.

Cheers!

Mmm. I read this while nodding vigorously.

I've been meaning to write something about this for some time. Everyone has a point at which they draw the line between a reasonable belief and an unreasonable one - of course they do, otherwise they'd have to give the same credence to someone who thought they were Napoleon as to someone who wrote a thesis on DNA extrapolation. Everyone makes these sort of value judgments all the time.

The argument isn't so much about what beliefs are reasonable, as about what's the best toolkit to determine what 'reasonable' is.

I think that there's a time and a place. It's rude to carry on trying to persuade someone after they've said they'd rather you didn't, but that's not anything special to religion - it's rude to keep pushing at any conversation that someone has asked you to drop.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone I know arguing that no-one should ever try to persuade anyone out of religious belief.

it's rude to keep pushing at any conversation that someone has asked you to drop. Yes, I think you're making the same point as she makes in her third paragraph here:

We're not talking about expressing disagreement at Thanksgiving dinner here; or ranting about it to people you've buttonholed at parties; or screaming it into bullhorns on the street. We're talking about expressing it in legitimate public forums of discussion and debate: forums that people are free to listen to or not, as they choose.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone I know arguing that no-one should ever try to persuade anyone out of religious belief. People don't put it that way, of course, but in practice if you make a case that religious belief is mistaken, you will be accused of being disrespectful.

Edited 2009-10-22 12:13 (UTC)

but in practice if you make a case that religious belief is mistaken, you will be accused of being disrespectful

This hasn't been my experience. I've also seen you make the case that religious belief is mistaken plenty of times without being accused of being disrespectful.

I'm struggling with how one could write an event code of conduct and more widely encourage community so people can hold their own logical and emotionally connected belief systems, can share their personal worldviews and be listened to, can avoid feeling attacked or excluded and can also challenge and be challenged and have ideas debated and refined and learn.

I suspect that part of the answer has to do with encouraging people not to feel attacked or excluded when they are disagreed with...

There's probably room to mention not only when you have the conversation but the tone and manner of the conversation.

If a person really does have little to no respect for religious belief and talks as if it's absurd and stupid then that's going to quickly annoy the vast majority of religious people they talk to about it.

Even 'good-natured' arguments can sometimes be very condescending and insulting, whether that's because they present a straw-man image of religion that makes it look silly or because they keep associating mainstream religious belief with extreme examples in an attempt to make the rest look bad.

That's not strictly 'intolerant' but more so just 'rude' and/or prejudiced and perhaps that's what people are really objecting to some of the time.

I agree with this. It may well happen from both sides of the argument, but I certainly have experience of people starting from the premise of 'only an idiot could have any kind of religious belief', which is never going to be the best way to (make friends and) influence people.

I would guess Greta is partly mistaken about this and that the comment by Sastra on her blog is nearer the mark. Greta is approaching this as a problem of logic and reasonableness whereas I think it's more one of psychology and community. I am guessing that many new-agers do not fit in to mainstream society to some extent (or perceive themselves in this way). This might be because the religious right is hounding them for their way of thinking, but it might be because they are LGBT, or emo, or many other things.

Continuing this conjecture (and I realise I have little evidence to back this up), their spirituality is a way of creating a psychological space and perhaps the basis of a community that is a safe haven for them. Within this, they want to be gentle and sharing; most of all, they want to be respected. Therefore they have to respect other people who are similarly different. It works, as a community.

Now, if Greta turns up as an outsider and tells them that they're wrong, they are going to see this as a threat. It has nothing to do with whether their position is logically consistent because they are not setting out to establish a logically consistent position in the first place. I'd guess that Greta would be more effective if she said, "It's cool that you think that. I think this ...".

...they are not setting out to establish a logically consistent position in the first place.
I think this is often true, and is part of the reason that some religious people become defensive when they are told "you're wrong because of Logic and Science".

"you're wrong because of Logic and Science"

Could you unpack that a little bit? Usually, if you're trying to persuade someone of something, they're not surprised or annoyed if you appeal to something in science, or if you try to be logical.

I think that for a lot of people (not for all, but certainly for me), religion comes into the same sort of category as love, not the same sort of category as science. When people are told that their love is illogical, that usually doesn't have any effect on the existence of the love, but does make people a bit defensive (and sometimes liable to think and behave *less* rationally!).

This.

I think another way that conversations about religion (and similar) can go wrong is the gap between being happy to explain yourself but yet not feeling the need to justify yourself.

It's not uncommon for religious believers to find that you can't share the justification for religious belief, that it's something you either know/feel or you don't, which seems an acceptable response to me; they're under no obligation to justify themselves to other people.

I'm not religious but I know that I've been put in situations where I've been asked about my views, which I was fine with, but then the other person continued with the assumption that because I'd started talking about it that I was intellectually obliged to fully justify every statement I make, which I found rude.

If I was trying to be evangelical about something then, yes, it seems reasonable to expect me to justify my views to the satisfaction of the person I'm trying to convert. If they opened up the conversation and are asking me about my views, that's not the case, yet some people seem to feel like I shouldn't state a belief unless I'm prepared to fully justify it to them.

Truth is that sometimes my beliefs aren't based on anything I'm able and/or willing to share. That doesn't make them invalid.

When people are told that their love is illogical, that usually doesn't have any effect on the existence of the love

Similarly, the question of whether religious belief is illogical doesn't have any effect on the existence of the religious belief.

But clearly, atheists are not disputing the existence of religious beliefs themselves :)

religion comes into the same sort of category as love, not the same sort of category as science

I can see that some aspects of religion might not necessarily be solely a scientific matter - e.g., moral questions. But would you say this also regarding beliefs such as "God is the creator of the Universe" or "Jesus rose from the dead"? (Don't get me wrong, I agree that many people do treat religion as separate from science, but I am curious how this works.)

Generally I think atheists are concerned in the areas where religion does make scientific and historical claims. I (and other atheists) acknowledge that religious people can evidently get a lot out of religion. I do agree that this is why many people get defensive - if they have built up a lot of comfort on the basis of certain claims being true, I can see it being hard to let go of.

Getting back to the love analogy, I would put it by saying: love can be a useful and pleasant experience, but that doesn't mean that stories about Cupid are true.

I think a stumbling block in dialogue between atheists and theists is that a lot of atheists put much more emphasis on scientific and historical claims than a lot of religious people do.

Most of the religious people I know would say that some of the stories are useful; some might be true; some are true in that they express a truth about the way the world is, without the story itself being factually accurate, but that what actually matters is how one lives and how one relates to other people, the world and God (where "God" means different things to different people).

I realise that this isn't a universal position among religious people, but it's vastly more common than the one where you have to believe that the whole of the Bible is an historically accurate document.

it's vastly more common than the one where you have to believe that the whole of the Bible is an historically accurate document

I don't know which is more common across the population of the whole world, but certainly there are no Biblical literalists among my circle of friends. I know at least some theists who believe, for example, that the resurrection of Jesus is a matter of fact - that if you were to go back in time and look, you would see it. But I do appreciate that questions like that aren't how believers normally approach their faith.

I know that most theists don't believe all the things in their religious texts, but they still make at least some claims (e.g., beliefs about Jesus). There's the range between "People who believe the whole of the Bible literally" and "People who don't believe any of it but still use the label 'God' to refer to something else".

but that what actually matters is how one lives and how one relates to other people, the world and God (where "God" means different things to different people).

I think many atheists would agree that what matters is how one lives, and this shouldn't require belief in such stories. Indeed this is one of the arguments that is sometimes made by atheists - can we not have those things, without making the factual claims?

In some ways, I think the concern is more with the other aspects of religion - if it was simply a dispute about whether an event took place thousands, or billions, of years ago, then it might be an interesting debate, but not of huge importance, perhaps. I think many atheists are more concerned because of the other aspects - the ethical views, political influences, influences on education. The reason for criticising the factual claims is because these seem to be (to me, at least) put forward as the foundation for the other aspects. If it turns out the factual claims aren't really important in the first place, I feel that makes it less clear what the basis of religion is.

where "God" means different things to different people

Indeed, first the terms have to be defined.

Oddly enough, Greta Christina has just blogged on this very topic...

Thanks. I've had a read. I think she's mixing up the stories with the thing the stories illustrate. To use the
emarkienna's example: saying that stories about Cupid are fictional doesn't bother me a bit; saying that love doesn't exist does.

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Greta Christina on atheism and persuasion

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