Atheism evangelism followup

[dougo]

I posted a comment on hahathor's post about evangelical atheists, and since I never followed up on my post about it here, I figured I'd repost part of the comment here.

The thing that spurred me into asking [whether atheist evangelism was any better than religious evangelism] was this: I saw a documentary about evangelists where someone explained that, if you truly believe that someone you love will go to Hell because they are not a Christian, then shouldn't you do everything you can to prevent that loved one from going to Hell? It does make logical sense, if you accept the assumptions of Sin and Hell. And it made me think, hypothetically speaking, if I truly believe that someone I love is doing damage to themselves because of their religion, then shouldn't I do everything I can to convince them otherwise? For instance, suppose I knew a Christian Scientist who was suffering from a treatable illness, but who refused medical treatment in favor of prayer. If I cared about this person, shouldn't I try to convince them that medical treatment is far more likely to be effective than just prayer? Maybe this doesn't count as evangelism, since I'm not trying to convert them completely to atheism, just away from a particularly egregious corollary of their religion. But it falls into the category of "disabusing others of their beliefs". This is an extreme example, but I think this is the kind of motivation that spurs people to talk someone out of a religious belief: the stereotype is that religious people do some irrational things based on their religious belief that can sometimes be harmful to themselves or others, and if you think that this might happen, then in theory it's socially responsible to try to change their mind. But, yeah, in practice it's usually just rude.

To be clear, I personally think evangelism of any sort is usually a bad idea, not just because it's rude, but also because in general it's dangerous to assume that you know better than someone else what's good for them. But I think the motivations of atheist evangelists can be as virtuously-intended as religious evangelists who want to save your soul from eternal damnation.

Comments

Re: Religion as a mental virus

[luagha.livejournal.com]

Ah, but religions are also used as carriers for learning moral judgments. (Not as a basis.)

We learn well in 'story format' and religions group, hold, and maintain stories with multiple lessons at different depths. Within the stories may be counterfactuals (like the 'four corners of the earth') but there are also proven moral lessons (like say, that of the Good Samaritan which has no miracles or faith-related issues).

Isn't this of value?

Re: Religion as a mental virus

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I think this is one of the motivations behind The Jefferson Bible, which removed all the counterfactuals and kept the moral lessons. Isn't this of more value than religions with both?

Re: Religion as a mental virus

[luagha.livejournal.com]

I wrote up a big thing on belief and religion at http://luagha.livejournal.com/44340.html that is a little too long to quote here but answers to this. Feel free to give it a look and see if you feel it is worth reading.

Re: Religion as a mental virus

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I just read it, and I disagree with a lot of its conclusions. Maybe I'll comment, but I'd need to think about it for a while—there's a whole lot to untangle, and I'm not sure we have enough common ground to even start with. Mainly, though, I don't see what it has to do with my question. Or is it just that people need the counterfactuals because their brains are wired to believe them?

Re: Religion as a mental virus

[luagha.livejournal.com]

A harmless counterfactual could be better than a harmful irrational belief.

A harmless counterfactual could play a part in building an immune structure that protects against harmful beliefs about morality.

There's all kinds of drugs which protect us by binding to receptors and 'filling them up' so that other stuff can't get in.