ciphergoth | Greta Christina on atheism and persuasion

How Dare You Atheists Make Your Case, Round 2: Persuasion Equals Intolerance

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 :-)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

djm4

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.)

From:

ciphergoth.livejournal.com

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.

From:

valkyriekaren.livejournal.com

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.

From:

yoyoangel.livejournal.com

...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?

From:

valkyriekaren.livejournal.com

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.

From:

yoyoangel.livejournal.com

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?

From:

valkyriekaren.livejournal.com

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.

From:

wight1984.livejournal.com

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)

From:

yoyoangel.livejournal.com

Yes, this.

From:

wight1984.livejournal.com

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.

From:

henry_the_cow

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.

From:

lizw.livejournal.com

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.