How theism works

No - I think this comment just makes my earlier point about "schizophrenia" in The uniquely awful example of theism: We have such a negative impression of religion because we categorize anything irrational as "religion".

Also, this post says "theism" but really means "Christianity and Islam".

Consider Scientology. I think we can agree it's a religion. But it doesn't presuppose a spiritual realm which can cause effects in the natural world and yet not be investigated. It doesn't disclaim evidential reasoning; it actually relies on evidential reasoning. Just not very good evidential reasoning, plus some good stagecraft.

Consider Hinduism. It doesn't have much dogma. It isn't about making claims about the world the way Christianity or Islam is. It's more like a catalog of Jungian archetypes and models for thinking about the world. A Hindu "God" isn't a cause of events in the world; it's more like a manifestation of or symbol for patterns of events.

Consider Buddhism. It doesn't have any "offstage" place for events that impact our world.

Consider animism. It also is very brief on dogma. It's very evidential. The volcano erupted; therefore, the volcano god is angry.

Consider Unitarianism. Brief on dogma. It's mainly about community.

So why do we call these things religions? Because "religion", the way most non-LW people (can we call them MW people?) use it, has to do with providing explanations, perspectives, guidelines, and community.

You've used the word "theism" in your post, instead of "religion". Your points are better (tho still not to the point of my "agreeing" with them) if we're careful to use the word "theism" and not "religion". I might even agree with you if we use the term "monotheism", although there are versions of Judaism that resist your accusations.

But it takes a lot of discipline to read an argument made explicity about "theism", and refrain from applying it to "religion". Unless you explicitly point out that you're not talking about religion in general, I would expect the majority of LW readers to classify this mentally in the "arguments against religion" folder.

Heck, I'm a non-religious non-atheist. I consider it somewhere between possible and probable that our world is a simulation created by a God, probably for research or entertainment.

(Off-topic) You could probably edit out the drug war bit.

(Note) This was originally supposed to be a comment in response to the same post ciphergoth was responding to. After a while it bloated into something not directly related to the original post and so I just saved it somewhere until it was more relevant. I think it actually fits this post better but the whole thing is only slightly related to the topic.

God is not just wise, nice, and powerful - he is all knowing, omnibenificent, and omnipotent. Heaven and Hell are not just pleasant and unpleasant places you can spend a long time in - they are the very best possible and the very worst possible experiences, and for all eternity.

This is strictly only useful when talking to someone who believes that specific set of beliefs. What if the religion believes in an evil God? A God that can be tricked? What it believes we are the Gods? Any or all of these could be just as irrational, but they are instantly excluded from the argument and any theist who does not perfectly fit the example can just shrug it off and say, "oh, it does not apply to me." That does not seem particularly useful, but I watch communities of rational atheists stand and nod their head like the ultimate truth has been spoken even though it only applies to a strict subset of theistic beliefs.

There are huge swaths of major religious theory that are blatantly irrational. Some world religions even take the irrationality as a core feature and emphasize its own inability to be rationally processed. There is, however, a strong tendency to look at these logic evils, denounce them, and then throw the rest of Earth's theology into the same category of "obviously stupid".

(Minor point) I am not saying that the rest of Earth's theology doesn't belong in the category of obviously stupid. I am saying that I watch a lot of people (not necessary people here) start throwing things into that bucket irrationally. Whether they end up there eventually is irrelevant.

The most prevalent examples are posts that apparently assume folk-Christianity as the one religion. To unfairly pick on someone, your post is an example. To claim that "theism" works a certain way and then only give one, albeit common, example of theism is a little shortsighted. Your point is wonderful and useful, but it does not apply to all of theism.

The problem is not that you found something irrational about theism. The problem seems to be that much of what is said about the invalidity of religion is assumed to be true or rational. In other words, I see this:

Belief A is a known problem and has been denounced by the throngs of rationalists.
Belief B looks suspiciously similar to Belief A and is denounced out of hand by the same throngs.

To express this pattern with a non-theistic example:

Pascal's Wager is a known problem and has been denounced by the throngs of rationalists.
Arguments for cryonics looks suspiciously similar to Pascal's Wager and is denounced out of hand by the same throngs.

This pattern is directly addressed by Eliezer's The Pascal's Wager Fallacy Fallacy and is also talked about in Roko's Rationality, Cryonics and Pascal's Wager.

In the case of cryonics, Eliezer and Roko argued that cryonics deserves another shot. In the case of theism, I am not saying any particular belief deserves another shot, I am just reminding the community as a whole that "irrational by association" is a fallacy.

(Side topic) One possible response to this, in my opinion, is that theism is rotten at its core. Theism, all variants, have been denounced as irrational and nitpicking over specific examples just slows everything down. Someone who is a theist happened to miss the memo. I am not suggesting nitpicking everything because most of it does not matter. This was true in the example of your post: nitpicking really has little value since the point he was making still stands. Generally speaking, one-off comments do not have a scope was intended to cover challenges to the assumed truths about theism, which is why I avoided posting this comment until you made it the subject of a full post.

This is a response to Swimmy's comment on theism (it's such a frequent target here because it needs no introduction) in Awful Austrians, but since the remark there was an aside in response to this post, it seems more appropriate here.

Theism is a useful whipping boy because it needs no introduction.

The real reason that theism and religion are discussed so much here is not because they need no introduction, but because they hold such a unique and fundamental place in the minds of adherents -- they touch everything else either directly or indirectly, including the origin and nature of reality, human nature, morality, the meaning of life, and most of the mysteries or former mysteries we've had.

Another factor is that the general methodology for decision making in religion (especially forms that emphasize faith over reason or empirical evidence) is profoundly antithetical to that of science and rationality. Where else has contempt for reason and the empirical appeared and been codified into a system but in certain religious traditions?

There are no other terrible epistemologies that have anywhere near as much influence on the world and the lives of billions of people.

This doesn't imply that evidential and non-evidential success are opposed in general; just that whatever shape memespace has, it will have a convex hull that can be drawn across this border.

Is there any mathematical reason why the hull can't be concave?

I think I disagree with the fundamental premise of this post - that "evidence" is a basis for survival of memes. I think that memes survive because they are useful, fun or interesting. Religion may not have a strong basis in hard direct evidence, but it does seem to explain a lot of things that science fails at - Why does the universe exist? Why am I here? What should I do? How can I get along with people? How can I make the world a better place? To non-specialists these might be thought of as more important questions than what tiny pieces of matter are made of. It also seems true that there is a bias even within science towards the useful, over the evidential (see the Oil drop experiment and cargo cult science.

I accuse Atheists in general (and more specifically this argument) of selectively quoting religious thought and choosing only to attack the easy, and largely irrelevant parts of religion. Typical talking points among atheists are abortion, masturbation, the miracles, contraception, hell, exactly what god is, intelligent design. Typical talking points (sermon topics) among Christians seem to be self improvement, finding strength, belief in others, giving to others, love, etc. If you are eager to learn, why not ask about the areas of Christian belief which are likely to challenge your ideas, and less easy to attack, rather than picking easy and less relevant targets?

If you want evidence of whether religion exists, why not ask a representative sample of Christians whether Jesus has changed their lives? Why not ask them how? And can you explain what is so contemptible about Religion, but not the concept of "romantic love" (to take one of millions of hard to justify human pursuits)? How many millions of dollars, suicides, hours are wasted by teenagers and other people who are "in love"? How much fighting and misery is caused by this concept - and what evidence is there that it has any more meaning than religion?

Just to put this on a more positive footing - I'd ask not "how can people believe this tosh" but instead "why do people believe this seeming tosh". Just to give you an idea, I agree that god probably doesn't exist, but I also believe that a way of life that focuses on what you don't have (e.g. what shoes to buy, how hot some female stranger looks = avarice and lust) or a way of life that focuses on how you have what others don't (e.g. my porsche, my house, my wife, my tan = pride and vanity) lead to a state of constant dissatisfaction (i.e. hell, or pergatory). I think that people are also happier believing that there is something far more rational, wise and right than themselves - I think this blog agrees that people are very often wrong and irrational.

The concept of constant rebirth in buddhism is also a very useful metaphor to bear in mind - almost all relationships, possessions, projects have a birth, a life and a death. When I am dealing with an exciting new project or idea it's a rush - but it's helpful to know that will end, and I think a partial divorce from this constant beginning and ending (i.e. transition from samsara to nirvana) is a good thing.